On Molloy's album simply titled "Matt Molloy", what base key of flute is he playing? It's definitely not a "D" unless the recording is sped up or raised in pitch...or my iTunes is messed up. Is he playing an Eb?

Matt used an Eb flute with a Pratten body on his first album for a majority of the tracks. It was a Hawkes & Son Excelcior Sonorous class in Ebonite, with a standard foot joint. I think The Lament for Staker Wallace was played on an original Rudall & Rose in D, and there was one reel played on a low Bb flute. I'm not sure whether any changes were made to the album's speed, but the consensus is that his trio recording with Tommy Peoples and Paul Brady had its speed increased during production.

There has been discussion over the speed of this album, there is no consensus it has had any alterations to the original recording speed.

Recordings, especially the older ones, are such a pain to try to use as an accompaniment tool. I bought a decent quantity of old vinyl a while back and tried to play along on bouzouki, but found that I had to make micro-changes to the tuning, and every track was different than the one before. And it wasn’t anything as simple as D to Eb, or I’d have just capoed. It was more like increasing to 40% of the way from D to Eb. Then the next track might be spot on, only for the one after to to be about 25% above pitch. Very frustrating!

Hi @Thomaston, there are many excellent DAWs that will do pitch shifting. They can do fractions of a semitone and so on. So this problem is soluble. I suppose the only issue is that most DAW software is pretty expensive. Nevertheless, the capability is there. What is cheap now are USB turntables for transcription to digital. You can get really good Audio Technica for under A$200. I suppose this topic should go in the Trad Tech forum.

Andrew

I do have an Audio Technica, but it’s the L60, the base model. I’ve looked into upgrading eventually (maybe an Orbit), but I’m not sure I’ll worry about that as a factor. I have plenty of digital music I can and do use for accompaniment practice.

I am curious why you think it would take a DAW to adjust the pitch on various tracks. Once you rip a file to mp3, you can open it with a very modestly priced piece of software, Amazing Slow Downer. This has the facility to use a slider to microtonally adjust pitch of any given track. Export and then save it. Done and dusted.

Bob

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Audacity (free software) has the ability to pitch shift.

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Audacity (seconded!) is the best free software I've found for pitch shifting. I have more expensive DAW software that does a slightly better job with fewer artifacts, but Audacity is fine for learning a tune that's a little bit off A440 or needs an even wider shift.

Lately I've been using Audacity to transpose a few tunes on CDs or MP3s recorded on a Bb flute (which I don't have) to something I can play on my D flute, like shifting a tune in C dorian up to E dorian.

Any musician could probably make use of a DAW. Audacity is cheaper than the Amazing SlowDowner and more capable

"It was a Hawkes & Son Excelcior Sonorous class" vs Audacity.

I know which one I prefer.