Harmonic Mixing is a DJ technique that is being embraced more and more lately, not just by the pros, but also by DJs of all styles and walks of life. It involves mixing tracks that are in the same musical key, or keys that compliment each other. If a mix is “in key” it means that the two (or more) songs that your mixing share the same set of notes, or similar sets of notes which gives the effect that the two songs are “singing” together. For example if you were to play two songs that are in the key of C Major, both songs will only have notes that are white keys on the piano. When you play the two songs together the notes from the songs will compliment each other when overlapped, and the two songs will play together in harmony.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Nowadays harmonic mixing is becoming an industry standard for professional DJs since it enables them to find tracks that sound amazing together quickly. The main tool for harmonic mixing is a program called Mixed In Key. Mixed In Key is a program that will analyze your music files and write the musical keys of your songs into the file (ID3) information of your tracks. You can choose to write the keys into the comments field, artist field, track name, or even the file itself. The keys will then show up in iTunes, Traktor, Serato or whatever other DJ program you choose to use.

Check out my article on Harmonic Mixing for more info on Harmonic Mixing and Harmonic Mixing techniques by clicking here.

Recently, Beatport, which is the most popular online store for dance music, has released a new, more user friendly version of their website.

One of the new features of the website is the musical keys are now written into files for each song you buy. They’ve also allowed for users to comment on the songs if the keys are incorrect on the site in their user voice section.

Ironically enough, just after Beatport announced that they are now writing the keys into their songs, Mixed In Key released the newest version of their Harmonic Mixing software, Mixed In Key 5 which has an improved key detection algorithm, as well as the ability to see key changes in the middle of a track and improved analysis for shorter samples.

Now that both Mixed In Key 5 and the new Beatport website are available to the public I thought it would be a good time to do another Harmonic Mixing Lab report DJ Endo style to see who has the best Key detection algorithm on the Market. You can see my previous lab report on Mixed In Key 4 Here: “Harmonic Mixing Part 3: How Accurate is Mixed In Key?” In this test, I’ve taken 100 songs that I’ve recently purchased from Beatport and compared my results (songs that I’ve manually found the key of using a piano) vs. Mixed In Key and Beatports results.

Just a little background on me, I’m classically trained and I’ve been keying EVERY song that I buy for about 6 years now on the Piano. I’ve been a hardcore beta tester for Mixed In Key since the beginning, and have sent them thousands of tracks that I’ve keyed on the piano to help with their algorithm. I am very confident that my results are 100% accurate.

View/download a chart with all of the results below:

On this chart are MY results (songs I have keyed on the piano), Mixed In Key 5’s results and Beatports results. Any song that was incorrectly analyzed is highlighted in BOLD letters. And in the Key Detection battle the winner is…

(drum roll please…)

MIXED IN KEY!

Here are the results from my testing:

Mixed In Key = 81% accurate

Out of 100 songs analyzed in Mixed In Key, 81 were correctly analyzed. Out of the songs that were incorrectly analyzed 10 of them were a fifth off, which means they were only one number off in the Camelot wheel (ex. 8A is analyzed in Mixed In Key as a 9A). Mind you, most of these tracks were tech house, deep house, and techno so all of them didn’t have strong harmonic content. Not too shabby!

Beatport = 68% accurate

Out of the 100 songs that I looked up on Beatport, only 68 of the songs had the keys correctly written in. Of the 32 tracks that were analyzed incorrectly, 8 of those tracks had the correct root note of the scale but they would show up as major key when the track was in a minor key and visa versa (example A Minor shows up as A Major or C Major shows up as C Minor). Also 8 of the tracks that were incorrectly analyzed, were analyzed a fifth off (ex. 8A analyzed as 9A on the Camelot wheel). The rest of the tracks were completely off.

As a conclusion, I have to say Mixed In Key 5 is AMAZING and has come a long way with its key detection! I was completely blown away by its accuracy. Any track with some kind of recognizable melody in it is usually analyzed correctly by Mixed In Key. I would highly recommend everyone upgrade to Mixed In Key 5. If you don’t have Mixed In Key yet, what are you waiting for?! Its under $60 and will completely change your DJ life forever!

Beatport on the other hand has a lot of improvement to do on their key detection. Hopefully their userbase helps out by posting on their user voice page with the correct keys, or they adopt a new key detection algorithm. However, The new Beatport website is completely aimed for the DJ, and I have been spending many all nighters digging through thousands of tracks on their website.

Congratulations to Beatport for the release of their new website, and congratulations to Mixed In Key for taking their software and DJing to the next level! But in the key detection battle, Mixed In Key wins this round!

DJ Endo is a DJ and product specialist for Native Instruments and lives in Brooklyn. Listen to his mixes on SoundCloud.
DJ Endo – Live @ Oil City Roadhouse [Edmonton, AB, Canada] – Opening Set for Pete Tong by DJ Endo

One of the main issues plaguing DJs in the world today is the overwhelming amount of music out there. In the digital world, it’s way too easy to “acquire” too much music and with tracks only costing $1-2 a track, you might find yourself buying a lot more music than when you had to spend $12 a record in the vinyl era. While it’s great to have so much amazing music, it is very easy to get buried in your own music collection and get overwhelmed.

I was a prime example of someone who got lost in my own music, and it got to the point where I didn’t know where any of my good tracks were anymore, and I would show up at gigs feeling unorganized, ears worn out from organizing my playlists for days, and DJing felt like such a chore because I had multiple music “collections”, and thousands of playlists that I was always having to update and I could never keep up on. I found myself spending most of my time organizing and hardly anytime playing, let alone living my life!

I found a solution that saved my DJ Life… SMART PLAYLISTS!

Smart Playlists are playlists that will automatically organize and filter your music for you based on “tags” you write into your tracks such as Artist, Genre, Year, Album, Play Count, Import Date, and Comment. Rather than having to spend hours making playlists, and remembering what you’ve “playlisted,” Smart Playlists do all the work for you. In this example I’ll be using iTunes.

Let me first show you how to make a smart playlist and give you some tips on some smart playlist ideas.

