In terms of being able to mix harmonically, do I have to worry about the lack of key locks on decks in clubs? Or do most of them have them? Question is should I learn how to choose tracks by key or will it mostly be done for me? Appreciate any help.

Most clubs have keymatching hardware that does it for you. You just need to turn the box on and it fixes everything.

___________________

Now with extra singles!
my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012

keylock is different than keymatcher, guess why. And you should definitely learn to mix in key properly and learn why keylock sucks.

Keylock is just a form of time-stretching. It will not magically put all your tracks in the same key, and you still need to know their keys and understand harmonic mixing.

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

i got a question. why don't you just organize your music files and their key at home?
that way you atleast won't have to worry about being unprepared if the club's equipment is not up to par.
my guess is that you do all your live mixing on the fly, which makes sense if you're not into pre-programming a set.

the most important thing is coming up with a cool dj name
like 'trendsetterz'
after that it's all about the marketing

fuck harmonic mixing, you can do without as long as you fancy equing and good at beatmatching

Ok, I'll be nice and actually answer your question.

First of all, to be clear, if you're DJing at like to local scene level the majority of Djs (as in 99%) are probably not going to know what mixing in key is or even means. So don't rely on asking local guys for advice. Heck, they probably don't even know what a "key" of a song means or what a scale is.

In terms of being able to mix harmonically, you will have to figure out what the key of the records is ahead of time. There are a couple ways to do this. The easiest way would be to simply look up the track on beatport. beatport displays bpm and key information now. The second easiest was would be to buy "mixed in key" and have that calculate it for you. from my personal experience mixed in key gets it right around 90% of the time. the other way to do it is by ear and by playing piano keys at the same time.

as for the whole key lock thing, you simply need to learn how the equipment works and how a pitch slider works. for example, on pioneer cdjs there is a pitch lock option, so the song will not change key and there is also no key lock so the pitch of the record will change in accordance with how much you change its pitch. i believe a 6.2% change in pitch is equal to a change in key. so a 128bpm record in e minor played at 136bpm will be in the key of f minor. it's pretty straight forward. since the change in bpm has to be so great to change the key, you honestly don't need to really worry about it unless you are playing a bunch of 128bpm records at 138bpm. but if you're playing say a bunch of 125, 126, 128 and 130bpm records at 128bpm, then you should just mix them as if they are all their original keys.

as for do you have to mix in key, from my personal experience every single local dj i have ever heard has never mixed in key. to a trained ear, an off key transition can be extremely annoying sounding, but to the majority of people, it just sounds odd or not perfect. so no, you don't have to mix in key but if you hold yourself to the standard that you want to put together and present the best possible dj set, then yes you should mix in key in my opinion.

edit: anyways, if you want to mix in key, look into the camelot mixing wheel or whatever. it associates the keys with numbers and then to mix in key all you have to do is either stay at the same number or go +/- 1 number. it could not be simpler and i'd suggest doing that.

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker Most clubs have keymatching hardware that does it for you. You just need to turn the box on and it fixes everything.

FYI, since you're new: this is guy is just BSing.

quote:

Originally posted by jayxthekoolest Ok, I'll be nice and actually answer your question. First of all, to be clear, if you're DJing at like to local scene level the majority of Djs (as in 99%) are probably not going to know what mixing in key is or even means. So don't rely on asking local guys for advice. Heck, they probably don't even know what a "key" of a song means or what a scale is. In terms of being able to mix harmonically, you will have to figure out what the key of the records is ahead of time. There are a couple ways to do this. The easiest way would be to simply look up the track on beatport. beatport displays bpm and key information now. The second easiest was would be to buy "mixed in key" and have that calculate it for you. from my personal experience mixed in key gets it right around 90% of the time. the other way to do it is by ear and by playing piano keys at the same time. as for the whole key lock thing, you simply need to learn how the equipment works and how a pitch slider works. for example, on pioneer cdjs there is a pitch lock option, so the song will not change key and there is also no key lock so the pitch of the record will change in accordance with how much you change its pitch. i believe a 6.2% change in pitch is equal to a change in key. so a 128bpm record in e minor played at 136bpm will be in the key of f minor. it's pretty straight forward. since the change in bpm has to be so great to change the key, you honestly don't need to really worry about it unless you are playing a bunch of 128bpm records at 138bpm. but if you're playing say a bunch of 125, 126, 128 and 130bpm records at 128bpm, then you should just mix them as if they are all their original keys. as for do you have to mix in key, from my personal experience every single local dj i have ever heard has never mixed in key. to a trained ear, an off key transition can be extremely annoying sounding, but to the majority of people, it just sounds odd or not perfect. so no, you don't have to mix in key but if you hold yourself to the standard that you want to put together and present the best possible dj set, then yes you should mix in key in my opinion. edit: anyways, if you want to mix in key, look into the camelot mixing wheel or whatever. it associates the keys with numbers and then to mix in key all you have to do is either stay at the same number or go +/- 1 number. it could not be simpler and i'd suggest doing that.

FYI - since you're new: this person has no idea what he's talking about and is just using inferences made from casual observations to give you advice.

___________________

Now with extra singles!
my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker FYI - since you're new: this person has no idea what he's talking about and is just using inferences made from casual observations to give you advice.

can't disagree, it's just my advice. i mean, i'm not trying to write the bible of djing here. i'm just trying to say something that might help the guy

Does harmonic mixing even matter when the tracks you play are not too melodic?

___________________
June 2018 mix