Key/Harmonic mixing, Does anyone here do it?

[Guest clive frog]

After hearing DJ Bansi (GMS) play a 2 hour set matched in compatible keys and shifting from one key to another, I was blown away, no sour mixes, just pure bliss. Does anyone here key mix?? or have any tips on the subject? I'm gonna learn to play piano so i can pick which key each track was made in by ear, but it's a slow difficult process I think. Any thoughts??

[Guest Raider]

I can't imagine how I should key mix... seems very difficult. Would like to hear a mix first, to understand exactly what you're talking about. I've only read about it been used in pop/trance-mixes.

[shpongled]

How can you do that? ...first you have to mach the bpm... after you have done that the other track is off key... or both are if they are not in zero pitch. You would have to play only a tracks that have the same bpm. I'm not a dj so I might be missing out something.

[Guest clive frog]

key is affected by pitch of course,+ - 5.9% is one octave , + -2.95% is half an octave, i.e. ~ C + 5.9% pitch = D, C + 2.95% = C major, do the math, 1 in 6 mixes will be in key.

[Guest bugbread]

A few ways possible:

 

First is mixing sections without beats going.

 

Second, some CDJs (I believe) and audio software (I am sure about) allow time stretching, which allows pitch to be changed without changing key.

[Guest clive frog]

master tempo can do this on cdj, however a stretch of more than + -3 or 4% sounds warped and strange. Mathematical algoryhthms don't do sound any favours.

[Guest mE 1]

yeah i was about to say that... Cdj 100s ...

 

 

i'd easily be able to do that if i had some CDJ 100s. i can pick out pitch very well...

[Guest bugread]

I suppose if you pick out two songs with similar BPMs and the same key, the +-3% of allowable time-stretching would be enough to allow it to be mixed without sounding all funky.

[Guest bugbread]

I can't pick out pitch, but I can match it easily (that is, I don't have perfect pitch, but I can figure out melodies easily on piano. It'd be nice if I could PLAY piano, but so far my skill has been to figure out melodies of songs and write them down so a friend who can play guitar but has little sense of pitch can play them)

 

So if I could beatmatch, things would be awesome.

 

Guess I'm just not good at real-time activity.

[Guest russ]

on the other hand, bansi might have just played a lot of his own tracks at a similiar tempo and written in the same key.

[Guest clive frog]

russ,

 

At the time Bansi while was playing his set i didn't know why it sounded so good or why he was doing play/cue type mixes, but when i spoke to him at length a couple of hours later, he filled me in on the joys of harmonic mixing, amongst other strange Dj tips.

 

If you ever get a chance to see him Dj, don't miss it, he really knows his @!#$.

 

Incedently, he only played one track featuring gms during his DJ set, which was Boom Shankar(gms vs skazi vs parasense), he saved the gms for the "gms live show" on the second night of the party.