To create a smart playlist in I tunes click on “File” then select “New Smart Playlist…”

Now lets create an artist smart playlist. In the first drop down menu, select “ARTIST.” In the second dropdown menu select “IS”, then type your favorite artist’s name, then click “OK”.  You’ll Notice I Tunes has just moved all of the Artists tracks into a playlist for you automatically.

For a lot of dance music some artists do originals and remixes. You might notice in the Smart Playlist we just created, the artist’s originals are in the smart playlist but their remixes are not. Here is how you can edit a smart playlist and add attributes to it.

To edit a smart playlist, right click or ctrl click on the playlist you want to edit and choose “Edit”. Now lets add another attribute to this playlist. To do this, click the “+” button. Now you’ll have a second attribute you can add. Now select “TITLE” in the first field, “CONTAINS” in the second, then type in your favorite artists name in the third field. The next thing you need to decide if you want the smart playlist to match ALL the attributes or ANY of the attributes. Since you want original tracks by the artist (the artist field is your favorite artist) AND Remixes (their name shows in the title field), you will choose ANY. Also make sure Live Updating is turned on so it will be an Automated playlist. When you click “OK” now you will notice all of your favorite artist tracks are in the playlist as well as “track title (your favorite artist remix) “ are in the playlist as well.

In iTunes, here is what a Smart Playlist and a Regular Playlist look like:

You will find that once you get the hang of doing smart playlists, you will love them so much that you will want to do TONS of them. Before you go overboard with smart playlists, here is how I personally organize my playlists. I use “playlist folders”. The playlist folders are full of Smart Playlists. Here are some examples of my playlist folders:

“Year Playlists” – I have a year playlist folder for 2010 and 2011. These folders contain smart playlists such as  2011 House, 2011 Techno, 2011 Tech House, 2011 Breaks etc. For these playlists I use Attributes like “YEAR IS 2011” AND “GENRE IS TECH HOUSE”.

“Artist Playlists” – Contains Smart Playlists for artists that I frequently play out such as Carlo Lio, Gary Beck,  Kaiserdisco, Marco Effe, Mendo, MiniCoolBoyz, Nic Fanciulli and Stimming. I used Attributes like my example before (“ARTIST IS KAISERDISCO” AND TITLE CONTAINS KAISERDISCO”)

“Genre Playlists” – Contains Smart playlists for each Genre that I play such as Tech House, Techno, Breaks, House, Deep House etc. For these playlists I use attributes like “GENRE IS TECH HOUSE”, or “GENRE CONTAINS HOUSE” (this will get all tech house, deep house, classic house, house, and electro house).

“Color Playlists” – Pioneers Rekord Box inspired me to start making color playlists. Rekord Box is a free download on the Pioneer website that allows you to make playlists that can be read on CDJ 2000’s or CDJ 900’s.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rekord Box has a very handy column called “COLOR” where you can assign a color to each track. I use this to describe the mood of the track. Here is my coloring system:

RED – My “Love” tracks
BLUE – Club Bombs – for Dark Rooms and Big sound systems
YELLOW – Sunshine tracks
PINK – Models and Bottles – For the ladies
PURPLE – Obscure Banging Techno. Not for the faint of heart
ORANGE – Groovy Stuff, mainly Tech House
GREEN – Trippy Records
AQUA – Pool / Beach / Chill tracks

After coloring all my tracks in Rekord Box, I then select all tracks of one color and write the color into the “Album Artist” field in Rekord Box by selecting all the tracks of a color, clicking the “Info” button, and changing the Album Artist field to that Color. I do this because I tunes doesn’t have a color field. Then I go into I tunes and all I have to do is press play hold my right arrow key down so it goes through all my tracks and updates the tags. Its kind of a process but well worth it in the end!

Now that all my colors are in the Album Artist field in I tunes, I have smart playlists for color. The attributes are “ALBUM ARTIST IS BLUE”. I can even break it down to “ALBUM ARTIST IS BLUE AND GENRE IS TECHNO”.

“Comment Playlists” – It is the comments field that turns my music collection into a Google style smart playlist machine! For every track I listen all the way through and write every word that I can think of that describes the track. Here are some examples of terms I use in the comments Field:

Groover, Chiller, Banger, Peak, Classic, Closer, Opener, Deep, Jazzy, Progressive, Sexy,  Techy, Tribal, Vocal, Models and Bottles

Once I have all the comments written into my tracks, I can then make smart playlists based on comments. I can also take it to the next level and make creative smart playlists that mix my comments with genres. For example: “COMMENT CONTAINS GROOVER AND GENRE IS HOUSE” = Groovy House or “COMMENT CONTAINS BANGER AND GENRE IS TECHNO” = Banging Techno.

“KEY PLAYLISTS” – These are smart playlists based on the Mixed In Key software and the Camelot Sound Easy Mix System.

Mixed in Key is a program that costs only $50 and will go through your entire music collection and write the keys of every track into whatever ID3 tags you choose in the mixed in key preferences. I choose to write the keys before the “Comments” field as well as into the “Initial Key Tag (viewable in Traktor).

You can choose for Mixed In Key to write the actual key of the track (ex. Am, B, C) or the Camelot code (Ex. 8A, 9A, 10A).  These numbers refer to a certain key (4A= F Minor, 5A = C Minor), and if you know the Camelot code, you can follow the Camelot Easy Mix Chart, which will tell you what keys are compatible with each other. If you want to learn more about this, check out my Harmonic Mixing Tutorials.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Once I have the keys written in before the comments in I tunes, I then make smart playlists based on key.

Here are some attributes I use to make smart “key playlists”:

COMMENTS START WITH 8A – Makes a playlist of all tracks in A Minor

COMMENTS START WITH 8A AND GENRE IS HOUSE – All House Tracks in A Minor.

Once you have all of your Smart Playlists made, the next step is sorting your playlists. One of the best features in I tunes is that you can sort each playlist separately. You can sort your playlist by clicking on whatever field you’d like to sort by. I personally like to either sort my playlists by “Date Added” so the newest tracks show up at the top, or by “Comment” so the playlist is sorted by key.

Hopefully this article gave you some ideas about what you can do with Smart Playlists. These are all just examples of some Smart Playlists I use. I would play around with the different Attributes and experiment with making different playlists that suite your needs and your workflow. Once you have your smart playlists done, you will feel much more organized, and will be able to find those tracks you love much faster, and will spend more time DJing and less time organizing. Here’s to a more efficient DJ Life in 2011!

