While just listening to some of my trance tracks I found a very interesting thing about key music
While mixing in key is wonderful I have come across “The Clashing” keys THAT DONT CLASH AT ALL
Apparently if you play a track that is lets say… A Minor, I found you can mix with A Major and wont clash.
At first I was like “Heh probably just those songs” Nope
Tried going back and forth between a few song and wasnt clashing.
Of course this may work with genres such as trance but Im not all too sure.
If you are on 5A you can go to 8B
If someone would like to try it with other genres let me know how it turns out. Might turn out good or can sound like utter rubbish.
Key what key?
I have no idea what key any of my tracks are in, I just use the “KEY” knob in Traktor to sort the problem out. Means I can mix pretty much any track together almost perfectly.
I had this conv with another Trance DJ have he uses Key charts like this and that and he also said, most Club Systems will cover up clashes so it doesn’t really matter a great deal.
Its just that I do all my key matching on the fly, like someone mixing CDs or Vinyl…
With the rules of Fifths also know as Perfect Fifths you should have no problem, as long as you keep within the Majors or Minors because sometimes you might get that one odd note that can kick it off. A fifth is half way between two octaves. Yeah, I don’t see what I shouldn’t work for other styles of music as long as they aren’t out of tune you should be fine.
although op is right that you can usually get away with substituting a major for a minor key or vice versa, however thats about as far as it goes, i’d pick that Wheel up off the lawn if i were you cuz its still useful haha
I know what you mean about the camelot wheel. Its quite constraining until you look beyond it into musical theory an realize theres much more scope for mixing it up.
For example; I found out recently that going from a A to B (or B to A) key sounds great if you add or subtract 4 from the number
At the end of the day though, you just gotta practice and find what works best for you. The camelot system is merely a guide, a pointer in the right direction.
^^this. even without “golden ears”, you’ll hear the key clashes. And consider that a lot of mixes involve the less “busy” parts of tracks anyway – if there’s no piano or horn in your mix point and there’s just a kick and a hi hat, it really doesn’t matter what key the song is in anyway.
I use key info as a general guide for choosing the next song but I try not to be too constrained by it – it’s far more important to play the song that feels right next rather than a song that is numerically “correct.” I find I do much better when I don’t overthink it and just let the music lead.
This.
Bought mixed in key taught it was going to be a revolution in my sets but nope it changed nothing. While it may be great at keying some track its terrible overall.
While i cant tell the key of a song by ear. I sure as hell know what songs will go well together even when jumping genres.
I realize that it may seem intuitive to adjust the pitch or key of one track to match the other, but you are turning the track into something it was never intended to be, let alone introducing a LOT of crappy artifacts into the sound.
I find it strange that you say another TRANCE dj (possibly one of the most important genres stay harmonic in) told you that a club system “covered up” key clashes? Is it possible that when you friend is in the proximity of the aforementioned club system… he is usually intoxicated? … honest question… seems like most dj’s are pretty faded when it comes time to play.
One major thing I will mention:
When I first started djing (using a laptop trackpad only.. lol) I would throw any two tracks together and think I was the hottest shit on earth… as time went on I discovered that some tracks just “went” together. I would make note of this and play them as a pair every chance I got.
More time would pass and I started to notice everything just sounded like shit… I was getting “pickier”. Stumbled across mixed in key and found that to majorly help sift through large track collections on the fly. After mixing harmonically for the past year, anything that isn’t harmonic sounds REALLY bad.
Interesting side effect… the keen ear you get from mixing harmonically makes the sample decks COMPLETELY useless on the s4. Thankfully we still have the loop recorder.
… honest question… seems like most dj’s are pretty faded when it comes time to play.