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Keyed tunes for Harmonic mixers (pg. 4)
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| Nemesis44 |
Heya Nuclear,
Thanks for the response.
Ah yes.. Clokx. I remember keying that one... bit of a tricky one as I recal. What happens there is that while the first chord of the melody is indeed as you have correctly stated a D# major, the actual key of the song is a A# minor.
When trying to find the root of this song you can try playing the D# all the way through and it just sounds rough in my ears in some parts. A# seems to fit in everywhere as does the whole A# minor chord. I often use scales and tend to add my own solos whilst doing my keying and the A# minor stuff works better than the D# stuff.
What also makes this song a little tricky is that the break down changes the whole character of the song whilst the in between bits bubble along happlily in A# minor the break leaps up and starts the tune in D# major which gives it a new sense of energy almost like a key change.
Again with Scorchio it just fits with A# minor and I just can not get it to sound good with D# major... will be checking tuning just to make sure but pertty sure that's how it is.
Thanks for the list though, it's always cool to learn stuff. I also appreciate someone who is prepared to discuss in a good way.
All the best to you
cheers
Nem |
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| Nemesis44 |
| quote: | Originally posted by montie
i'm no expert. but i think when you want to step up the emotion and energy of a mix, you would mix in your next song which is in a compatible key with the song being played and which is higher. the opposite is true for stepping down the energy |
Heya Montie/ Sebjr
They way a key changes to get renewed energy is a little bit different and in a way has nothing to do with harmonics.
To give you an example of what I mean think of some of the old 50's rock n' roll tunes when they are going into their final verse... (can't think of a good example though) when the music just seems to speed up a bit and just seems to give it that bit more. That's a key change.
Let's say you are playing a song in a C minor (5A), what you need to do is pick a song in C#/Db (12A) minor to get the key change. What's important however is that you don't fade these two together as that would sound very bad. With this type of mix you need to have the second song come in just as the other finishes from a musical point of view.
They way I do this sometimes is to slam the bass down on the outgoing and replace it with the incoming. this all has to be done pretty instantly so you don't get a key clash as the combination of the two will sound hideous.
This trick is used quite a lot by PvD in his sets, I have also heard Eddie Halliwell do it, although he does it a little different by jumping two or three steps on the chromatic scale, he doesn't however always kill the bass enough in his mixes and I think that sounds arse in my humble opinion.
Hope that helps a little.
Hey Montie,
By the way been looking for those tracks you mentioned you wanted keyed. As I don't have them, if you want put them up on your site and send me the link and I will do if for you. :)
Cheers
Nem |
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| SlickT |
| quote: | Originally posted by Nemesis44
Heya Montie/ Sebjr
They way a key changes to get renewed energy is a little bit different and in a way has nothing to do with harmonics.
To give you an example of what I mean think of some of the old 50's rock n' roll tunes when they are going into their final verse... (can't think of a good example though) when the music just seems to speed up a bit and just seems to give it that bit more. That's a key change.
Let's say you are playing a song in a C minor (5A), what you need to do is pick a song in C#/Db (12A) minor to get the key change. What's important however is that you don't fade these two together as that would sound very bad. With this type of mix you need to have the second song come in just as the other finishes from a musical point of view.
They way I do this sometimes is to slam the bass down on the outgoing and replace it with the incoming. this all has to be done pretty instantly so you don't get a key clash as the combination of the two will sound hideous.
This trick is used quite a lot by PvD in his sets, I have also heard Eddie Halliwell do it, although he does it a little different by jumping two or three steps on the chromatic scale, he doesn't however always kill the bass enough in his mixes and I think that sounds arse in my humble opinion.
Hope that helps a little.
Hey Montie,
By the way been looking for those tracks you mentioned you wanted keyed. As I don't have them, if you want put them up on your site and send me the link and I will do if for you. :)
Cheers
Nem |
I'm a tad confused. So basically you do a quick swap of basslines and then drop the volume of the outgoing track quickly? No blending of eqs right? Also, you can't gradualy bring in the volume of the incoming track at all? Is this best done after the second breakdown or in the outro of a track? I thought I had this down,but I don't think I do... |
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| sebjr |
| quote: | Originally posted by Nemesis44
Heya Montie/ Sebjr
They way a key changes to get renewed energy is a little bit different and in a way has nothing to do with harmonics.