Native Instruments product specialist and Dubspot Instructor Mike Henderson aka DJ Endo explains and demonstrates the incredible audio processing, DJing, and performance possibilities of Dell’s powerful Studio XPS laptop running Windows 7. In this new video Endo creates a next level Traktor DJ setup called The Mothership.  Using the Studio XPS laptop along with NI’s Audio 8 interface and the Kensington USB hub, Endo connects a series of Native Instruments next generation DJ controllers and gear including a mapped-out Maschine for auto-synching and beat-matchining, two Traktor Kontrol X1 for browsing/scrolling through tracks, controlling effects panels, and Traktor Kontrol S4 for advanced controllerisms using the decks. Lastly, Endo goes into Traktor and shows us how to navigate the preferences, device setups, and load up the Settings for The Mothership (click link to download settings.)

DJ Endo and DJ Shiftee are the designers of Dubspot’s upcoming Digital Djing with Traktor program, which you can find more details about below. You can listen to his mixes on SoundCloud, follow him on Twitter, & find him on Facebook.

Digital DJing w/ Traktor Pro 2 Program

Three levels / 12 sessions / 21 hours of hands-on instruction + labs

Courses:

• Digital DJing w/ Traktor Pro 2 Level 1: Introduction to DJing
• Digital DJing w/ Traktor Pro 2 Level 2: Phrase Mixing
• Digital DJing w/ Traktor Pro 2 Level 3: Beyond The Beatmatch

To reflect this renaissance, Dubspot has created the Digital DJing with Traktor program. In both our physical and online schools, students will learn how to DJ entirely with Traktor’s cutting-edge technology. An emphasis will be placed on the concepts of DJing rather than simply learning how to use the software. Starting with a historical overview, students will learn the fundamental concepts of the DJ via Traktor’s intuitive interface. They will then begin to delve into the vast array of new possibilities offered by this groundbreaking software, recording their work along the way. Students will leave with finished DJ mixes, a thorough introduction to DJing with Traktor, and a skill set and knowledge base perfect for further development.

Dubspot Instructor and product specialist for Native Instruments Mike Henderson aka DJ Endo answers a question on the minds of many Traktor enthusiasts and Ableton Live users, one of the most frequently asked questions he receives as a Native Instruments DJ expert; How can I sync Ableton Live to Traktor? In this new tutorial video, Endo shows you how to use both programs on one computer, using a single audio interface. As long as your beatgrids in Traktor are set correctly and your tracks are properly warped in Ableton, you can mix tracks in Traktor and play loops and instruments in Ableton Live and everything will be perfectly beatmatched! Check out the video, read the article, and let us know if you have questions by leaving a comment below!

One of the most common questions I get as Traktor specialist is, “How can I sync Ableton Live to Traktor?” A common misconception is that in order to do this, you must have two computers, and two audio interfaces. This is not true. You can actually use both programs simultaneously on one computer, using one audio interface. As long as your Beatgrids in Traktor are set correctly, and your tracks are warped correctly in Ableton, you can mix tracks in Traktor, while playing your loops or other instruments in Ableton Live and everything will be perfectly beatmatched.

Some artists that are currently using Traktor and Ableton together live are Dubfire, Pete Tong, Carl Craig, Chris Liebing, Davide Squillace, Richie Hawtin and Luciano. I set up Dubfire, Pete Tong and Chris Liebing to do this, and all of them use Ableton in different ways with Traktor. Dubfire and Chris Liebing use Ableton as a host for Maschine, where each “Group” or drum bank in Maschine is routed to its own audio channel in Ableton. Pete Tong uses Ableton to play loops over whatever he is playing in Traktor.

Not too long ago, the only way to sync Ableton and Traktor (that I knew of) was to use a MIDI cable. I would actually plug the MIDI on my Audio 8 DJ into itself by plugging the MIDI output into the MIDI Input on the Audio 8 DJ. This would in a way trick the computer into thinking it was reading a different MIDI clock source when it was really just reading its own! This method however wasn’t very stable. In a recent Traktor update, Native Instruments introduced Traktor’s Virtual MIDI Output Port, which means you can send MIDI internally inside your computer from Traktor to any other program that receives MIDI and visa versa.

Setting up Traktor and Ableton to sync together takes a little time (hopefully no more than 15 minutes), but once you have the two programs sync’d to one another, you shouldn’t have to mess with the settings much after that since they will be saved for the next time you play.

To Sync Traktor and Ableton you will go through the following steps.

In Traktor open your preferences (the Gear Icon in the upper right hand side of the screen)

Go to the MIDI Clock section of the Preferences and turn on the option for “Send MIDI Clock.” I always keep the MIDI Clock sending offset at zero ms.

Make sure your soundcard is set to “Audio 8 DJ” or whatever soundcard you are using for both programs. Also make sure your “Output Routing” is set correctly.

Next thing your going to want to do is go to the Layout Manager tab and make sure your Global section is showing, so you can see the Master Clock and Effects at the top.

Now we’re going to make a new MIDI device in the controller editor so that Traktor can send MIDI clock to Ableton. We can do this by performing the following actions:

1) Go to Preferences / Controller Manager

2) Under the “Device” dropdown menu click on “Add” and then select “Generic MIDI”. This will add a new MIDI device, which in this case is simply a port to send MIDI clock.

3) Rename this device by clicking on “Edit” under the Device dropdown menu, and name this device “CLOCK”

4) Next to the device called “CLOCK” you are going to set the “Out-Port” to “Traktor Virtual MIDI” by clicking on the drop down menu under “Out-Port” and selecting “Traktor Virtual MIDI.” Also set the In-Port to “None” to prevent any MIDI loops.

5) Now you are going to make sure no other device is sending MIDI clock through this port. You will do this by selecting each device in the “Device” menu and setting the Out Port to whatever the controllers port is (example – Allen & Heath Xone 2D). You want to make sure that *no* Out Port is set to “All Ports”
6) For the clock device, make sure the device target is set to Focus.

