Key Analyze/Scanning Software
Are there any good programs out there for Mac OS X or Windows XP to scan the keys of tracks? I’ve been doing it by ear for too long. Platform isn’t important, but OS X needs to be able to read the tags in the end (I DJ w/Traktor on OSX).
Thanks,
-Dj Lucid
best software i have used.
i like Mix Meister. You can load a directory into the MM database and it will read every tracks’ key and write it into the id3 tag for you. So, traktor will display it without any real effort on your part. It will also print out a handy cheat sheet. This is really nice for cataloging your wax.
bento recently posted a link to a free program called rapid evolution that seems pretty nice, as well. Here’s the link again:
http://www.mixshare.com/
also, search “harmonic mixing” in this forum
Yeah I must also reccomend Mixed in Key, I won it a while ago on DJTT and it is awesome!
There’s also Rapid Evolution, which is free. http://www.mixshare.com/software.html
I posted about this in another thread… i personally don’t trust these programs the find the key, in my belief they are a aid in finding the music key and not a one stop shop so user beware about false positives !
you really just need to trust your ear when it comes down to it. there has only been 1 or 2 times when MIK was wrong. from what i could tell.
For Mixed In Key Users:
Check This:
or see the original I posted on the Mixed In Key Website:
Traktor’s Key
What I want to know is why Traktor is still showing us a meaningless percentage value instead of the key itself? Even with Mixed In Key I still get very confused about how that translates to that stupid value Traktor shows you. 
1.5% = 1 semitone remember that and you are most of the way there
What you say would be nice though
Well that just goes to show that I need key help. I was thinking it was more like 1% = 1 semitone.
You could also use keylock and leave it on 0 - i think keylock sounds alright as long as there is not a drastic tempo change, then pitching defiantly sounds better. if you did that there is certainly a lot less things to calculate and you can keep focused on picking songs and mixing.
How does Rapid Evolution compare to MIK? The price doesn’t matter to me that much, I just want the better program!
Recently I started organizing my songs into colours. I don’t know which key is which and so forth, but when I hear music a lot of times some songs will sound blue / orange/red / brown or green to me, etc. So I want to run one of these programs to see what keys it will generate for these colours. I figure I might as well get a little technical with it.
The last testing that was done was a while ago, both programs are increased in quality since then - so i dont think anyone really knows at the moment. Both programs are really quality so i believe they are pretty much neck and neck at the moment.
If you were super keen you could scan your tracks with both programs and keep all the keys both programs agree are correct then manually work out the keys for those that the programs disagree with one another - immagine that would give very very accurate results.
Does 1 semitone equal 1 half step on a keyboard??
1 semitone is the difference between a black key to the white key that’s next to it.
There are also two tones to a semitone.
So, metaverse, the answer to your question is yes, one semitone equals one half-step on a keyboard.