Hi everyone! I seem to have jumped into the whole mp3 djing thing without making any effort to identify the keys of the tunes I'm mixing. This is key to being able to create sellable trance mixes, and may have something to do with why my second mix is a whirlwind of confusion. The two songs I'm currently mixing are "CQ 2007" by Enmass and "Saltwater" by DJ Tatana (my favorite!!!), and one moment it looks like I'm ready to finalize it then I feel the need to start all over. both songs have 135 bpms so no problems there as far as pitch adjustments, and I think the placement of things like loops and filters is great too! What I need to know is if these two songs really are a good match key wise or if I need to throw out one of those songs for another!

Hi everyone! I posted a topic two weeks back about keying tunes and didn't get a single response. Perhaps I gave a little too much technical detail, and I don't know how many of you on this site are djing or have pro djing aspirations like me but this is critical to know. I believe we are a team on this site and should have the natural instinct to help each other out on all topics. I have tried three different sites to get this information: One is under construction, the second is a serious pain in the butt to navigate, and the third is a paysite involving software. I want to take the "guesswork" out of finding two tunes to beatmatch on my mixer. Anybody with good tips or know of a good site to navigate? It would be much appreciated! Thanks!

www.nonstop2k.com

i dont understand what your are asking for , if both songs are 135 bpm i dont see the problem of mixing 1 song to the other..

merged

Thanks dwil and everyone who replied to my question. dwil, you asked me what I was referring to about keying, and what I've discovered is that even tunes that have equal bpm's have clashing drumbeats that create the so called "galloping horses" sound. I doesn't take a pro to understand that that doesn't sound good! My first instinct always seems to be to lower the mid eq to -3.0 on one of those songs really leaving me with one song to hear predominantly. This doesn't work since songs like enmass' "cq 2007" and tatana's "seven days and one week" are made up of those pounding drum beats almost the whole way. I'm trying to find out if there are any tricks to making these two songs work together or if I just have to throw them out of the beatmatching book completely. If I do have to throw them out, then I need to learn more about what key these songs are in so I don't have to randomly find songs to beatmatch together and "hope" that they mix well together. I hope this clears any misunderstandings.

Well, if I'm understanding correctly, you're concerned that the beats disobey the 4/4 time signature at various points by skipping beats and such? Well, a lot of songs do this, especially at transition points (a lot of times at the 8th and 16 measures.) It's used to up the ante a lot and get the listener off guard and excited. But if you're looking for alternative songs to mix them, finding the key is usually straightforward. The key is usually the first bass notes, and because nothing sounds worse than basslines that sound dissonant when you mix them together, you should observe what the bass notes are. I usually just load them up in a DAW and play a note until I get a match with the bassline and keep a catalog of what the keys are for each song.

A great tool for finding what key the tracks are in is Mixed in Key.

You can basically have it analyze your whole collection and it will sort the songs out using the camelot method.

It is really a nifty little program and I believe it only costs about $40.

You can get it here

Yea, totally agree with R33. Just chuck in all of your trance tunes and it'll analyse them and tell you the key of the song and most of the time, the tempo.

Then what I do is change the comments of each track to the key and tempo and then rearrange them by the comment.

For example:

http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/5431/80401000.jpg

*Hope this pic works*

EDIT: I've checked it and it works. You can even zoom in on the pic for a better look

Originally posted by zakrush1

*Hope this pic works*

EDIT: I've checked it and it works. You can even zoom in on the pic for a better look

Basically I do that same thing. Only I put the tempo in the BPM category on iTunes so I can sort by tempo as well.

Same here, I use iTunes as my organizer, as it does an amazing job.