Setting pitches

All about pitches and pitch changes

In this lesson you will learn how to

check and understand note's pitch,
move notes,
load & use mp3 file with enhanced vocals,
set notes' pitches,
add pitch changes.

Before you start

After the previous lesson you should already have a folder with the song's audio & txt file. Your txt file should contain 2 lines, the first line should already have correct lyrics & synchronization in place.

You can also download the files required for this lesson here:

3MB

David Amber - Second Time Around [pitches].zip

Setting pitches

In this lesson we will finally finish our first line of the song by setting the correct pitches. This is how our song currently looks after the previous lesson:

Ultrastar pitches

Before we begin, let's understand how the pitch is represented. The pitch of the note can be checked either by looking at the Y axis of the grid or by looking at the number on the left just below the note.

Currently all of our note's have the same pitch - pitch 0.

Theory

But what does pitch 0 mean?

In Ultrastar pitch is a number from -60 to 67 where 0 is the middle C (C4) sound. The higher the number, the higher the pitch. Octave has 12 pitches (C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, H/B) so pitch 12 is also a C (C5) as well as pitch -12 (C3).

Pitch 1 is C#4, pitch 2 is D4 and so on. Pitch -1 is B3 (also called H3 in some countries), -2 is A#3 and so forth.

If you find this confusing, just look at the piano keyboard on the left side. Each C sound is marked with red dot for convenience. You can also hover the mouse over the note and check the tone in the tooltip.

Moving notes

To change the pitch of the note, you need to move it up or down.

Firstly, let's play the current note in midi only mode - use shift + space shortcut.

Now move the first note up using ctrl + ↑ shortcut:

If you press shift + space shortcut to play it again, you will hear that the synthesized sound representing note's pitch has changed accordingly.

To move note down you use ctrl + ↓ shortcut:

You can of course also move notes to the left (shift + ←) and right (shift + →).Moving the note horizontally affects its position in time so these shortcuts are only useful when working on synchronization.

Playback modes used while setting pitches

As a reminder - we have 3 modes of playback available: audio only, midi only and audio & midi. You can either play the whole visible area or just the selected note. Previously we used audio only mode. This time we will use the other modes.

Let's press p shortcut to listen to the actual audio line and once the playback finishes, press shift + p shortcut to listen to our midi version of it.

As you can maybe hear, the notes' pitches are incorrect.

Pressing ctrl + p will play both audio & midi at once and can be also used to determine whether there are any adjustments needed.

If you are not yet able to determine the correct pitches by ear, you can first try to map songs for which you have a musical sheet or a midi file and just transfer the correct pitches from there.

Using mp3 file with enhanced vocals

Download the following mp3 file with extracted vocals:

6MB

David Amber - Second Time Around [vocals].mp3

Now go to the menu File -> Import -> Audio... and import this mp3 file. You should see a message that the audio was correctly imported at the bottom (marked with red arrow in the picture):

Let's activate the Audio manager tab in the upper tab bar by clicking on the tab's caption ("Audio" marked with yellow border in the previous picture). You should now see both mp3 files there, the original one and the new one with enhanced vocals. You change the active one by clicking on it:

In the audio manager you can adjust relative volume of each mp3 file. If the audio is too loud in audio & midi playback mode, just adjust the volume.

If you transfer the focus back to the editor (just click anywhere in it) and press p, you should hear the difference. You can switch back and forth between the audio files while you work on the song.

The imported audio is only available in Karedi. Ultrastar will still use the original audio.

Set the pitches

Once you have the mp3 file with enhanced vocals activated, you are ready to set the pitches. Just move each note up & down until you feel that its pitch matches the singer's. Utilize the various playback modes.

Remember that if pressing p opens Play menu instead of activating playback, just press alt once to fix the problem.

Once you are ready, check if your assignment is correct.

Expected result

Correct pitches are 5, 2, 5, 7, 5

Pitch change

If you had troubles assigning the correct pitches in the previous step, this section may also be hard for you. Please try to follow it and do your best anyway 💪

Select the "o" note and press space to play its audio. If you listen closely you will notice that the sound is not flat. It sounds more like o~~ where the pitch changes twice - it raises at the beginning and it falls down at the end.

To include this pitch change, we need to divide "o" note into 3 notes. You can do it either with a mouse or by using - shortcut.

Then we need to adjust the synchronization of the notes - pinpoint when the pitch changes happen. You can either do it by listening to how the notes sound when using space or by using auxiliary note playback like in the previous lesson. It's easiest to start with the part that is longest - in our case the middle note. Remember to leave one beat of space between notes.

Anyway, the result should look like this:

To finish the line we need to move the first and last of these notes down to the correct pitch:

Listen to the final result by pressing ctrl + p.

Congratulations! You have just completed the first line of the song. All subsequent ones will only be easier.

Pitch changes often look like in our example

Usually if you hear that the note's pitch goes up, the first part is usually 1-2 pitches lower than the main pitch and relatively short (1-3 beats). The note corresponding to the main tone of the syllable is the longest. If the pitch falls down at the end, the last note is usually also short, 2-5 beats, and the pitch is often the same as in the following syllable.

Of course, it's not a rule, it really depends on the singer's style and the actual song.

What should I do if I just can't hear the pitches?

Do not get discouraged, you will get better at recognizing the right tones with practice. The more you sing in Ultrastar on medium and hard levels and the more songs you create, the better you get at pitch recognition. Unfortunately, if you can't trust your ear, setting pitches will be labour-intensive.

Find a midi file/music sheet

Try to find a *.midi file (or a music sheet) and transfer the correct tones from it. It is the easiest and most reliable way, but sometimes there is just no midi available.

Try singing it

If you get high scores on medium/high level and trust your singing, you can open your song in Ultrastar and just sing the line. You won't get any points since the tones are wrong, but you will see what shape your singing makes. Try to reflect the shape in Karedi, save the changes, reload the song in Ultrastar and try again. Repeat these steps until you feel confident it sounds about right.

Use some AI based tools

There are probably some AI based tools that can convert audio files to midi. Remember to try to first prepare a version of the audio file with extracted vocal as described here. You will receive way better results than if you just pass the original audio file with background music.

Find a video of someone playing this song

Sometimes you can find videos of people playing the song on the piano and if you look closely at which keys they are pressing you may be able to transfer the tones.

Ask someone for help

Find someone who can hear the tones and ask them for help. The most time-consuming part of creating the song is adding all notes in correct places with correct lengths and lyrics. If you do this part by yourself, the other person can just quickly use their ability to help you determine the right pitches.