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Sup everyone,
I want to touch on a subject of harmonic mixing. What even is that / how it works / some examples
I have to admit that I got to know about this mixing technique from my inner voices. So you can already get a rough idea how it will go.
1. What is that
Harmonic mixing is a mixing technique where you use information about the key that's used in a song to create smoother transitions. It's as simple as
1. Know the key of a song
2. Find another song in the same / similar key
3. Splice them together
2. How it works
To create mixes that "flow together" you're supposed to use this wheel.
Quick explanation
For a mix to "flow" you're supposed to use the same key or one that's adjacent to one that your current song has. So from 5A you can go to 4A/5A/6A/5B. For easier understanding of transitions there's also this table
Shit starts to contradict itself real quick. I think that this chart should've ended on a "scale change" section. As stuff like mood are much more dependent on a track itself, not the underlying key in which it was written.
3. Examples (before I start shilling my ass mix)
There isn't many, but one that I see thrown around comes from here
Keep in mind that "mixed in key" is a company that seems to be the biggest shill of this technique.
4. My experience
I decided to tackle this subject as unbiased as I could. I got myself a trial of "DJ Studio" app with "Mixed in Key" plugin and began to work.
Detection of key/BPM seems alright. Other online detectors struggled with songs that are over 130-140 bpm. Showing their beat rate at half of what's really there. No such issues with a mixed in key plugin. So far so good.
Another feature that caught my attention was option to "automix" songs via DJ Studio software. Just throw your songs, give it 5 mintues (or less) and you're good to go. I decided to test it with some mid tempo / melodic dubstep. Lucky for me all keys were within short distance from each other, only detected bpm was swinging between 90-125.
Here are the results of a automix: (it's 6 minutes long for 5 songs. Feel free to jump around to just hear the transitions)
Yes, it's rather mid. It'a a piece of software afterall. So I decided to correct it myself, while not touching the song order:
Then as my trial was coming to the end I thought "how about trying to mix it as I would like ?" Still using the DJ Studio app to keep it somewhat fair with earlier mixes. But not giving a dam about the guidelines
Another 6 minutes of the same 5 ass songs here: (it's unironically bad kek)
I decided to use the same song for a start, but after it whatever I felt like.
5. Conclusion
I don't think that you should be using only rules from those charts to mix. Common sense always scores higher than some numbers and arbitrary rules. Will I use it again ?
No because my trial ended and I'm not gonna pay 10$ a month lol
I want to touch on a subject of harmonic mixing. What even is that / how it works / some examples
I have to admit that I got to know about this mixing technique from my inner voices. So you can already get a rough idea how it will go.
1. What is that
Harmonic mixing is a mixing technique where you use information about the key that's used in a song to create smoother transitions. It's as simple as
1. Know the key of a song
2. Find another song in the same / similar key
3. Splice them together
2. How it works
To create mixes that "flow together" you're supposed to use this wheel.
Quick explanation
For a mix to "flow" you're supposed to use the same key or one that's adjacent to one that your current song has. So from 5A you can go to 4A/5A/6A/5B. For easier understanding of transitions there's also this table
Shit starts to contradict itself real quick. I think that this chart should've ended on a "scale change" section. As stuff like mood are much more dependent on a track itself, not the underlying key in which it was written.
3. Examples (before I start shilling my ass mix)
There isn't many, but one that I see thrown around comes from here
Keep in mind that "mixed in key" is a company that seems to be the biggest shill of this technique.
4. My experience
I decided to tackle this subject as unbiased as I could. I got myself a trial of "DJ Studio" app with "Mixed in Key" plugin and began to work.
Detection of key/BPM seems alright. Other online detectors struggled with songs that are over 130-140 bpm. Showing their beat rate at half of what's really there. No such issues with a mixed in key plugin. So far so good.
Another feature that caught my attention was option to "automix" songs via DJ Studio software. Just throw your songs, give it 5 mintues (or less) and you're good to go. I decided to test it with some mid tempo / melodic dubstep. Lucky for me all keys were within short distance from each other, only detected bpm was swinging between 90-125.
Here are the results of a automix: (it's 6 minutes long for 5 songs. Feel free to jump around to just hear the transitions)
Yes, it's rather mid. It'a a piece of software afterall. So I decided to correct it myself, while not touching the song order:
Then as my trial was coming to the end I thought "how about trying to mix it as I would like ?" Still using the DJ Studio app to keep it somewhat fair with earlier mixes. But not giving a dam about the guidelines
Another 6 minutes of the same 5 ass songs here: (it's unironically bad kek)
I decided to use the same song for a start, but after it whatever I felt like.
5. Conclusion
I don't think that you should be using only rules from those charts to mix. Common sense always scores higher than some numbers and arbitrary rules. Will I use it again ?
No because my trial ended and I'm not gonna pay 10$ a month lol
