Mixing – Harmonic Mixing

Using The Camelot Easymix Wheel

On the wheel musical keys can be seen as 'hours' on a clock. For example, 4 o'clock corresponds to 4B or 4A.

The letter "B" represents Major keys.The letter "A" represents Minor keys.

To use harmonic mixing do the following as you mix between songs:

Stay in the same hour as your last song.

Move around the Camelot wheel one step at a time by subtracting one hour (-1), adding one hour (+1).

So if you're playing a song tagged 4A, your next track can be 3A, 4A, 4B or 5A.

To give a special effect you can mix between the inner circle and outer circle, e.g. mixing from 4A to 4B.

Harmonic mixing works for all music genres because it is based on music theory.

Tips

Remember that Harmonic mixing is just a tool to help you. If you rely solely on it you'll probably end up with boring mixes. You need to trust your choices more than the tool, which is unable to take into account all of the other factors which you can such as your audience, odd ball songs which just work well, etc.

Going clock-wise or counter-clockwise around the wheel, changing key every couple of songs is a good approach.

For example:  8A > 8A > 8B > 7B > 6B > 6A > 5A > 4A.  Doing this avoids getting boring sounding because the music is progressing throughout the mix.   

To create an energy boost in a mix you can go up in two semitones – just add 2 to your current Camelot number (e.g. 5A go to 7A). See here.

Harmonic Detection Software

Traktor Pro 2 – Built in.

Mixed In Key – Seems to be generally regarded as the best paid for key detection software. If you use iTunes playlists within traktor then this is still a great software choice as Traktor's own key detection value isn't shown for iTunes playlists.

Changing The Key Of A Track

You can alter a tracks key using the key change feature in Traktor, Virtual DJ , etc. You can alter the musical key up or down one or two notes (semitones) without the sound quality being affected too much.  Check out this Digital DJ Tip:

digitaldjtips-quadruple-mix-options-harmonic-mixing

My Harmonic Mix iOS App

Check out my Harmonic Mix app for DJ's iOS here.

Camelot To OpenKey Conversion