Mixing in Key

[MARK ANXIOUS]

all this organisation kills any spontanaeity...i like to bring a bag of my fav tunes, and not really have any idea what way im going to play them....

i actually strongly disagree with this statement (no offence though mate hehe!!!). i used to mix without key for many years, many years (i now use both ways) and there's pluses and minuses in both techniques.

no-one is saying mixing in key, organises your set to the dot so you know exactly what you're going to play. what it does is puts your records in easy to manage categories. then you find clusters of records within those categories on the night and every so-often when you feel like it, use your intelligence, spotineity and what you learn to help get you across the sections to mix to another category.

for those times when someone's tapping you on the shoulder for a 5 minute conversation mid-set, this can be a god send. it can get you out of very tight spots when something is wrong with the decks or needles and you need to mix super quick. or it can also be a real god send with melodic music to make the key of melody not clash. for someone like me where performance is a big part of my set, it helps make the choices easier and faster when they need to be. and like theledge says, when you're playing a whole new set of records each week (which i try hard to do) it can also get you out of spots when you havent had time to truly learn a record.

but for most drum based techno, like i say, it is impossible to mix like this. that's why when it comes to techno i personally stop being a such a twat behind the decks and concentrate hard on the mix.

anyway, as for those programs that key up your whole hard drive, they don't work, i've tried them (i stand to be corrected if anyone finds one - that mixing is key prog is crap). and using ableton or the pioneer technique to key stuff up is crap cause you shift the frequency of the whole track and loose the punch and power of the sounds as they were meant to be at the original speed. that master-tempo thing is a similar thing that i hate on the poineer cdj's - stay away from it.

at the mo i only see one way to do this properly and that's stood there with a keyboard in your studio and a great deal of patience hahaha

[jeroenliebregts]

i have a question about this:

As far as i know records are produced on different tempos, and some of them are 'tonal' enough to say they are written in a certain key. But as soon as the music is pressed on vinyl, tempo and key are connected.
So how do you mix an 136 bpm record with a 137 bpm record of the same key?

[TechMouse]

i have a question about this:

As far as i know records are produced on different tempos, and some of them are 'tonal' enough to say they are written in a certain key. But as soon as the music is pressed on vinyl, tempo and key are connected.
So how do you mix an 136 bpm record with a 137 bpm record of the same key?

That's the thing jeroen, it's all about relative key.

They have to be in-key at the same BPM.

The easiest way to tell this is to beatmatch them and see if it clangs or not.

There really is no point using analytical tools, your ears are your best bet.

Very rarely will a track be in perfect C, or perfect G minor or whatever.

It'll be microtones out.

[jeroenliebregts]

i understand, but i just cant believe such coincidence ever happens... It has to be so precise.

[TechMouse]

i understand, but i just cant believe such coincidence ever happens... It has to be so precise.

It does happen.

I've got a breaks bootleg of Satisfaction by Benni Benassi which is bang on with my copy of The Sound of the Big Baboo by Laurent Garnier, for example.

I used to spend hours mixing all my records together to work out if there were pairings like that. I ended up with quite a few.

[loopdon]

That's the thing jeroen, it's all about relative key.

They have to be in-key at the same BPM.

The easiest way to tell this is to beatmatch them and see if it clangs or not.

There really is no point using analytical tools, your ears are your best bet.

Very rarely will a track be in perfect C, or perfect G minor or whatever.

It'll be microtones out.

i think quite a lot of more melodic stuff, esp. made by people with classical training is pretty much spot on when it comes to this. not that i have had that training, mind you.

[TechMouse]

i think quite a lot of more melodic stuff, esp. made by people with classical training is pretty much spot on when it comes to this. not that i have had that training, mind you.

Depends if they cut the laquer at precisely the right BPM though, innit.

Plus, I bet no-one's 1210's run at exactly the same speeds.

[loopdon]

right. but nowadays we don't have to rely on decks to play to crowds, do we? :)

i don't want to get into arguments here, really, so i will leave it at that.

i just think one should at least give the entire topic of mixing in key

a thought and then see if one

a) wants

b) can

c) will at times/when appropriate

incorporate this knowledge into the process of producing/playing out.

as Mark said this isn't the final conclusion. just because you sort stuff by bpm/key doesn't mean you don't have to use it always. but it might help SOME people. of course doing stuff by ear can provide just the same kin of results. i reckon i did all that stuff sub-consciously before i ever thought about all this stuff, hehe.

