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Guide to Harmonic Mixing 1.0 (pg. 6)
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| roosh |
I'm encountering a lot of stuff about harmonic mixing and am very interested in pulling off seamless mixes, but then I think about my audience and I'm not really sure.
I go to clubs often, listening to both major dj's and local ones. I find that "average" clubbers don't care much about the mix. I've heard some AWFUL dj's wreck often but the crowd doesn't care... they keep dancing. People care about the music. Harmonic mixing seems like overkill here. No one will really notice.
Now if I was spinning for other dj's then I see how this is useful. DJ's will be your harshest critic always.
If you go to a clubber and tell him how important harmonic mixes are too him, I'd be surprised if they even know what it is.
That said I will experiement with this in the future, but for a personal thing and not because I want to be perfect in front of a crowd who wants to hear fun songs they know. |
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| Nemesis44 |
Hi Roosh,
I can understand why you would maybe see it like this. Heaven knows there are a lot of people who don't have a clue out there and that includes DJs too.
Think of it like this though.
If you had a clubber who didn't know what harmonic mixing was and stuck him infront of two different DJs. You could play pretty much the same tracks in both sets, but if you jumbled the tracks on one so it wouldn't be harmonic and obviously make the other harmonic. I'm am pretty convinced that he would subconciously enjoy the harmonic set more.
If you then think of this in terms of a crowd who is feeding off of the same thing, it gets more powerful.
If you take a trance track and think about what it is that makes it uplifting, then one answer is the chord/key changes you get. If you use this knowledge in the same way it's going to have a similar effect.
It also gives you a flow where everything just seems to have a natural progression and people respond to that too.
Harmonic mixing is the scientific side of picking the right tune for the right moment or part of it at lest. It is one of the things that really determins if you should play a track or not.
If you don't harmonically mix and you pick records that aren't in key you stand a good chance of killing energy in a place.
I know some of you don't beleive me but trust me when I say this, it is one of the major skills that separates the successful DJs from the guys who may play the local club but never get any further. It's all a question of how good you want to be?
Cheers
Nem |
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| Flash Bastard |
| I think dj-ing isn't about reading it in books you have to feel it and flow it :d ... hmm anyway thanks, but my IQ cant dig this level up |
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| Johnnyboi |
How do I find the key of a track through MixMeister??
John |
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| DJ Nuclear |
| please use the other thread, but: You just drop the track in and it automatically finds it and lists it in the catalogue. |
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| roosh |
| quote: | Originally posted by Nemesis44
Hi Roosh,
I can understand why you would maybe see it like this. Heaven knows there are a lot of people who don't have a clue out there and that includes DJs too.
Think of it like this though.
If you had a clubber who didn't know what harmonic mixing was and stuck him infront of two different DJs. You could play pretty much the same tracks in both sets, but if you jumbled the tracks on one so it wouldn't be harmonic and obviously make the other harmonic. I'm am pretty convinced that he would subconciously enjoy the harmonic set more.
If you then think of this in terms of a crowd who is feeding off of the same thing, it gets more powerful.
If you take a trance track and think about what it is that makes it uplifting, then one answer is the chord/key changes you get. If you use this knowledge in the same way it's going to have a similar effect.
It also gives you a flow where everything just seems to have a natural progression and people respond to that too.
Harmonic mixing is the scientific side of picking the right tune for the right moment or part of it at lest. It is one of the things that really determins if you should play a track or not.
If you don't harmonically mix and you pick records that aren't in key you stand a good chance of killing energy in a place.
I know some of you don't beleive me but trust me when I say this, it is one of the major skills that separates the successful DJs from the guys who may play the local club but never get any further. It's all a question of how good you want to be?
Cheers
Nem |
i get you. i will be open minded and try it out :) |
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| [ groovypants ] |
Okies, I'm a bit late but...
Wow... totally speechless...
DJ Nuclear - thankyou for the comprehensive guide, I think all passionate listeners should read this and actually try and feed it through. It is clear and concise and you should consider being a musical tutor! ;)
It obviously took a huge amount of effort and time and we all appreciate your devotion. |
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| Johnnyboi |
| how do I find a tracks key in mix meister |
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| DjSimonB |
Nice guide, I started harmonic mixing a couple of weeks ago, and just stumbled on this thread today.
The way I've been doing it, I say if a riff's in D minor for example, then I just say that the track's in F, is that an OK way of doing things? Seems to be working for me.
One thing's confused me though... earlier on I was mixing stuff, experimenting with subdominants, dominants etc (just before I read all this, strangely enough), and it worked the way I thought. However, I then mixed Jacob and Mendez - Deception (which I thought was in F) into Katana - Alesis (Which I thought was in G flat, a semitone above Deception. So I would've thought that mixing these tunes together would sound quite bad, since the key of F only has one flat in it, B flat, and the key of G flat has, well, loads of flats in it. However, by the time melodies started coming in it sounded really good :crazy: I'm not complaining , but it doesn't really make sense.
BTW Deception was pitched up to around 3.5%, and Alesis somewhere around 1 I think? Was it maybe a change in key, or some kind of weird grey area in between F and G flat? |
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| JayKuE |
djsimonb,
2possibilities,
[1] you may have, from the pitch differences changed deception (f major) up to a G flat major key. as its about 3-4% where you may notice difference in key changes?
[2] changing keys a semitone or tone above the last key provides great results/provides an uplifting feel. like a sudden rush/burst/power in the music.
as for saying a riff is in D minor and therefore, in the F major scale. i'd make sure of what key it is in by checking the bassline + chord progressions. though they share the same key signature being relative/conjugate scales. they still have a diff feel. minor - sad, major - happy. keys that fit in D minor won't necessarily fit in F major and vice versa.
might wanna get confirmation about my reasoning though.
i've yet to apply harmonic mixing to my djing.
only stumbled it through learning music theory for production :) |
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