The next thing we’re going to do is set Ableton Live to receive MIDI clock from Traktor. We can do this by doing the following:

1) Open Ableton Live and go to the Preferences window

2) Click on the “MIDI / SYNC” Tab

3) Where it says “Input – Traktor Virtual Output” in the MIDI Ports section, make sure the Sync button is highlighted.

4) When you turn the Sync button on in the Ableton preferences, you’ll notice there is now a little window next to Ableton’s Master Clock that’s called EXT. Click on this button. Now Ableton is able to receive external MIDI clock from other applications.

5) Next set up your Audio setup in Ableton by selecting your soundcard (audio output device), and choosing the appropriate outputs for the Master channel in Ableton.

Now that we’ve created a virtual device to send MIDI clock in Traktor, and set up Ableton to receive this clock signal from Traktor, now we’re going to start sending MIDI Clock from Traktor into Ableton. Here’s how to do it.

1) At the top of the Traktor screen click on the Metronome Icon next to the effects panel. This will show the Master Clock panel of Traktor.

2) Click on the Play | Pause button in the Master Clock Panel. This will send MIDI clock out of Traktor. I like to have the Master Clock Mode be in “Auto” Mode (which means whatever deck has been playing the longest is the Master Deck), but if you are just using controllers you might want to use “Internal” Master Clock Mode.

3) Press the Sync button in Traktor’s MIDI Clock panel. This will tell Ableton where the ‘one’ is in the track (the first beat in a measure) and will start playback in Ableton. You should see a flashing light next to the EXT button in Ableton, indicating that its receiving MIDI clock and that Ableton playing.

Now that we have MIDI clock sending from Traktor to Ableton, now we have to make sure the two programs are in SYNC with each other by adjusting Ableton’s MIDI Clock Sync Delay, and using the metronome from both programs to Match both programs. Here is how we do this:

1) In Traktor’s Master Clock panel, turn on the Tick button. Also turn on the Cue button for Deck A. This will make it so you can hear a metronome (click) sound representing Traktor’s master clock.

2) With the Play button enabled in Traktor’s Master Clock panel, Click on the SYNC button in Traktor’s Master Clock to make sure its sending MIDI clock.

3) In Ableton, turn on the Metronome by clicking on the metronome button in the Master Clock section. Now you should have an Audible Metronome playing in both programs.

4) The next thing you are going to do is adjust the MIDI Clock Sync Delay in Ableton, so that the metronomes in both programs are playing perfectly in Sync. To do this, go to the Ableton Preferences – MIDI / SYNC. Where says “Input – Traktor Virtual Output” in the MIDI Ports section, click on the little arrow to the left of “INPUT” to open up the advanced MIDI clock preferences.

5) We are now going to beatmatch the two metronomes by adjusting the MIDI Clock Sync Delay bar. We can just click on this Bar and drag it up and down until both Metronomes are playing perfectly in sync. I had to adjust my MIDI Clock Sync Delay to about 14ms, but that value is different on other computers.

Once Traktor and Ableton are in Sync, we can then play tracks in Traktor, and have loops and instruments running at the same time in Ableton! Its even possible to share an audio output on the same Audio interface for both programs if you wanted to say, run 4 decks in Traktor out of the Audio 8 DJ, and share output 4 with both Traktor & Ableton.

Happy Mixing!

DJ Endo

Mike Henderson aka DJ Endo is a DJ and product specialist for Native Instruments and lives in Brooklyn. Listen to his mixes on SoundCloud, follow him on Twitter, & find him on Facebook.

Learn how to map Triple-Macro Hotkeys with Traktor. In this video Native Instruments DJ Product Specialist and Dubspot Instructor DJ Endo takes you through the steps on how to customize your keyboard mapping and map multiple commands to a single key. Endo demonstrates this by creating a MIDI/HotKey command (map/Mapping Triple Micro HotKey) which allows you to “do three things in one action,” just by pushing a key! This enables you to jump to the first cue point, play and enable sync all with a single key press.

Here is a handy Trick you can do in Traktor Pro that will save you a lot of time mixing in your tracks. It is called a Cue / Play / Sync button. This command is called a “Triple Macro” and will perform 3 actions at the same time with one click of a button. Setting double and triple macros will increase your workflow dramatically since you are saving 2-3 steps with one click of a button.

The following trick is a one button solution to beatmatching and DJ mixing.

This command works best when you have correct beatgrids set for your tracks, with all of your beatgrid markers mapped to Cue Point slot 1 in Traktor Pro (in the Cue section).

Before I explain how to set this command, here is the reasoning behind why I use this magic button in my DJ sets.

When mixing with Vinyl or CDJs, before you can mix your next song in, you have to first find the first beat (Cue) or “the one” of your track. Then you have to play the track, and then adjust the tempo and nudge the track forwards and backwards and change the pitch (tempo) until both tracks are in phase (beats are synchronized) with each other, and then you have to keep the two tracks beatmatched (sync’d) manually until the mix is over. With todays technology, why not just take these 3-4 steps and make them into one step?

When setting this keyboard shortcut or midi command you can perform all three of these actions with one click of a button, and save all the time you would spend cuing the track up, playing the track and manually syncing the track, saving you minutes in each mix. This trick is great for any DJ who plays using MIDI controllers or Hotkeys to DJ in Traktor.

To program this command to a MIDI Note or Keyboard shortcut:

1) Open Traktor’s preferences
2) Go to the controller manager

3) Select the device “generic keyboard” or choose your MIDI device.

We are now going to make our three commands

PLAY

1) Click on the “Add In” button
2) Select “Transport” / “Play Pause.”

