Keys of songs?
Since I have no musical theory, and read all the stuff about MIK being inaccurate, but actually love harmonic mixing. Is there any site that has the actual keys of songs?
I’m probably going to get told to learn an instrument and figure it out, but I am just trying to save some time.
the new beta of beatport lists the key. i don’t have any extra key codes but you can check in this thread for an invite: DJ TechTools Forums
the new beatport beta will also “crowd source” key information (given inaccuracies in key detection software), which is an awesome announcement (imo)
That is pretty damn cool, I haven’t checked BeatPort out since I used up my giftcard.
Rapid Evolution if you wanna try key detection for free, some say its better than MIK, personally I think using the ears gives the best results.
I won’t touch rapid evolution with a ten foot pole. I don’t know what it was about the software when I had my PC, but it was the most glitchy and unresponsive thing I’ve ever had the pleasure of dealing with.
Honestly I’ve bought Mixed in Key, and while it’s nicer than nothing, that’s all it is.
I’m really psyched about the new beatport carrying this information.
A pc was the most glitchy and unresponsive thing I ever had the pleasure of dealing with so I moved to Mac 
In all seriousness though apparently V2 was complete shite, v3 seems decent enough… hell its free.
Nice thought.
the beatport key option is really a great feature for people like me who cant and/or dont know how to key by ear … a program that would pull the keys from beatport into your audio tags would make life way easier … until someone creates an app for that i will manually update my keys one by one
The only way to really do it is to learn some music theory. Every other method is pretty poor and this way you’ll develop a much greater and more useful skill set.
Hey, you could even start making some tracks once you have a rude understanding of the basic concepts.
What we really need is an Itunes plugin that will retrieve this data for us, that would be epic
+1 on learning basic skills … it really worths it … i just need more time 
The problem I see is that in the software it gives you Tone/Semitones as a basis for keymatching. Semitone/tones are not “that” accurate for harmonic mixing, certainly not when it comes to vocals or lead synths that may have been shifted in the first place. Its just good enough for a rough estimate and refine the Transpose by ear…
If we had the keys matches in Cents I might consider splashing out, you just cant beat the ears when it comes to something clashing.
I’m currently using both the Beatport Beta system and Rapid Evo 3 and it seems to be working as a good system, only problem is that if you get it into your head that all your mixes have to be harmonic you can forget all too easily about the vibes of the track and put together a badly structured set as a result.
true that palms head i have been sucked into that idea several times forgetting everything else behind
Is there really much evidence of MIK being that inaccurate? MIK claims to be accurate, and I find the results of mixes using that information to be generally pleasing, but I also have little music theory knowledge and I couldn’t tell you the pitch of something by ear, ever. So I couldn’t tell you if the information provided by MIK is accurate or not; just that it seems to work well for me more often than not.
But I also try to focus a lot more on what I hear than on what MIK says – some mixes sound off, but that can happen whether the key is matched or not. And some mixes sound great even if there’s a key clash – particularly when there are just a couple instruments left playing on the part of the track you’re mixing.
Any classically trained musician will tell you it’s generally nonsense.
You can tell by the fact that the melodies from two songs which are supposedly in key clearly are not when mixed together.
Also you could take songs you know the key of for sure and run those through the program and see what happens.
I guess the question for me (as someone who has no classical training) is what constitutes the key of an entire song – how does software account for key changes within a song?
It doesn’t. All these programs only state one key no matter what which is an issue since there are songs with key changes (though it’s not common in house music) and there are songs that don’t have a key at all.
It’s all a bit silly in my opinion. Still, if it works for you it works for you I guess. I tried it and got bogged down on lookin at the keys and such and forgot to actually mix. And on top of that it didn’t seem to be nearly accurate enough to warrant the effort.
p.s. I don’t have any classical training either. the misses is some music theory nerd and orchestral composer and some of the super basics are rubbing off on me.
The new beta version is solid as fuck. Not sure how accurate it is but it’s not the slightest bit glitchy. RE2 was fucking horrible!!