midi tracks off by a semitone

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midi tracks off by a semitone

I have GarageBand 10.3.1.

When I started my project, I set the key at the top to e flat major (the key of the song). I recorded vocal, guitar tracks separately though a microphone. I added an electric piano through an instrument cable (i.e. non-midi). I then added a bunch of midi tracks with an external midi keyboard. I realized after listening they sounded bad and realized the notes were one semitone flat. If I change the song's key up to E major the midi now is correct but the guitar and vocals have now been moved up a semitone. Strangely, the non-midi piano sounds fine...it didn't change anything...I would have thought it would move that up a semitone like the vocals and guitar.

How do I set all the midi tracks to have the correct notes while leaving the other tracks unaffected?

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 29, 2020 6:17 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

iMacarroni

Level 2

357 points

Dec 30, 2020 8:57 AM in response to Blair Miller1

Greetings,

Wow, that's quite a dilemma. Puzzling that the piano audio track was not shifted while the other two audio tracks were when you changed the key. Also, I don't understand why setting the key to Eb would flatten all the notes played. I thought it was for the loop keys.

Here's a possible work around. Put the master key back to the original (Eb) so your vocals and guitar aren't altered.

Select a MIDI track and open the MIDI editor. Use "piano roll" tab. Select all the notes (left click, hold and drag over all the notes). Carefully drag one note a half step higher. All the selected notes should move too. Now they should play at the proper pitch.

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Answer 2

Dec 30, 2020 12:21 PM in response to iMacarroni

Yup, I figured that out eventually. I did shift select though, so good to know I can it easier next time. I haven't done much midi stuff but did some further cool stuff with copying and pasting.

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midi tracks off by a semitone

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