3) Click on the “Learn” button
4) Push the button or key that you want to assign as your “Cue / Play / Sync” button. You should then see a MIDI note or keyboard letter appear in the box next to learn.
5) Select the deck you want to assign this to (I always choose “Device Target” so whatever deck is highlighted is the one I’ll be playing
6) Set your interaction mode to “Direct”
7) Change the “set to value” field to “1″ (1 this means ON where 0 means OFF). * note – You might have to change the interaction mode to “0″ and then back to “1″. Its a small bug in older versions of Traktor.*
8) The “Type of Controller” field will be “Button”

SYNC

1) Click on the “Add In” button
2) Select “Tempo” / “Sync”

3) Click on the “Learn” button
4) Push the button or key that you want to assign as your “Cue / Play / Sync” button. You should then see a MIDI note or keyboard letter appear in the box next to learn.
5) Change the Assignment to “Device Target”
6) Set your interaction mode to “Direct”
7) Change the “Set To Value” field to “1″. * note – You might have to change the interaction mode to “0″ and then back to “1″. Its a small bug in older versions of Traktor.*
8) The “Type of Controller” field will be “Button”

CUE

1) Click on the “Add In” button
2) Select “Cue / Loops”
3) Click on “Select / Set + Store Hotcue”

4) Click on the “Learn” button
5) Push the button or key that you want to assign as your “Cue / Play / Sync” button. You should then see a MIDI note or keyboard letter appear in the box next to Learn.
7) Change the Assignment to “Device Target”
8) Set your interaction mode to “Hold”
9) Set your “Set To Value” field to “Hotcue 1″

You will notice that all three of the commands you just programmed will be highlighted. This means that the same button is doing three separate things at once.

Once you are done programming, press play a track in Deck A, then load a track into Deck B
Click on the deck header in Deck B so the deck is highlighted
Click on your “Magic Button” (whatever button you chose) and you will be in the mix!
You will notice that the PLAY button is ON, the SYNC button is ON, and the track jumps to CUE POINT 1 when you press the button.

Usually when I’m DJing with strictly controllers, I will just leave sync on the whole set, and click my “Magic Button” on “the one” for each mix. Since all my load markers are mapped to cue point 1 and all my Beatgrids are done perfectly I know that when I hit the “Magic Button” all of my beatmatching is done and my mix will be phrased correctly (on the 1), so I can now focus on more creative things such as beatjumps, loops and effects.

If you do not know how to do beatgrids correctly, here is a video I did on how to do perfect beatgrids.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here is an older video that Richie Hawtin did on how to set Double Macros

Click here to view the embedded video.

Happy Mixing!

- DJ Endo

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Was this helpful to you? Do you have questions? Leave us a comment below! DJ Endo is a DJ and product specialist for Native Instruments and lives in Brooklyn. Listen to mixes from him at www.djendo.com.

Mixed in Key is changing the face of the DJ world as we know it. By analyzing your digital music files, Mixed in Key can detect the musical key of each one of your songs, and it actually writes the song’s musical key directly into the audio file, so you can view the musical keys in programs such as iTunes, Traktor, Ableton Live, Serato and more, allowing DJs to sort their playlists by key so you can quickly find tracks that are in harmony with each other. This $58 software can save you a lifetime of sitting in your DJ room with a piano writing all the keys on your record sleeves. You literally run your music collection overnight and the next day you are reborn as a harmonic mixing DJ and will never turn back!

While all of this is a dream come true for some, a lot of people argue about how accurate Mixed In Key really is. There have been studies out there comparing Mixed In Key’s results with musical databases, but the studies were mostly done for rock, Alternative, Pop and Top 40 Songs. What I wanted to see was how accurate Mixed In Key was for Dance Music. I took 200 of my best House, Tech House, Techno, Progressive House and Breaks tracks, and keyed them all one by one manually on a piano. I made a spreadsheet that compared all of my results with Mixed in Keys results.

I was able to gather some very interesting data about how accurate the program really is for the music I play. I double-checked all of the tracks to make sure my results were completely accurate.

If you’d like to see the entire chart with all of my results, you can view the chart here. If you look at the chart you will see that I noted Mixed In Key’s results, as well as my results from using the piano to figure out the key. I also looked up each tracks Genre on Beatport just for fun, and to get genre specific data. Out of all the data I collected here are some interesting facts I discovered based on the 200 Dance Music tracks I tested with.
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Five Facts About Mixed In Key

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Mixed In Key is 86% Accurate for Dance Music. Genre wise, I found that it correctly guessed 85% of my House, Progressive House, and Tech House. Electro House was 86% accurate. It was most accurate for breaks which were 93% Correct. Techno was least accurate out of all of the genres, and was 70% accurate. I was actually expecting a lot less than this based on an old test I did with Mixed In Key 3 (37% accurate for Techno). Big improvement!

Mixed in Key Incorrectly guessed the keys of 14% of my tracks. However I found that out of the tracks that were incorrectly guessed, 59% of those tracks were guessed to be in harmonically compatible keys. Out of the tracks that were incorrectly guessed by mixed in key, 32% were guessed to be in a subdominant or dominant key, which are harmonically compatible with each other (ex. 5A-C Minor was analyzed in M.I.K. as 6A-G Minor). And 11% of the tracks incorrectly analyzed in Mixed in Key were guessed to be in Relative Minor / Major keys (9A-9B), Subdominant / Dominant Major or Minor keys (9B-8A) which are also harmonically compatible.

I found that the program is just as accurate for major and minor keys based on my results. 88% of the tracks in major keys were guessed correctly while 87% of the tracks in minor keys were guessed correctly.

I also found that Mixed In Key correctly analyzed 100% of all of my tracks in A Minor! It guessed 25 out of 25 of my tracks in A Minor correctly. This was great news because A Minor is the most popular key in my music collection. Here is a mix I did entirely in the Key of A Minor. Result: A+ for Mixed In Key!

DJ Endo – Algorhythms in A Minor [Radio Mix] by DJ Endo

Mixed in Key also correctly analyzed every track that was in G Minor, which is my 3^rd most popular key. I’ve found G Minor to be a very funky key. Here is a mix I did entirely in the key of G Minor. Mixed in Key also almost got all of my tracks in F Minor correct as well (94%), which happens to be my second most common key in my track collection:

DJ Endo – Algorhythms in G Minor [Radio Mix] by DJ Endo

Here is a mix I did entirely in the key of F Minor. B Minor and E Minor tracks were also very correctly guessed (92% accurate), and both keys are very popular in my collection as well as F sharp minor (90%):

DJ Endo – Algorhythms in F minor [Radio Mix] by DJ Endo

Here is a Mix I did in the key of F# Minor. The only key I noticed that was incorrectly guessed a lot was D Minor. Out of the 19 tracks in my study that were in D Minor, only 8 were guessed correctly (42%). Even so, when I add up all the results from the most popular keys that I play in, about 93% of the tracks in those keys were correctly guessed in mixed in key.

