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How it works

NewKey moves the music inside your own PDF. The chart that comes back is the chart you uploaded, in a different key.

A score for trumpet and trombone, with the chord A7 over the trumpet and G7 over the trombone.
The same two parts transposed up a minor third, with the chords now C7 and B flat 7. Every staff line, barline and chord symbol sits exactly where it did.

Original

  1. 1

    Upload the chart, and we read it for free

    Drag in a PDF. We parse it and tell you what we found: how many pages, how many staves, and what the transposition will cost. Nothing is charged for this, and nothing is charged if we cannot read the file.

  2. 2

    Choose how far to move it

    Pick an interval, up or down, from a minor second to an octave. An interval means the same thing on every staff, on a part or a full score, which is why it is what we ask for rather than a key name.

  3. 3

    We edit your PDF, we do not rebuild it

    Every note, accidental, key signature and chord symbol moves inside your original file. The fonts, the spacing, the system breaks and the page turns are the ones you uploaded, because the page is never re-engraved from scratch.

  4. 4

    We check our own work

    We read the ink back off the finished PDF and compare it with the original: the notes, the chords, and the key signatures. You see the verdict, and anything we are unsure about is marked on the page.

  5. 5

    Take the chart to the gig

    Download it or send it straight to your tablet. Each page is stamped with the interval it was moved by, so a part on a stand can never be mistaken for the original.

Why this is not music recognition

Most tools that transpose a PDF do it by recognising the music first. They scan the page, work out what every symbol probably is, rebuild the score in their own notation engine, and export a new file. That is a genuinely useful thing to do, and if what you want is an editable score, it is the thing you want.

It also means the file you get back is theirs, not yours. Different fonts, different spacing, different system breaks, different page turns.

NewKey works the other way around. It opens your PDF and moves what is already drawn on it, so the engraving stays yours down to the page turns. Rhythm is never read at all, so there is no step at which we could get it wrong.

Try it on a chart you know

The best test is a chart you have played, because you will see a mistake instantly and we would rather you found one now than on a stand.

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