Obviously, to mix everything with anything, you must not do … anything. First of all, the tempo of the music is surely the first factor which allows saying if music is compatible or not with another. That said, it should be understood that certain music can very well be mixed with a very low speed or on the contrary very accelerated. House and Hip Hop were also born from this variation.
Also, music with lyrics can hardly mix well with another if it is mixed by superimposing the verses sung with those of another music. Therefore, it is preferable to mix an instrumental part with a singing part and to alternate.
By respecting all these constraints, everything becomes possible on the condition of taking into consideration the harmonic keys of each music and of choosing them according to their harmonic compatibilities. And it is on this point that there can be a problem because all the keys are not compatible with each other, but thanks to the Key adjust function found on dj players and software, anything is possible. .
HOW TO MIX AN INCOMPATIBLE HARMONIC KEY?
First of all, we are going to do a little reminder of the functioning of the wheel system of the fifth and fourth cycle, popularized as a harmonic key wheel for the deejay mix. And for that, here is a diagram that I made with the key notations of the Mixed In Key system with its translation into musical language.
The principle is simple for Traktor and Mixed in key (Camelot):
Traktor and Mixed In key use the same annotation principle.
The harmonic keys of a scale are identified by a number that follows the compatibility of the keys.
The “major” scales are identified by the addition of a “B” for Mixed in Key and a “d” for Traktor.
“Minor” scales are identified by the addition of an “A” for Mixed in Key and an “m” for Traktor.
And finally, a Major key compatible with a Minor key bears the same number and is placed on the same degree to facilitate the work.
This means for the Mixed In a key system that if you are in 12A, you can either mix music in 13A, 11A, or 12B.
12A for the Traktor system is said to be 5m and therefore if we are in 5m, we can either mix music in 6m, 4m, or 5d.
ALSO, THE BASIC OPERATION IS SO SIMPLE THAT WE DON’T NEED A DIAGRAM
- Either you mix by QUINTE, that is to say, that you go to the SUPERIOR key, for example, you are in 4B and you mix another music in 5B.
- Either you mix by QUARTE, that is to say, that you go to the LOWER key, for example, you are in 6B and you mix another music in 5B.
- Either you mix by TONALITE, that is to say, that you go from the MAJOR range to the MINOR range or vice versa, for example, you are in 7A and you mix another music in 7B.
The problem is that to go further and mix everything with anything, you have to know the theoretical functioning of the system of the cycle of fifths and fourths to know by how many semitones you must raise or lower the pitch. ‘a music so that it can mix harmoniously with another normally incompatible. Because without it, you cannot use the “KEY ADJUST” function intelligently.
HOW TO ADJUST THE KEY ADJUST TO ADAPT ANY HARMONIC KEY TO ANOTHER?
Graduated from -12 to +12, the key adjust function makes it possible to change the pitch of a piece of music, and therefore when it is coupled with the “KEYLOCK” function, makes it possible to change the harmonic key Here, on this diagram, you can observe the different harmonic key notations distributed on an octave of a piano translated into English, Italian and with its flats and sharps.
PATIENCE THE ULTIMATE TECHNIQUE IS NEAR
Let’s continue the music theory a bit and you will understand the potential of the key adjust function An octave is a distance between a note and its double frequency, for example, an octave is a distance between the C of octave 1 and the C of octave 2.
Thus, in an octave we have:
C, C #, D, D #, E, F, F # G, G #, A, A # and
B. A total of 12 notes.
And that’s why the key adjust function is graduated from -12 to +12. Each notch represents 1 semitone.
1 semitone is the distance between a note is as follows. For example, if we raise the note C three semitones, we end up on the note D # (sharp). Another example, if we raise the note E by 7 semitones we find ourselves on the note B.
Yet another example to explain to you what an accidental is:
For example, if you are on the note F and you go down 4 semitones, you will end up on the note Db (D flat) that we could for simplicity call C # (sharp). In reality, we use the term sharp when we go up, and we use the term flat when we go down. This makes it possible to identify this variation of going down or up a note, this is called an accidental.
And all this works just as well for harmonic keys:
So if we mix music with harmonic key 6B (Mixed In Key notation), this corresponds to A # Major, and if we want to transform it into a key 7B which is F Major, you can either raise the key to adjust by 7 notches, or 7 semitones OR lower the key adjust by 5 notches, or 5 semitones.
THE ULTIMATE TECHNIQUE IS SIMPLE WHEN YOU HAVE THE RIGHT SCHEME
At this stage, you have understood how to mix everything with anything since now you know how to adjust your key adjust according to a harmonic key. The problem is that the original schematics in annotation systems are not designed for this. To tell the truth, they are almost useless since they are based on a sequence of numbers that anyone can remember, except the annotation system of REKORD BOX which has not been simplified for harmonic mixing.
On the other hand, a simplified diagram to quickly identify the value of a key adjust would be really useful, and that’s why I thought about it.
Here I offer you a diagram as easy as hello to solving this problem. As you can see, I made a very simple version for Mixed in Key compatible with the Traktor system, and the icing on the cake, I offer you another version a little more complex but with the same operation for the Pioneer
INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE OF THE ANDY MAC DOOR KEY ADJUST SYSTEM
The diagram is a wheel cut into 12 degrees, each degree corresponds to a harmonic key To know by how many semitones you have to raise or lower the Key adjust to transforming one key into another, it suffices to count the number of degrees that separates the original key from the desired key For example, you are in key 12 (whether it is major or minor does not change anything) and you want to change it to key 9, for that, you just have to increase the key adjust by 3 or reduce it by 9 Another example, you are in key 5 and you want to transform it into key 1, for this, you must either increase the key adjust by 8 or reduce it by 4.
CONVERT YOUR TRACK TO THE NEAREST COMPATIBLE KEY
Obviously, a variation of +6 or -6 with the key adjust is not necessarily pleasing to the ear, especially if the modified music includes vocals. To remedy this, instead of converting a harmonic key from one music to the same key from another music, you can simply convert it to the closest harmonic key.
For example, you are in harmonic key 2 and it turns out that the other music you want to mix is in 8, instead of either going down or up your key adjust by 6 notches, you can only do it by 1. So if you raise the key to adjust of the track in harmonic key 2, you will then be in harmonic key 9 which is compatible with the harmonic key 8 of the other track. If instead of going up you go down from 1, then you will be in 7 which is also compatible with the harmonic key 8.