DJ Endo – Algorhythms in F sharp minor [Radio DJ Set] *Free Download* – WAV by DJ Endo

As you can see by these results Mixed In Key is a serious tool for DJ’s looking to improve their musicality, and is very accurate when analyzing the keys. you don’t have mixed in key yet, you better get it soon or you will get left in the dust!  It will change your DJ life forever.

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Endo is a DJ and product specialist for Native Instruments and lives in Brooklyn. Listen to mixes from him atwww.djendo.com.

Twitter DJ is a free application made by Bryan McDade of Richie Hawtin’s Label, Minus Recordings. The application works with Native Instruments DJ Software, Traktor Pro. What it does is uses Traktor’s broadcasting technology and gets ID3 Information (Artist – Title) from Traktor Pro, and broadcasts the track listing LIVE on twitter as the DJ is playing their set. So you could be on the dance floor with your cell phone watching what the DJ is playing in real time if you follow them on Twitter. This not only allows you to see how a DJ builds up a set, and what their favorite producers are, but also allows the producers who are making the music to see who’s playing their tracks.

I’ve been using Twitter DJ now for about a year, and when I’m able to use it is very exciting. I am constantly getting tweets from some of my favorite producers thanking me for playing their tracks. Lately, I’ve actually been adding the artist’s twitter screen names to my tracks in Traktor. For example, if the Producers name is Carlo Lio, I will add Carlo’s twitter handle after his name (ex. Carlo Lio @CarloLio), so the minute I play his track, my twitter will read “DJEndoLive is now playing Carlo Lio @CarloLio – Sammy’s Revenge” and Carlo will see it as I’m playing it. He will also see in my twitter feed “DJEndoLive is starting to play from Voyeur Nightclub – San Diego, CA” so he’ll know where I played his track. I’ve also been also experimenting with writing #nowplaying in my tweets so my set is in the trending topic #nowplaying on Twitter. I’ve found this helps get me more followers.

Right now only a handful of DJ’s are using Twitter DJ. One of the main reasons is because of how difficult and tedious the program is to install. To get twitter DJ working, you must go into the mac terminal and type all kinds of weird code. You also must install Xcode, Icecast and MacPorts. This installation takes a long time and is very complex. Most users will give up and download the simpler Twitter application for Traktor called Metadata made by Disconova which takes only a few minutes to get up and running.

One issue I’ve had with Twitter DJ is a lot of clubs don’t have wifi, or internet connections. You need to be online for Twitter DJ to work. The other issue is the wifi network has to be stable, otherwise Traktor will have audio dropouts when your computer tries to connect to an unstable network. This is true for all audio applications on mac. So if you use it, you want to make sure you have a stable Internet connection, preferably using an Ethernet cable.

While this technology is only beginning to be embraced by DJs, and was originally just made for trainspotters on the dancefloor, I believe that in the long run it has the potential to change the music industry as we know it getting independent artists paid by performance right societies such as ASCAP and SESAC who tend to overlook independent artists. But for now, it is a great way to entertain your fans and bring good music to those who seek it out.

Written by Dubspot Instructor and DJ product specialist for Native Instruments Mike Henderson aka DJ Endo

Have you ever heard two songs that when mixed together, sounded like they were “meant to be” and went perfectly together from beginning to end, and almost appeared to be singing together? Most likely, the reason these two songs probably sounded so good together is because they are “in key” with one another. A key is the major or minor scale around which a piece of music revolves. For example, a song in the key of C Minor has its harmonic center or “do” at C, and revolves around a minor scale.

More and more DJ’s today are mixing “in key” or mixing “harmonically.” Some DJ’s who use Harmonic Mixing religiously include Armin Van Buuren, BT, David Guetta, DJ Shadow, DJ Skribble, Dubfire, Enferno, Marcus Shulz, Nic Fanciulli, Nick Warren, Paul Okenfold, Pete Tong, Reid Speed, Roger Sanchez, Saeed Younan, Spor, Tiesto, and Z-Trip.

In order to mix harmonically, DJs must know the musical keys of all of the records they play. Once they know the key of all their tracks, they can then sort their music collection by key, and play tracks that are in the same or complimenting keys, so that the songs they play will appear to “sing” together, and DJs will have full control over the energy of the room by picking keys that boost, and lower the energy of the crowd. Not only will Harmonic mixing help you choose records that are musically compatible quicker, and make your DJ sets flow better, but it will also sonically improve your sound since you are playing tracks that compliment each others frequencies. When you mix harmonically, your vocals, melodies, and basslines will be in key, and will blend musically, making your tracks appear to “sing” with one another.

Harmonic Mixing works for every genre of music from Hip Hop, House, Dubstep to Ambient and Techno. Even wedding DJ’s and Radio DJ’s who don’t mix will benefit from Harmonic Mixing.  Artists and bands who are putting out albums can order their albums by key to sell more records since it keeps their listeners interested and wanting more with each song. Producers can benefit from harmonic mixing because they can figure out the key of all their musical loops and samples and find samples that are in the key of the track they are making.

One thing you might be saying to yourself at this point is “This is all great, but I don’t know anything about music theory.” Well, fear not. Today there is technology that will actually go through your entire music collection and write the musical keys into the metadata of your songs, so you can then view the keys in Traktor, iTunes, Ableton, Serato or whatever your DJ Program of choice is.

The most popular Harmonic Mixing software is called Mixed In Key – an application in which you simply drop all your music folders into the Mixed in Key Window, click the “Analyze” button, and when its done scanning you will see the keys appear in the Artist, Comments, Title, or Key field depending on which field you choose in the Mixed in Key preferences. Not only can you scan your music files in Mixed In Key, but it also works great for keying acapellas so your mashups are in key.

Once you’re done scanning all of your music, there is a simple chart you can follow called the Camelot wheel that will tell you which keys are compatible. The Camelot wheel can be found on Harmonic-Mixing or Mixed In Key. On this wheel, musical keys can be seen as “hours” on a clock. For example 4 o’clock corresponds to 4B or 4A. The “B” letter represents Major Keys, and the “A” letter represents the Minor Keys. To follow the chart, you can mix between songs by subtracting one “hour” (-1), adding one “hour” (+1) or staying in the same “hour”. So if you are in the key of “4A” , the next song can be 3A, 4A, or 5A. Its just like subtracting or adding one “hour.”

