Harmonic Mixing

[icanicant]

Harmonic mixing consists of two elements: knowing the key of every song that you play and knowing which keys are compatible.

Want to know how many people bother with this. Only recently started learning to mix and I am wondering whether I should be religiously finding out the key to all my songs or not.

[jam1]

I've been DJing for the best part of 10 years and have never once considered the key of a tune!

It's not hard to tell if 2 tunes are out of key in the mix i.e it sounds fucking gash and clashy when you play the 2 over the top of each other.

Just practice lots and get to know your tunes.

[Montgomery Burns]

I really don't care about keys... Maybe there're very useful, but I never tried.

However I always really care about my transitions and use to make many many tests to find tracks working well together... Sometimes inspiration makes it easier, sometimes it needs lots of work

[kion]

Only any good if all your tunes are at the same tempo (and have been keyed correctly, both by the producer and by the analysis afterwards), otherwise you're gonna skew the key when pitching up and down anyway!

And even if at same tempo, it's something you instinctively pick up with practice without the need of confusing charts, and will likely limit your mixing selection unnecessarily.... let your ears decide!

[KryshaAudio]

i have played violin for the better part of 11 years and don't know shit about music theory.

i just practice my sets, then i can know if something is gonna sound good or not.

[Killawatt]

mixed in key.

[kion]

mixed in key.

erm, yeah, that's what's being talked about.....?

[soulkids]

it's the programm that detects keys. tried it but didn't work.
how accurate are the chemical keys? sometimes they're quite useful yet limiting your selection.

for instance, I think synkro-lost for words and dj madd- someone (breakage remix) sound quite nice together though they are in totally different keys (8A and 4B). do I mix them? ofc!

[Majin]

There's a lot more to mixing with keys than just doing blends and double drops. I've only been doing bedroom mixing since about October but I find that the feedback I got from my last mix (which considers keys) was much better than my first 2 (which totally disregarded them).

Google around, and you'll find some pretty interesting things you can do when mixing tracks of certain keys.

Another thing, last Thursday i heard one of the better local DJs play a warm-up set for Ajapai and he cut from one track to a track with an 'incompatible' key and even tho it wasn't a blend, the first note of the 2nd track sounded so out of key with the song that was just played that half the crowd was like "huh?".

[MPathy]

"ever wondered how a lot of big DJs create mixes and mash ups that sound too good to be true?"

[south3rn]

all of the loefah on dmz is perfect for mixing melodic tunes that are hard to match

they never leave my bag

[Killawatt]

mixed in key.

erm, yeah, that's what's being talked about.....?

was it?

it's the programm that detects keys. tried it but didn't work.
how accurate are the chemical keys? sometimes they're quite useful yet limiting your selection.

for instance, I think synkro-lost for words and dj madd- someone (breakage remix) sound quite nice together though they are in totally different keys (8A and 4B). do I mix them? ofc!

It's worked 99% of the time for me. occassionally it gets stuff wrong but this tends to me in tunes with loose harmonic structures.

The synkro and Breakage combination probably worked because of the minimal melodic and harmonic movement of both tracks. Although the a minor and A flat major sclaes would clash horribly when played on a piano, they probably create a listenable amount of dissonance when played together in these tunes because of this lack in harmonic and melodic recognition and the textural atmospherics in the synkro tune will help to blend the 2 harmonies. You can hear just from listening to them individually that they shouldnt work.

There are a lot of combinations of different keys that work together well. The mixed in key diagram only shows the major keys, their relative minor keys with the keys either side being a perfect fifth up or down from the root key.

Harmony theory is much more complex and flexible than this so if you do use mixed in key (as i do), dont forget to experiment with different tracks. If you think you've heard 2 tracks that work well 2getha but mixed in key said they shouldnt, try it anyway!!

[Johoosh]

Just practice lots and get to know your tunes.

This

[monkers]

Been bed room mixing dubstep now for about 5 months and at first I didnt bother mixing in key.
Got some feedback from my first recorded mix saying that I should try harmonic mixing... Downloaded the awesome program 'Mixed In Key' and never looked back.
Everything sounds better now.

[Sexual_Chocolate]

Key mixing = Master tempo.... so no thank you, not a big fan of that crap digital sound.

[Jay Zero]

i always try to figure out the what songs go together in what keys, or at least have a similar sound to them, even if i don't know anything about music theory.

[AxeD]

Pretty sure I saw a test on the web about the accuracy of Mixed in Key. Result was about 39 %.
I usually just practice my sets over and over and check if it sounds good to me.

[camelotsound]

Key mixing = Master tempo.... so no thank you, not a big fan of that crap digital sound.

I disagree. Harmonic mixing became popular before any "crap digital sound" in the mid-1980's when Florida's Harmonic Keys magazine popularized the concept for people mixing with vinyl (see http://www.camelotsound.com/History.aspx). People used techniques such as "modulation mixes" and "region shifting" to program songs that are not harmonically compatible (http://www.camelotsound.com/Advanced.aspx), long before any "crap digital sound" was an issue.

Harmonic mixing is most powerful when you want to program predetermined playlists (see http://www.camelotsound.com/Strategic.aspx) such as studio mixes, because it allows you easily place them in the most harmonically compatible order. It is only useful, or course, when you intend to blend track segments with melodic content, because percussion ("free beats") segments have little harmonic content.

When your catalog consists of thousands of tracks, you cannot "know" them all. Harmonic mixing allows you to easily create playlists by selecting those 1/6 of potential tracks that are harmonically compatible from any position around the Circle of Fifths ("Camelot Wheel").

[leslie]

never used keys, once you pitch a tune anyway the key changes so it seems kinda flawed to me.

[rinseballs21]

never used keys, once you pitch a tune anyway the key changes so it seems kinda flawed to me.

keylock??? or do they not have keylock on decks?