Automatic Chord Detection

Chord Detection is another new major feature found in Song Surgeon Version 5. As a file is opening in Song Surgeon, the program analyzes the frequencies of the audio and determines and displays the chords it finds. This new feature was one of the most requested features from our user base, and many customers will find in useful.

Ten years ago when Song Surgeon was first launched key detection was being worked on but wasn’t very good. At that time the best available product could detect key accurately about 35% of the time. The technology has improved and the accuracy increased substantially, in fact, the accuracy statistics have been reversed. Today the accuracy is in the 70-80% range.

As you can see in the graphic below the chords it detects are displayed in “bubbles” below the wave form graph.

When the audio file being analyzed consists only of a single instrument, like a guitar or piano that the accuracy of the chord detection is very high. However, most music is polyphonic. It has guitars, drums, keyboard, bass, vocals and often much more. While the accuracy in such cases in lower, it is still very good.

Immediately below is a time – chord correlation chart for the song Hotel California. The accuracy of the chord detection in this song is very good. What is shown below are the correct chords as determined by a professional guitar player vs. what was detected by Song Surgeon. Song Surgeon missed only 3 chords completely (highlighted in red) and it was close but not exactly correct on 27 more (e.g. Actual chord was E, detected was E7) and the remaining 94 were detected accurately.

If you’d like to learn more about the Chord Detection feature found in Song Surgeon please review the User Guide and/or the Training Videos which discuss and demonstrate how this works in more detail.

If you are interested in buying, or if you’d like to take our fully functional free demo for a test drive, please click the appropriate red button near the top, right side of this page.