[loopdon]

i have a question about this:

As far as i know records are produced on different tempos, and some of them are 'tonal' enough to say they are written in a certain key. But as soon as the music is pressed on vinyl, tempo and key are connected.
So how do you mix an 136 bpm record with a 137 bpm record of the same key?

this is a good read on the entire subject:

http://www.harmonic-mixing.com/index.mv

http://www.harmonic-mixing.com/overview/overview.mv

your question is possibly answered here:

http://www.harmonic-mixing.com/overview/advanced.mv

this is the easy-mix thang:

http://www.harmonic-mixing.com/overview/easymix.mv

[stjohn]

i have a question about this:

As far as i know records are produced on different tempos, and some of them are 'tonal' enough to say they are written in a certain key. But as soon as the music is pressed on vinyl, tempo and key are connected.
So how do you mix an 136 bpm record with a 137 bpm record of the same key?

well this 3 % on the pitch fader for a semitone thing is supposed to cover that....

the Equal temparate scale is divided into 12 equal frequencies/pitches, so 3 % would apply to 3 x 12 = 96, which is close enough to 100%

if you stuck to this rule while mixing, im sure it could wokr.....but as i said earlier.... rules rules..

[fac]

3 x 12 = 96

[stjohn]

and i was doing so well at sounding intelligent
dont know where i came up with that... anyone shed light on this 3% thing then???

[conor256]

and i was doing so well at sounding intelligent
dont know where i came up with that... anyone shed light on this 3% thing then???

all though yer sums didnt add up there mate i think you should get 10/10 for attempts.......... it sounded mathmetically possible until the maths were pointed out to be crap :) .... he he

[loopdon]

i actually strongly disagree with this statement (no offence though mate hehe!!!). i used to mix without key for many years, many years (i now use both ways) and there's pluses and minuses in both techniques.

no-one is saying mixing in key, organises your set to the dot so you know exactly what you're going to play. what it does is puts your records in easy to manage categories. then you find clusters of records within those categories on the night and every so-often when you feel like it, use your intelligence, spotineity and what you learn to help get you across the sections to mix to another category.

for those times when someone's tapping you on the shoulder for a 5 minute conversation mid-set, this can be a god send. it can get you out of very tight spots when something is wrong with the decks or needles and you need to mix super quick. or it can also be a real god send with melodic music to make the key of melody not clash. for someone like me where performance is a big part of my set, it helps make the choices easier and faster when they need to be. and like theledge says, when you're playing a whole new set of records each week (which i try hard to do) it can also get you out of spots when you havent had time to truly learn a record.

but for most drum based techno, like i say, it is impossible to mix like this. that's why when it comes to techno i personally stop being a such a twat behind the decks and concentrate hard on the mix.

anyway, as for those programs that key up your whole hard drive, they don't work, i've tried them (i stand to be corrected if anyone finds one - that mixing is key prog is crap). and using ableton or the pioneer technique to key stuff up is crap cause you shift the frequency of the whole track and loose the punch and power of the sounds as they were meant to be at the original speed. that master-tempo thing is a similar thing that i hate on the poineer cdj's - stay away from it.

at the mo i only see one way to do this properly and that's stood there with a keyboard in your studio and a great deal of patience hahaha

Mark, i agree pretty much whole-heartedly with what you said.

Mixed in key has been updated to 2.5. so it might be better. it relies on an engine bought from 'zplane'; maybe the implementation is flawed but the engine is pretty good i think!

a free alternative with better detection is 'rapid evolution'; i use it to key my drum (and other) samples. i can't comment on the dj-side but that's what it was made for. test showed that the detection was more accurate than 'mixed in key'. to me, getting my samples organized has been a great help. takes a lot of guesswork out of it, imo. not a generalization, i said: for ME. i noticed esp. with snares that they really, really lock with the kickdrum underneath if they are tuned relative to each other. they smack! imo, of course.

i reckon the problem with detection plugins might have something to do with the fact, that loads of producers don't adhere to these 'rules', so the bassline they use might not fit in exactly with the bongo-loops or may be 'off-key' in itself or whatever.

what is a program supposed to do in those cases?
it has to decide between '0' and '1' to be usable but by thus can't possibly consider all the 'grey-scales' a human being might hear/think of. saying: this track could be any in any of these 10 keys
or: the intro might harmonize with..... - would be of even less help, surely.

after all this ramble, please try 'rapid evolution', even if only to see if keying your samples with it helps you for that 'perfect snare, bongo, conga, tom or kick'. it's absolutely free:

"rapid evolution" is an advanced harmonic music library tool for dj's, designed to be used while you mix. it helps profile your songs by saving important properties, such as the bpm, key, time signature, styles, comments, etc. you can then instantly see which songs are within bpm range, in key harmonically and in similar styles. more importantly, it lets you save comments and information about each individual mix you come up with. use it to enhance your knowledge of your music and remember the important details of what you do. you will quickly take your mixing to new levels! the software includes automatic bpm and key detection, as well as tools to determine this information yourself--a bpm tapper and a midi keyboard. it also lets you share all song and mix information with other dj's. use it and start evolving! :-)

http://www.mixshare.com/

http://www.mixshare.com/re2launcher.zip

[Si the Sigh]

that's why when it comes to techno i personally stop being a such a twat behind the decks and concentrate hard on the mix.

Ah! How many times have I said to you I prefer it when you play techno. Less fu*king about! ha ha! :)