I have an issue i stumble upon, and dunno how to solve this…
I love to mix harmonically, esp. the A to B blendings, are awesome.
Therefor I use Keylock, so i know for sure, i’m picking the right track to mix it in with. (Using Mixed In Key 5 to determine which key my tracks are in).
Tho, I notice when Keylock is on, my tracks sound wimpy. It’s not that bad, but when u put it back to it’s orginal BPM and without Keylock, the track is so more pumpin’ and vibrant.
My settings in Traktor Pro 2 are:
Tempo Bend - 100% (Tempo Bend sensitivity not checked)
Sync Mode - BeatSync
Keylock - Quality = HiQ / Mode = Normal
Any solution to keep the soul alive of a tune while playing it at different speed/keylocking?
Sure, i could mix a track in and slidely move the speed/bpm back to it’s original speed, but this way, when it’s lower than i played before, I feel like i’m taking energy away outta my set…
Short answer - no. Using keylock means you have to cut information out of an audio signal, or synthesize information into it, which inherently means that it’ll sound different.
The closer you are playing the track to the original BPM the less resampling will be needed to keep the track in key. If you are off by less than 4BPM or so you will notice it less. Any more than that and you will definitely hear it. Your only solution is really to play the tracks as close to the original BPM as possible (of course this kinda defeats the purpose of key lock).
I actually find the reverse to be true. The closer to the original BPM I am, but with keylock on, the more I can hear an odd “digitization” of the track, almost as if it’s a transcode. The further away from the original BPM I go, the less I hear this sound, as it sounds more like a different key.
Either way, I’ve almost completely gone away from keylock because of this. Just about every mix I have now, I hear this digitization coming through loud and clear when I run keylock 100% and it just sounds… bad.
I believe that the problem is mitigated somewhat by the fast cpu setting in preferences and also by not changing the tempo (pitch?) by more than 4 percent or so…just my experiences
… can’t do much about using pitch change algorithms, transients are removed and so on and so on… I hardly do in-key mixing myself nowadays, then again it’s seldom needed in techno/tech house.
Just experimented with a lower quality mp3 and I do hear this effect.. but not with my normal 320 and above… wondering if y’all r using low bit rate files and if this has something to do with it?
I pretty much don’t touch anything under 320. I’m listening on KRK v8s in a semi treated room. It would def be harder to tell on a standard club set up with everything compressed limited and played in mono.
Approx. +3% to -3% of the original BPM, is the limit with keylock
Use WAV’s instead of lossy files
What does cross my mind is… I’ll loose the Images and the Key-info of my MP3 files when I convert them into WAV, right?
And… Is this wimpy-effect truelly a Keylock side-effect, or does it has to do with playing it in a different pitch/tempo than the original track supposed to?
You lose artwork ID3 tags (not sure about key tags), but I always advise keeping keys stored in a comments tag. All my comments start with a Mixed In Key / Camelot notation “8A - electro” or “2B - dark halloween” so that it sticks with the file.
You also don’t gain anything by converting an mp3 to a wav. That’s kind of what lossy compression means.
It’s a keylock side-effect. The key lock algorithms all work in about the same way: they chop the song up into a bunch of little pieces and shift them in time either interpolating audio between them or basically erasing audio that would be covered up so that you don’t hear the change in pitch caused by the change in speed…if it screws up a transient attack in the process, it can sound wimpier.
I admit that it happens, but I can’t hear it in practice…certainly not at club volumes with compressors and EQs and sh*t in the way…and absolutely not if the club is effing up everything and high-passing the tops.
Wow missed that - yes, please do not “upconvert” an mp3 of any kind to a wav.
In fact:
Don’t convert a 128 to a 192.
Don’t convert a 192 to a 320.
Don’t convert a VB0/VB2 to 320.
Don’t convert any MP3 / M4A / etc to .wav / FLAC.
It should go in this order
CD > WAV > FLAC > MP3/4 / M4A / , when concerning a digital rip. If you go the reverse you will be taking a compressed signal and attempting to “uncompress it” which I believe never actually happens. The file will look bigger, but you gain absolutely nothing from it. If you hear a “weak” 320, check it in a spectrum analyzer - chances are someone used a web/youtube rip of something lesser than upconverted, resulting in a piss-poor sound.
And amped over a good system - you CAN tell the difference, unless you’re just a drunk barfly.
You’re correct. I come from a time of ripping CDs into their native format, .CDA, by command line in DOS using old Fraunhofer technology, before many GUIs were present. I don’t know why, but I’ve never trusted .FLAC, regardless how many times I’ve read that .WAV and .FLAC are identical. Silly and stubborn, I guess.
I mentioned the converting MP3’s to WAV files, coz this statement above…
I’m not sure, but I assume Milo’s advice, is becoz WAV files get handled better keylock-wise. Why else would he suggest using a WAV over the other filetypes (without talking about quality/compression)?
They’re not identical. FLAC is lossless, which means the compression is completely reversible. It’s kinda like a .zip, .rar, .gz, or whatever file that some programs/phones/players can play without explicit decompression to another file.
Nope. It’s because the mp3 compression algorithm smears over high-frequency details which also can reduce transient response by itself as well as adding noise and making the key lock algorithms less likely to find and protect the transients you want.