Music Theory wise, the Camelot wheel represents the Circle of Fifths. The Circle of Fifths shows the relationships among the twelve tones of the chromatic scale, their corresponding key signatures and their associated relative minor and major keys. It is really helpful when you are composing melodies and harmonies and moving in keys within a composition. For DJs it is just a handy chart that will tell you what tracks will go well together. Here are some examples of key combinations I like to use that you can try when you’re Harmonic Mixing and what effect it will have musically and on the energy of the crowd.

Staying in the same key (4A – 4A) (F Minor – F Minor) – These tracks will both be in the same key and are therefore perfectly compatible harmonically. Playing two tracks in the same key will give the effect that the tracks are singing together.

Moving up a Fifth (+1 on the Camelot Wheel) (4A-5A) (F Minor – C Minor) – This will raise the energy in the room. Harmonically these two keys are almost perfectly compatible. Only one note is different between the two scales.

Going down a Fifth (-1 on the Camelot Wheel) (4A – 3A) (F Minor – B flat Minor) – I like to say this type of mix will take the crowd deeper. The tracks will sound great together. It won’t raise the energy necessarily but will give your listeners goosebumps!

Going from Relative Minor to Relative Major (Change Letter on the Camelot Wheel) (4A-4B) (F Minor – A flat Major) – This combination will likely sound good because the notes of both scales are the same, but the root note is different. The energy of the room will change dramatically.

Going from Minor to Major (+3 and change letters on the Camelot wheel) (4A-7B) (F Minor – F Major) – While these keys might have 3 notes that are different, the root note is the same and can give a great musical effect on the dancefloor, either brightening the mood or darkening the mood.

Going up a Minor Third (-3 on the Camelot Wheel) (4A – 1A) (F Minor – A flat Minor) – While these scales have 3 notes that are different I’ve found that they still sound good played together, and tend to raise the energy of a room.

Going up a Half Step (Modulation Mixing) – (+7 on the Camelot Wheel)(4A-11A)(F Minor – F Sharp Minor) – While these two scales have almost no notes in common, musically they shouldn’t sound good together but I’ve found if you plan it right and mix a percussive outro of one song with a percussive intro of another song, and slowly bring in the melody this can have an amazing effect musically and raise the energy of the room dramatically.

Going up a whole step (Modulation mixing) (+2 on the Camelot wheel) (4A – 6A) (F Minor – G Minor) – This will raise the energy of the room. I like to call it “hands in the air” mixing, and others might call it “Energy Boost mixing”.

Playing the Dominant Key of the Relative Major / Minor Key (+1 on the Camelot Wheel and change the letter)(4A-5B or 5B-4A)(F Minor to Eb Major) – I’ve found this is the best way to go from Major to Minor keys and from Minor to Major because the scales only have one note difference and the combination sounds great

Playing the Sub Dominant key of the Relative Major / Minor Key (-1 on the Camelot Wheel and change the letter)(4B-3A)(A flat Major to B flat Minor) – This is similar to playing the Dominant key of the Relative Major or Minor key, and is another great way to transition between major and minor scales, since the scales are only different by 1 note, and also sounds really good harmonically.

It is important to note that the Camelot system is a simplified view of harmonic mixing, and assumes that the tracks being played are either at the same BPM, or that the DJ is using “Key Lock” or “Master Tempo” on the CDJ’s or DJ program they are using. Key Lock and Master Tempo keeps the original key of the track, no matter what the tempo its being played at. If key lock is not on, then every 6% (technically 5.94631%) change in speed will shift the key up a half step (example a track in C Minor played at 6% is now in C sharp minor).

In the past I would’ve advised against using key lock because you may lose a lot of bass and high frequencies in your tracks, and also get unwanted sound artifacts if your tracks are pitched up or down from their original speed. However recently Traktor Pro and Ableton Live 8 licensed the new Elastique Pro key lock algorithm that sounds amazing. With the new key lock algorithm, it is almost impossible to tell the difference in sound quality with key lock on or off. Since this was released I rarely turn key lock off when I am DJing in Traktor Pro.

There has been a lot of controversy in the DJ scene about Harmonic Mixing. Most people who are against it usually haven’t tried it themselves, and once they do are blown away by the results. Some common complaints from the Harmonic Mixing ‘haters’ are “I do it all by ear” or “I just go with the flow and play what sounds good”.

Well the truth is good DJ’s usually CAN do it by ear, but most of their good track combinations came from a lot of trial and error, and practicing. Technically speaking, there are 24 possible keys in western music (12 minor and 12 major), and out of the 24 keys, only 6 keys are harmonically compatible with any given key (4 are in perfect harmony and 2 are in reasonable harmony). So only 25% of all possible choices are harmonically compatible. This means that if you don’t know the keys of your tracks your probably going to waste 75% of your time looking for the “right track”.

In the new digital age, we are bombarded with so much music that we don’t have the time to go through every release and figure out what goes well with it. Using mixed in key makes it possible to intelligently and quickly pick tracks that go well together and will make your music world much smaller, which in this day in age is a good thing.

Sure, just because tracks are in key with one another doesn’t mean they will work at that moment, or work at all together. However, you will at least know what WON’T go well together. I’m not saying by any means to be a slave to harmonic mixing but it will at least present you with some great options and combinations of what WILL work harmonically. Then its just a matter of picking that track that fits the vibe, keeps the pace, tells the story and rocks the house!

DJ Endo – Live on Algorhythms – set in D minor [Radio Set - No Voiceovers] by DJ Endo

DJ Endo – Algorhythms in G Minor [Radio Mix] by DJ Endo

DJ Endo – Algorhythms in F minor [Radio Mix] by DJ Endo

DJ Endo – Algorhythms in A Minor [Radio Mix] by DJ Endo

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Free lessons on scales, roots notes, and more music theory topics discussed in the video, please check out musictheory.net

Mike is also leading workshops on Traktor at Dubspot, including a new advanced edition.  Check out the blog entry on all our new workshops, or call 212-242-2100 for more details.

