Allen & Heath releases DJ software XONE Mixed In Key

[SubFunk]

that's fuckin' bullshit. if you got ears u don't have the need for such a lousy harmonic-tool. but maybe i don't understand the whole case.......

i don't understand either, and who the hell wants to mix in key ALL the time anyway, most DJ sets are already super boring because of to much harmony anyway.

why not mixing, jamming and rocking a floor in a hospital, at least you can be shure that it is very clean indeed.

damn get skills, and ROCK, BURN the floor. anyone going wild with a set being all smooth and homogene??

certainly NOT me!!

[broken_specs]

Who cares? It's just another aid, seemingly hated by the superstars with all the talent. Actually, IMO, if they had real talent, creativity, and originality, (like I wish I had!) they'd be musicians and not DJs...

REAL men beatmatch and harmonic mix by turning Edison wax cylinder cranks at different speeds, anyway!

lol, looks like I can only dream of being a real man

I suppose my viewpoint wavers depending on the usage. It just reminds me of people who used to pre-plan their dj sets before a gig; in effect making sure there were no harmonic clashes. Personally, I always found it bizarre that someone would go to a gig and know exactly what 20-30 records they were going to play, in what order and when they'd drop them. In fact it's not bizarre, it's scary!

This s/w looks like it could be cool to knock up pre-prepared mash-ups, just for use. Basically run it over your file list and see what interesting pairings come out, then play out the combos as individual tunes.

If I used it to prepare a DJ set though i wouldn't sleep with the guilt

Horses for Courses...

[hambone1]

I include the tempo and key in the title of each of my warped tracks. It makes it easy to search with Live's browser for compatible tempos and/or keys.

[Rokko]

i don't understand either, and who the hell wants to mix in key ALL the time anyway, most DJ sets are already super boring because of to much harmony anyway.

why not mixing, jamming and rocking a floor in a hospital, at least you can be shure that it is very clean indeed.

damn get skills, and ROCK, BURN the floor. anyone going wild with a set being all smooth and homogene??

certainly NOT me!!

So say you have 2 sets - exactly the same tunes and track order in each, but one is mixed in key and one isn't. Is the one that is in tune gonna be any less rocking than the out of tune one?

I suppose my viewpoint wavers depending on the usage. It just reminds me of people who used to pre-plan their dj sets before a gig; in effect making sure there were no harmonic clashes. Personally, I always found it bizarre that someone would go to a gig and know exactly what 20-30 records they were going to play, in what order and when they'd drop them. In fact it's not bizarre, it's scary!

I guess it depends what you want to do as a dj. Some people are just dj's - they're not musicians or producers, and are happy just standing behind the decks playing other people's tunes one after the other for people to dance to, and nothing more.

Maybe I shouldn't call myself a dj - I like to take a lot more things into consideration. I wan't to make something thats good to listen to as well as dance to. And yes, I do have some things prepared before I go up on stage, but I still have the ability to adapt to the crowd and my set will never be the same twice. I'm doing a hell of a lot more than just pressing play, and probably doing a hell of a lot more than a lot of people who don't prepare anything. I often like to add in live instruments and scratching as well.
If you go to see a band, they will know exactly what they're gonna play, they've spent time rehearsing their set - and they can still rock a crowd. A scratch dj will spend months practicing his set, simply because he's trying to do something that isn't possible without some degree of practice and preparation.

Sorry for the rant, but this is what I do, it makes me happy - and harmonic mixing is a big part of it.

Good day

[SubFunk]

rokko asked:

So say you have 2 sets - exactly the same tunes and track order in each, but one is mixed in key and one isn't. Is the one that is in tune gonna be any less rocking than the out of tune one?

it depends, all i mean is that i am not a fan of sets or music being TO clinical, of course it has to have a sort of harmony and key structure in general, but nothing wrong with breaking it up here and there, to not be TO homogene.

that's why i don't understand those types of software, to me ears and feeling, especiallyl at the very moment working a crowd is more important, and for that you don't need to mix everything all the time in a perfect key.

but that is just my opinion, nothing else.

[Rokko]

Yeah man, a lot of the time the crowd won't really notice if a mix is harmonic or not. So my efforts may be wasted on most people, but if someone comes up to me after after to complement my mixing then it's all worth it.

[broken_specs]

I guess it depends what you want to do as a dj. Some people are just dj's - they're not musicians or producers, and are happy just standing behind the decks playing other people's tunes one after the other for people to dance to, and nothing more.

Maybe I shouldn't call myself a dj - I like to take a lot more things into consideration. I wan't to make something thats good to listen to as well as dance to. And yes, I do have some things prepared before I go up on stage, but I still have the ability to adapt to the crowd and my set will never be the same twice. I'm doing a hell of a lot more than just pressing play, and probably doing a hell of a lot more than a lot of people who don't prepare anything. I often like to add in live instruments and scratching as well.
If you go to see a band, they will know exactly what they're gonna play, they've spent time rehearsing their set - and they can still rock a crowd. A scratch dj will spend months practicing his set, simply because he's trying to do something that isn't possible without some degree of practice and preparation.

