How many semitones from A minor to C minor?

Three semitones up, or nine down. The calculator gives the shortest move first, because pitching a sample three up usually sounds better than nine down.

Should I pitch up or down?

Down usually sounds heavier and darker; up sounds brighter and thinner. Whichever is a smaller move tends to keep the sample more natural, so prefer the shortest shift unless you want the character change.

Does pitching change the tempo?

Only if you resample. A dedicated pitch shifter keeps the length; changing playback rate moves pitch and tempo together. The Tempo Change Calculator covers that case.

Can I mix a minor sample into a major key?

Often, yes — a sample without a clear third is neutral enough to work either way. Where the third is audible, moving between major and minor changes the harmony, not just the pitch, so listen rather than trusting the semitone count.

Free tool

Pitch Shift Calculator

How far to pitch a sample to move it from one key to another — shortest route first, with both directions shown.

No audio involved. This is key arithmetic in your browser.

Keys

Sample key

Target key

A minor (8A) → C minor (5A)

Shortest shift

+3 st

Minor 3rd

Pitch up

+3 st

Minor 3rd

Pitch down

-9 st

Major 6th

Cents

300

If your plugin uses cents

Frequency ratio

1.189207

Multiplier on every frequency

Mode

Unchanged

Both minor

Large shifts thin out or muddy a sample regardless of the plugin. If a move sounds wrong at six semitones, try the other direction before reaching for a different algorithm. Related: Camelot Wheel for keys that already work together.

Detail

How this works

Keys are twelve pitch classes in a circle, so any two keys are at most six semitones apart in one direction. The tool reports the shortest signed move first and shows the long way round as well, because the two sound noticeably different on the same sample.

The frequency ratio tells you what is happening underneath: each semitone multiplies frequency by the twelfth root of two, roughly 1.05946. Twelve of them double it — an octave.

Changing between major and minor is not a pitch shift. The calculator flags it because the semitone count alone will not make a minor loop sit correctly in a major key.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

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