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DJs have been aware of this for a long time, although it’s not until more recent years that it’s been shared. I was doing it long before I actually new the concept or name of what I was engaged in.
Back in the day, if you had a record that you were trying to mix that just sounded rough you would take it off the deck and whack another on. You may have seen many DJs do this in the past.
Eventually you pick it up so that you know what will sound good but the more structured approach is relatively new as the internet has made sharing information much easier. Camelot deserve a large amount of credit for creating the easy mix system, but that was based on knowledge that was already out there from the DJs of the time.
I have in the past heard people say “I’m not going to mix that, it just sounds wrong” and by that they were actually talking about compatible musical tonality.
Having listened to a lot of my old mixes pre 2000 and as early as 1992 I found that I was favouring harmonically pleasing mixes instinctively.
Although I am not classically trained I have played musical instruments since about the age of 15 and messed around with ‘Trackers’ since they came out on the Amiga so did have a basic understanding of why things worked or didn’t. You will often find that many DJs have some element of music in their past be it trained or not and the ability to hear tone is there for many of them. Armin being no exception, although I don’t know when exactly he starting marking up his records with key etc. he will most definitely have been aware of this.
In other words, DJs have been doing this for a long time even if it was by accident, but they would all have worked out something that sounds particularly pleasing when mixed together and may even have thought, that’s how I want to sound the whole time.
As Stu Cox stated it’s not something that you must do, consider it a weapon in your arsenal of things that you can do as a working DJ. And if it helps create energy or emotion and ultimately pleasure from your listening audience how can this be a bad thing?
If something sounds good though, there will be a musical explanation as to why, whether or not it was based on musical knowledge or just instinct is beside the point. What understanding HM will do is essentially take the guess work out of the process and can also present you with other options that you may not have considered previously.
For a lot of DJs you will find that it tends to help them break away from those safe mixes that they know sound good and might repeat too often, as they can see that they have more options available to them and will understand why the original idea worked so well but now have a load more options.
I will pretty much mix harmonically all the time, but that doesn’t mean that I use strictly the Camelot approach. Having developed an understanding of chords and scales has helped a lot and has widened the options greatly. A good example of this is to break down a guitar chord. You will find things in there that work other than just the 4th and 5th, that still sits in the same scale but might not have been an obvious choice to start with.
I’m also for the most part thinking at least a couple of tracks ahead when I play and have ways of jumping around keys and getting to where I want to be if I feel that there is something that has to be played.
It also doesn’t have to be strictly about flow and matching keys, it can be about picking deliberately unmatched keys that give that subtle or not so subtle lift to a set (so called Modulation mix) where you do a quick swap of EQ or fader and just send the dance floor into orbit.
It can also open up options to start mixing records in totally new places and bringing in melodies on top of an existing track that just would not have worked otherwise.
I have always thought it quite strange that given we are mixing music, how can someone not think that musical techniques don’t apply? On that note though I know we all have our own different ways of approaching this, and some may want more knowledge than others.
With regards to software, I have never used key detection applications. Never had the need and as pckRaistlin said, it’s probably quicker to do it by ear anyway. I personally don’t trust it and see no real need for it. Once you develop speed at doing this then it’s pretty much like second nature and is far more reliable for me to do. Some people like this method though so each to his/her own.
And as Stu says, some people can 'just do it'.
Cheers
Nem
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https://www.mixcloud.com/Calvin_Karass/
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