quote:

Originally posted by Fledz You have this habit of jumping on people for no reason at all, except to feed your hunger for abusing other posters. If this forum had more active mods, you would already be banned for intentionally setting people off and derailing perfectly good threads.

Yeah, I've somehow managed to evade the mods for six years, surely that only means I'm good at running away from them and nothing else. Please.

I never ever jump on anyone for no reason at all, and the only person who is currently trying to derail this particular thread is you. Or do you seriously think my posting habits are somehow relevant to this particular topic?

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Latest releases:
Endless Cycles [Capital Heaven]
The Charlatan [Morphosis]

quote:

Originally posted by Rememberence_ I was going to write some rhetoric in response to your post, then I realised you're Tasmanian.

did you? how? (im not in case youre wondering). either way, im still smarter than you so feel free to stick up for some guy selling second-rate software (for the 100th time) on this website. but hey, if youre really that deaf you need a program to do your work for you, i hope you enjoy this program.

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Hey guys,

Check out the poll results. I am surprised that almost 70% of DJs on TA use some form of harmonic mixing. I don't think that's typical for the DJ profession as a whole, TA is just more tech-savvy than other forums.


Since it seems appropriate, here are two tutorials that we wrote about harmonic mixing. If anyone finds them useful, please share them with your friends:


How To Organize Your CDs For Harmonic Mixing


1. Detect the key of every song in your music collection

2. Burn separate CDs for each key. For example, put all your 8A tracks on one CD. Put 9A on another CD.



3. If you burn two copies of every CD, you can mix between songs in the same key. Added benefit: If one CD gets scratched, you can play another copy.

4. Print a CD label with the following information:

• Keycode on top (#08 means 8A in this case)
  
• Date the CD was made
  
• Full track names
  

Using Color Labels

Add some color on top. This will help you find the right CD because your visual memory will connect "8A" with red. We use three different colors to label our CDs:


Blue for keycodes 11 to 1

Orange for keycodes 2 to 5

Red for keycodes 6 to 10


Here is an example of 8A:



Here is an example of 4A:



Here is 11A:



Color Association

Color association helps you find CDs quickly. In a dark club, you'll remember that you burned your favorite tune onto a Blue CD. It must be in keycode 11, 12 or 1. You'll find it quicker if you use color labels for every CD.


How To Sort Your CDs

We put 1A/1B in the front and 12A/12B in the back. Sort your CDs from low numbers to high numbers. This way, you can flip one page forward or one page backward, and see other compatible songs. It makes finding "the next tune to play" very easy.


In Summary

• Burn separate CDs for each key
  
  
• Make two copies of every CD
  
  
• Sort your CD wallet from low to high numbers
  

Your CD collection will be easy to browse. We have field-tested this method for many years and it works for us.

Discussion on this tutorial (read by 2300 DJs on our forum):

http://community.mixedinkey.com/Topic.aspx?ID=1980

Second tutorial coming up shortly.

Here is a second tutorial that helps if you use vinyl, Ableton Live's "Repitch" mode, or CD-Js *without* master tempo:


How does changing the tempo change the key?

If you use DJ equipment without a "Master Tempo" function, changing the tempo of the song will change its key as well. Even the smallest tempo change will alter the key, but a 6% difference will change the key to a whole new one.


6% Rule

6% is the magic percentage: it will move your song to the adjacent key on the piano, as illustrated below:



If your original song was recorded in F Minor, increasing the tempo by 6% will move the song one key to the right to give you G-Flat Minor.

This is equivalent to adding 7 numbers to your current Camelot keycode. Since F Minor is also known as 4A, adding 7 will give you 11A. The piano roll above shows you that 11A is indeed equivalent to Gbm.


Decreasing the tempo by 6% has the reverse effect: It moves your song one key to the left, or the equivalent to subtracting 7 from your current Camelot keycode. This is illustrated below:





3% Rule


There is a basic rule for small increments: If you change the tempo by less than 3%, keep your original key. If you change the tempo by 3% or more, use the 6% key.


3% is the middle point. Anything below 3% will be closer to your original key (F Minor) and anything above 3% will be closer to your 6% key -- Gb minor or E minor, depending whether you increase or decrease the tempo.


Examples

• Two songs in F Minor that have roughly the same BPMs: 130 and 131. We can mix them together because the tempo difference is less than 3%.
  
  
• Two songs in A Minor with different tempos. First song is 128 BPM and the second is 136 BPM. To beatmatch the slower song with the faster song, we’ll have to increase its tempo by exactly 6.25%. This will move the slower song one key to the right, making it B-flat Minor rather than A Minor. The new keys will no longer result in a harmonic mix because A Minor (8A) and B-Flat Minor (3A) are not compatible Camelot keycodes.