How reliable is automatic key detection, really?

Music production · SubverseLab

Reliable enough to act on when it says so, and honest when it is not. Correlating a chroma against a key profile always returns some answer, so a confidence figure is reported beside it. On a 45-second excerpt of one track it read B minor at 73 per cent; on 90 seconds of the same track it read G major at 11 per cent — G major and B minor share six of seven notes, so the correlation is nearly tied and 11 per cent is the estimator saying it cannot tell. Treat a low number as a question, not an answer.

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