Pitch Shift Your Brain (& Also Your Music)

Let's face facts. Sometimes a song is written in a key that makes your voice sound like a dying walrus. Or maybe your guitarist is too lazy to use a capo & wants to pretend they're actually skilled. Music hits different when it doesn't make you sound like a hot mess. OnSong's got this ridiculously powerful transposition engine that'll make your mediocre abilities sound almost passable.

The Magic Behind the Curtain

Chord charts are basically just text files wearing fancy clothes using the OnSong or ChordPro formats. These files are designed to make chords jump out at you so OnSong can actually detect 'em. Revolutionary, we know.

Transposition also needs to know what key the original song is in. You can tell OnSong using Metadata. If you're too lazy & the key is a mystery, OnSong just guesses it's whatever the first chord is (real scientific). Wanna change that hot mess? Settings » Menu Settings » Style Preferences » Transpose & Capo » Detect Key By. You're welcome.

When you transpose, OnSong figures out the new key & decides which enharmonic spelling makes the chords look less confusing. You can tinker with this in Settings » Display Settings » Song Formatting » Enharmonic.

Note: Transposition is basically useless with stuff you imported from Word or PDF because those are designed for printing, not for musicians who actually know what they're doing. They don't have chord info or metadata — just pretty formatting & corporate vibes. Word docs are proprietary chaos dressed up as documents.

Actually Transposing (We Know, Shocking)

Once your song's in a text-based format & OnSong can see the chords, hit up the Transpose Slider in the Style Preferences Menu in the Menubar. Slide left or right. Boom. New key. Tap the teeny icons on the sides to fine-tune like you're defusing a bomb.

Want the chords to look exactly as written in the Song Editor? Just kill transposition with the power icon next to the Transpose Slider in the Style Preferences Menu in the Menubar. Problem solved.

Playing in Multiple Keys (Because You're Flakey)

Dynamic transposition means you've got one song file but can squeeze it into whatever key works. But real talk—maybe you need different versions for different bands or venues. OnSong's got your back & can use a different key per set while keeping the original untouched in your master list.

Turn on Separate Set/Song Styles when you're Adding or Renaming sets. Now changes stick to that set only. You can tweak the tempo, autoscroll timing, flow, style preferences & they all apply just to that one set. Genius.