Product

Key finder for your Mac

Find the key of a sample, a loop, a vocal or a finished track. DropWave listens for the notes actually played, shows you every key change, and plays the key back so you can check it.

C3C4C5×2×3×4×5G?G?G?
  1. Play one C.
  2. It rings with overtones. An octave up, then a fifth above that, then more.
  3. Judge the colour of the sound and G comes out strong. That’s why key finders so often land a fifth away.
  4. DropWave listens for the notes actually played, bass line included, and hears the key you’d play along in.

It listens for the notes

Most key finders judge the overall colour of a sound. The trouble is that every note carries overtones, and overtones point a fifth up, so those tools confidently hand you the neighbouring key.

DropWave picks out the notes actually being played, bass line included, and weighs them the way your ear does. The result is a key that sounds right when you play along, not one that is merely nearby.

Key changes, shown

Plenty of tracks lift the key for a last chorus or drop into a different one for a bridge. Averaging them gives one answer that is wrong everywhere. DropWave shows each section's key and where it starts, on a strip under the waveform:

Hear it before you trust it

Press Hear key and DropWave plays the key's chord, tuned to the track: if a sample sits 30 cents flat, so does the chord. Play it over the track and you know in two seconds whether the reading holds.

Detuned samples still resolve

Sample packs sit off concert pitch far more often than people expect, and anything pitch-shifted is off the grid by definition. DropWave measures the tuning and tells you the offset in cents, so a detuned loop reads as its real key, and you learn the fact that it's flat, which is often the more useful half.

What you see

  • The key, tonic and mode.
  • The Camelot code, with the wheel drawn and the keys that mix with it.
  • The tuning offset in cents.
  • Confidence: how many sections of the song agreed, and the runner-up when it was close.
  • Key changes, section by section, when there are any.

It works on a vocal

Key detection reads pitch, not rhythm, so it doesn't need a beat. An a cappella, a hummed idea, a solo instrument: all fine. See how to find the key of a vocal.

When a file has no key

Said plainly:

  • Drum loops and percussion have no key. You will get a reading; the confidence is what tells you not to use it.
  • A minor and C major share the same notes. If the runner-up is the relative key, both are defensible and your ear decides. Hear key makes that quick.

Requirements

macOS 26 or later, on a Mac with Apple silicon. Your audio is analysed on your own machine. Closed beta: Join the beta.

BPM finder · Key & BPM finder · Camelot wheel · How to find the key of a sample

Be first in.

DropWave is in closed beta, and the Discord is the way in. Every build lands there first.

Get the free beta

Free while in beta. You join through our Discord.