Sorry for the rant, but this is what I do, it makes me happy - and harmonic mixing is a big part of it.

Good day

Cool, agree with most of this, though the band anology is a bit wonky imho. A band can play the same set 100 times and each one can sound different depending on their energy and enthusiasm - things that are easier for the crowd to pick up on (as oppossed to a guy behind a laptop)

My assesment is you're not a dj. Which begs the question, what are you? Ignoring harmonic matching tools and just focusing on the joys of ableton alone serves this question up over and over.. Having to classify yourself as a dj is almost unfair. It doesn't do you justice, as perople instantly make an assumption about what it is you're doing up there. They're usually wrong!

I think my initial post on this topic was probably way too negative. There are lots of positives out of this i suppose, especially if you're already wringing every last drop out of your performance capabilites anyway - as you appear to be doing. Respect.

I just know loads of little punk ass wannabes will probably really take the p1ss with this stuff, lol.

Anyway, I'm off to harmocially match the lifes work of elton john, haddway, pavarotti, chaka demus and pliers and apache indian, all for the purpose of one hell of a mix i'm cooking up. Moms b'day present innit

[vandeloow]

whats different between a&h software and mixshare? mixshare is freeware.
http://www.mixshare.com/

same tools?

[Rokko]

Yeah I guess a lot of these bits of software are making it easier for people with no talent to call themselves a dj or whatever.
You're right - if i'm not a dj what am I? I have been billed as playing "live" on several occassions, which I wouldn't say is always true either.
I don't really care too much, I'm happy doing my thing, and the punters seem to enjoy it too. Everyone's a winner.

[adrianalex]

I bought Mixed in key a few months ago. I think I paid somewhere around forty dollars for it.

I love it, I don't use it all the time, but if you let it scan say a folder of 300 tracks before you dj, I find it gives me MORE freedom for djing. I use Ableton to dj with and I find even in big clubs crowds are Far less likely to notice if you don't warp your tracks and beatmatch sloppy sometimes (come on we all do it sometimes with a new track) than if you mix two tracks together with vocals in different keys.

Basically sometimes you can have vocals clashing, and if you use Mixed in Key, you can have your choice of 10 or 20 tracks to play next that FIT.

You are right it is not necessary. If you plan right ahead of time and keep your set small and know your music backwards and forwards, you don't need it. I often have new tracks to play and it is INVALUABLE.

I don't know what Allen and Heath is charging, probably too much. I sent a message to Ableton long ago asking for a feature like this. It would be INCREDIBLY useful if we could use it for loops.

Can we discuss this point and not rag on whether or not you are a god dj if you choose to use it?

[Rokko]

If Ableton was to have some kind of key calculation feature, surely this would happen at the same time as it analyzes the track before you warp it, so if you've already got it in ableton then it only takes you 10 seconds to work out the key yourself. It would be useful if ableton had such a feature, but the most useful part of things such as mixed in key is being able to browse through a database of all my mp3's sorted by key. I'm not going to get round to warping all 13,000.

As far as the difference between mixshare and the xone software goes. I think the mixshare one is Rapid Evolution, I tried this a couple of years ago. It appeared to have lots of features, but didn't seem that user friendly or stable. The a&h software is just mixed in key with xone branding, this is a lot simpler, but also stable and easy to use. This is not freeware though. Mixmeister's still the best that i've used, but sadly it's pc only and I don't want to put windows on my macbook just to use one piece of software.

[adrianalex]

Okay Rokko, but did you see my main point?

However much some people like to brag about their dj virtuosity by cliaming they can just feel a track and not need to rely on machines or programs to help them do that (I wonder why they still use Ableton and not vinyl)...music is harmonic.

A key analysis function might be a problem to analyze all of your mp3's, but what about if it just checked the key of a loop you were trying to drop. I mean people dont realize it sometimes but some drum sounds have a definite key and can clash with the bass, etc, etc....

Personally I think this is just something we should be asking for in the next version of Ableton.

My other request is that Ableton display the bitrate of my mp3's in the browser.


matter of fact I am going to start a thread for that right now.....

[adrianalex]

I should be more specific...A key analysis function would help you with loops in production, not so vital for djing, although that would be great with mp3's...When you drop a track to play it automatically warps, so even though you might not know it beforehand, you have enough info to tell you that if you are playing two tracks with heavy vocals and harmonics, they are going to clash.

Some of you might not see the utility, but I often mix rock songs and other types of music on top of my dance tracks on the fly, so this makes a big difference....It makes live "mashups" much easier to pull off..

[Rokko]

Yeah I agree, It would be very useful for dropping in loops on the fly in the correct key. I often drop in loops from old rock tunes and stuff as well.
Anything that makes you more aware of the key of the different elements of your music has got to be a good thing!