To give you an example of what I mean think of some of the old 50's rock n' roll tunes when they are going into their final verse... (can't think of a good example though) when the music just seems to speed up a bit and just seems to give it that bit more. That's a key change.
Let's say you are playing a song in a C minor (5A), what you need to do is pick a song in C#/Db (12A) minor to get the key change. What's important however is that you don't fade these two together as that would sound very bad. With this type of mix you need to have the second song come in just as the other finishes from a musical point of view.
They way I do this sometimes is to slam the bass down on the outgoing and replace it with the incoming. this all has to be done pretty instantly so you don't get a key clash as the combination of the two will sound hideous.
This trick is used quite a lot by PvD in his sets, I have also heard Eddie Halliwell do it, although he does it a little different by jumping two or three steps on the chromatic scale, he doesn't however always kill the bass enough in his mixes and I think that sounds arse in my humble opinion.
Hope that helps a little.
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Ok I think I understand, now just gotta do the hard part, keying the tunes :/
I was wondering, if you are just mixing in the same key, so it sounds smooth, can you still create a lift in energy just by putting in a tune which is in the same key but more energetic? or does the key kind of relate to that...hope that isnt too confusing.
Also if I'm keying my tunes, and some of them are wrong, will it sound really bad, or if i get the key 'close' will that be better then not keying them at all? |
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| sebjr |
| Also when keying tunes, I've found a program called Transcribe which can analyse part of the track and give you a breakdown of it in wave form. Has anyone used this?? |
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| Nemesis44 |
Must admit that I don't see any real reason why software couldn't do this for you, but I must also admit I don't know enough about this software to comment. Only you will be able to tell if your mixes sound right. It would be interesting to perhaps compare a track or two just to see what we have. :)
Cheers
Nem |
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| sebjr |
well i checked a few of the tracks you did with the ones with mixmeister, and they are the same. so it seems mixmeister is accurate.
still dont trust it though, as ive found a few which dj prince has keyed on djprince.no, which dont match with what mixmeister came up with...hmmm
think ill just use it as a guide. |
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| Nemesis44 |
| quote: | Originally posted by sebjr
well i checked a few of the tracks you did with the ones with mixmeister, and they are the same. so it seems mixmeister is accurate. |
LOL... Either that or I am as mad as mixmeister ;)
With regards to DJ Prince
Actually to be honest, this may sound like a bold statement but I have found that just like my list may not be 100% accurate neither is his.
Cream by Blank and Jones is down as a Db major on his site. While I agree that it's the first note/chord in the melody it's not the root/key. If you try and play a scale in Db major it just sounds baaad. What can also confuse things is that he doesn't always put which mix it is. A remix doesn't always go in the same key as the original.
He does have a top site though with regards to information and tips. Worth a look in anyones book.
Worth checking out some of the mixes he does. From a technical point they are very good although he is one of those DJs that mixes 100 tunes in about 15 minutes (something that I can't stand). My guess is that the mixes on his site are studio based or the man is an octopus. A lot of the stuff is a bit commercial for my liking too but you can alwways learn something or get some ideas from it.
Just out of interest. Just so you guys don't think that I'm some jumped up ego who's been DJing about a year and know's a little about music, I have actually been doing this for about 17 years. Both DJing and production. I have also released two tracks and had a hand in a few more. I don't actually call myself Nememsis as a DJ either ;) . I DJ live about 4 times a week normally and atleast an hour a day at home (Crazy after all this time I know, but I just love it).
Cheers
Nem |
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| montie |
hey nemesis, what are the names of your tracks?
i'd like to check them out. |
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| Nemesis44 |
I'll post them on my website so that you can check them out. I will send you a PM when it's done... hopefully in the next week or so.
Cheers
Nem |
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| DJ Nuclear |
Are there any programmers here who'd like to take a shot at programming a key finding program? I have several essays of algorithms that will sort out harmonics patterns and automatically determine the key something is in.
I happened to come across a very accurate C algorithm for the determination of a track's BPM that I'm going to try to reorganize later so you can give it a directory of MP3's and it will give you a list of perfect integer BPMs. |
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| Nemesis44 |
Nice one. Sadly my programming skills are not up to much, but I think that sounds like a really good idea. Man you like your music theory!
Cheers
Nem:) |
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