Beatgridding in Traktor

Traktor Scratch Pro and Traktor Pro have proven to be the industry standard in DJ Software.  Traktor can help your DJ workflow tremendously depending on how much work you put into preparing your tracks.  Whether you are using Vinyl, CD’s, MIDI controllers, or even a mouse, Traktor has a very handy button called the “Sync” button.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The proper use of the Sync feature is commonly misunderstood in Traktor.  A common complaint with Traktor is “I press the sync button, and everything goes off.” This problem occurs because Traktor needs to know where the downbeats are in your tracks, as well as the speed (BPM) of your tracks. This is where beatgrids come into play. Beatgrids are the backbone of Traktor.

A Beatgrid is a series of Gridlines set across your tracks that mark the downbeats of your track, and tell Traktor the BPM of the track.

They are like Warp markers in Ableton Live, except setting a beatgrid in Traktor is much easier.  Once you set a beatgrid for your track, the BPM reading of your track will be accurate to the 1/1000th of a BPM, and if you are mixing it with another track that is beatgridded you can visually mix using Traktor’s Phase Meters.

Below is my method of beatgridding in Traktor. Some artists I’ve trained such as Victor Calderone, Dubfire and Nic Fanciulli use this method religiously for every track they play.

I would do all of your beatgrids in your headphones since the music is directly in your ear. I would also recommend doing beatgrids at home or on the flight to your gig, and not live at the gig.

1) Make sure Traktor’s Auto Beatmarker function is turned on by going to Preferences / File Management / BPM Detection Range / and turning on the option “Set Beatgrid when detecting BPM Range”. With this option enabled, Traktor will automatically set a beat marker in your track where it thinks the first downbeat is located. You also might want to change the BPM detection range to the Tempo (BPM) range that you usually DJ at.

2) Next you want Traktor to analyze your new tracks when you load them into a Deck. You will turn on this option by going to the Traktor Preferences / File Management and turning on the option to “Analyze New Tracks when loading into Deck”.  So, when you load a track into a Deck in Traktor for the first time, Traktor will Analyze the gain, transients, and BPM – and with the Auto Grid function turned on, it will place a beatmarker where it thinks the first downbeat is in the track.

3) To make sure you can hear Traktor’s Metronome over the track that you’re beatgridding, set Output routing to  “EXTERNAL” mode by going to the Traktor Preferences / Output routing and changing the output routing to “External”. Also make sure you have an output set for Deck A. For example, if you were using your built in output (Mac’s built in speakers or headphone output), I would set the output for Deck A to Output 1 and 2.

4) In the Traktor Preferences set the Mouse Control to “SNAP” mode by going to Preferences / Transport, and changing the Mouse Control Mode to “SNAP”. This will make it so you can click directly on the transients (kicks, snares etc) inside the track with your mouse. Also Make sure the option to Highlight Beatmarkers is turned on in Preferences / Global View Options

5) The next thing you will want to do is turn the “Cue” button on for Deck A on Traktor’s Mixer, and also turn the tick button on in the Master Panel. This will make it so you can hear a metronome over the track loaded in Deck A.

6) Next open your “Grid” panel in Traktor by clicking on the Arrow beneath the “Active” button in Deck A, and then click on the “Grid” button to open the Grid panel.

7) Now, load a new, unanalyzed track into Deck A in Traktor. When Traktor is finished analyzing the track, you’ll notice a white marker in the Track. This is your auto-beat marker. You’ll also notice a series of evenly spaced white lines across the track. This is your beatgrid. Each of these white lines is where Traktor thinks the beats are in the track.

8) Zoom in as far as possible on the waveform by using the + and – buttons in the deck. Click on the top waveform (in the deck) and click on the first kick drum in the Track with your mouse. You can sample the kick drum by clicking the mouse button and holding it. It is best to set your grid markers on the first beat of a bar.

9) Once you’ve found the first kick drum, set a 4 beat loop starting at this point by clicking on the number “4″ beneath Deck A.

Now click on the play button and listen to how the Metronome lines up with the Track.

10) While the loop is playing, you will want to shift the grid left and right with the top 2 MOVE GRID Buttons. This will shift the entire grid left and right. Keep moving the grid left and right until the metronome is perfectly in sync with your track. If you are new to doing beatgrids, I recommend shifting your grid far to the left and far to the right of the beat, so you can hear how it sounds when the tick is off beat, and then adjusting it back onto the beat – not unlike tuning a guitar. If you need to move the grid faster, you can hold the control button. In this step you are only using the TOP 2 Grid buttons. Do not touch the bottom 2 yet.

11) Now that you have the first 4 beats perfectly synchronized to your metronome, let the track play by clicking on the loop button (4). Now you are going to listen to see if the metronome stays on beat with the track as you skip forward in the track. If it does, then skip through the song by clicking on the waveform and listening at different points of the song to make sure its on beat, then skip to the end.

If the metronome is drifting off beat, listen to the track from the beginning and use the bottom 2 BPM INC / DEC buttons to make the grid lines closer or farther apart. This is also changing the BPM value. Usually for tracks you buy on Beatport you will not have to use the bottom 2 buttons. You will just need to shift the grid left and right, and maybe change the BPM from 127.999 to 128.000.

12) Now set a 4 beat loop at the end of the track, preferably on the last measure of the track that has percussion. Listen to how the metronome lines up with the last 4 beats. If it lines up perfectly, then you are done. If not, use the BPM INC/DEC buttons to compress and expand the grid until the metronome perfectly lines up with the last 4 beats. Now your BPM reading will be accurate to the 1/1000′th of a BPM. Usually if you’re BPM shows up as an even number like 128.000 this means that you don’t have to touch the bottom 2 grid buttons, and that you only need to shift the grid left and right.

13) Once you are done, and the metronome perfectly lines up with the track from beginning to end, click on the LOCK button to save the beatgrid to the track. This will save the beatgrid to the tracks ID3 information and will make it so if you send the track to another Traktor user, they will have your beatgrid, cue points, and loops inside the track. If you do not click the lock Icon, Traktor will still remember your beatgrid in your Traktor collection, but will not write the beatgrid to the actual track.

Now that you have a beatgrid set, you can use Traktor’s SYNC button to keep all of your tracks perfectly synchronized, and they will never go off beat, and all of your loops, and effects will be perfectly on beat.