Harmonic mixing using pitch shift? Is he right?
Saw this as an entry to the one button mapping contest.
Is he right on how this works? Can you actually go to any key this way?
Using the key knob to change the key works, but the further from the original key you get the worse it will sound. I usually only change a song by 1 semitone, 2 max. So yes you can make a song change to any key, but it will only sound good in the keys where the amount of change is the least.
yeah +/- 1-2 seems to be what that mapping does. But is the key math right? can you actually go to every single key from any other key within +/- 1-2? I feel like people would be doing this if that were the case. Never heard of it before now so it seems odd.
You are only expanding the key possibilities by 4, but that will expand the related keys you can mix into also.
As I don’t use Traktor’s key notation, I’ll explain using normal music notation.
Let’s say your song is in C major. Basically you could mix into a song in the related key of F major, G major, or A minor, or of course the same key C. There are others that could work, but the ones listed would be the most closely related keys. So if you expand the possibilities by a factor of 4 with the key knob, you know have 15 possible keys to mix into.
-2 key. A#-D#,F, Gm
-1 key. B-E, F#, G#m
Root key. C-F, G, Am
+1 key. C#-F#, G#, A#m
+2 key. D-G, A, Bm
As you can see the keys of G and F came up twice, so 13 new possible keys to use. In the above example, every note of the chromatic scale (C, C#,D, D#, etc.) is represented which means you could theoretically mix a track into any other track because you could change the key to a related key using only a change of +/- 1or2 semitones.
That being said, use your ears. Not everything that should sound good together does, and vice versa.
YES!
Use the camelot notation, it can be easier. But if you can drop or raise a track by 1 or 2 semitones, then YES you can key mix any track together. Im not saying it will sound good… but technically the formula works.
Theres a little more to it, and I can explain it if you want, but look into progressive key mixing, or energy mixing. Where you jump 3 or 5 slots on the wheel. When that theory is used in conjunction with the + - 1 or 2 thing, it works!
The more I look into it, the “energy mixing” thing that somebody invented makes literally no sense musically. Seems like they picked a key interval at random. It happens to work sometimes depending on the notes in the melodies of the tracks, just like any interval could, but apparently to people who know more about all this than I do, makes no sense.
That’s why this interests me, because it sounds like you can pitch any the track up or down, and it’ll sound like they are within +1/-1 of the one you’re mixing it into. If this does work musically I’m definitely giving it a shot. I don’t understand mapping all that well. Will this mapping work, or are there any other ones that are easy?
What gear are you mixing with?
The one thing I miss switching from using ableton to DJ was if two tracks didn’t sound right together I could pitch shift it so they did. As far as I can tell, cross doesn’t do that.
Traktor does. That’s one of its strengths. It sounds about as good as Ableton doing it, which is to say +/- 1 semitone works. Sometimes you can push it to 2 if you’re not pitching it that far.
To specifically address your question:
In the Major and Minor keys, the intervals, the space between each note, is always the same… so, the root note will always be 2 semitones below the 2nd note in the key, which is then 2 semitones below the 3rd, etc.
It doesn’t matter WHAT your root note is, the intervals don’t change - just the root note.
Because of this, it does indeed work to change the pitch of a track, and you can shift it to another key. As said several times, +/- 1-2 is all that usually sounds good, and 2 is a stretch sometimes. Just remember that the Major/Minor aspect will NOT change.
I use this fairly often when doing harmonic mixing. The math is even pretty easy once you get used to it, same math works for both Open Key AND Camelot.
If you are Adding 5 to the number (say, going from 1A to 6A), then you are -1 on the pitch/key knob. For every 5 you add, -1 on the pitch knob. If you are subtracting, then it’s +1. It can take a little getting used to thinking about it on the fly, but once you get it sussed, it’s pretty easy.
Start listening at 22:45 so you can hear the key of the track, it is the end of the track. When you hear the next song drop @ 26:00.
https://soundcloud.com/haste3/vrbreakup
https://soundcloud.com/haste3/vrbreakup
That is energy mixing. I jumped from like 1a to 4a. (just an example) You can jump 3 steps or 5 steps. but you gotta stay on the “A” side of the wheel. same with key drops.
Lets give an example. Say i am in 1A…i can either jump 1 step to either 2A or 12A. If i want to add energy then I jump to 4A or even 6A. Also if I want calm the mix down i can drop to 10A or 8A. The same would apply to the “B” side of the wheel. But technically the only time you can jump back and forth between A and B is with the same number IE. 7A to 7B. Technically you cannot go from 7A to 8B, it wont sound right.
Please remember these are all just general guidelines, you can sometimes mix keys that “shouldn’t” go together and they might sound pretty good. So make use of all the tools you have especially your ear!
Also if you like breaks and some jungle breaks this is a really good mix to listen to. its all at 134bpm
Yeah, that last part - especially when you are playing styles that tend to not make full use of harmonies - if you’re playing a one note song, it will work with a lot of different keys.