I don't use Key Lock, because when people hear me DJ, they get to hear tracks in a unique way (slightly out of pitch). This is how I grew up hearing music on the dance floor, and I love it. Harmonic mixing doesn't sound like live DJing to me, it sounds like computer mixed, lifeless compilation albums. Also, slightly dis-harmonic mixing with clashing tracks sounds really interesting. Great video.
If in doubt, consult the all knowledgable Alfonso Muchaco….This explanation of why some tracks in Tractor sound out of sync clearly demonstrates a higher level of intelligence that I, admittedly, don’t possess ! Heck, I used to start my day at 7am before I watched Life advice 001….now I’m up at 3am with a large glass of Portuguese red! Genius.
vinyl enthusiasts like the sound of because music is mastered differently for vinyl. It is not as loud and in your face than many digital releases and vinyl brings a warmth that digital files and CDs lack. Key lock is really good these days on the newer decks such as CDJ-3000 and Denon Prime decks that the issue of poor key shifting is not there. The problem with using keylock too much is that some music is not meant to be pitched too much up or down regardless of how transparent and proficient the key shifting is. It just sounds funny on some music. I do use it, but only on the higher end decks.
While I agree with your points from the perspective of the impact you lose with key lock, I've tested using fully key locked and using no key lock I've found the effect on the dance floor was massively improved once I started considering harmonics between tracks. There's just something magic that happens on the dancefloor when two compliment each other so well and you feel it from the energy levels of the dancing crowd. An example might be a vocal harmonizing with a lead synth. Where I found Harmonic mixing less useful was when you needed to preserve the textures of the sounds - typically tracks that rely more on their percussive qualities (like Jungle or hard tecnho) with less melody / vocals. These days I take a considered approach and it really depends on the type of set I'm playing whether or not I'll keep key lock on.
for house and techno this all makes sense. as you say though, for more mainstream situations key lock has a bigger place i think - but not quite because of your comment about track length (ie more harmonic content near the start and end. i mean, DJ city has versions of top 40 music with intros...) but because of the greater tempo range a DJ has to cover. i almost never go below 0% (artefacts are too bad esp on snare hits) and rarely more than between about +2 to +4 % when mixing two songs. BUT over the course of half an hour i can easily go from an MK track at 122bpm to a Hannah Laing track at 140bpm. i move in quite small increments, but for me, the compromise of key lock is a reasonable trade off so that clubbers can't hear the pitch sliding up each time while the track is playing!
Pitch inflation is the main reason why I don't use Keylock. It is a very powerful tool in the hands of a skilled DJ. The other reason is the sound quality of course. There are extremely rare situations in which I might use Keylock (live remixing), but if I am remixing a track rather do in production and not live.
Pitch inflation fixes the flaws of music being fixed to Equal Temperament Scale and together with the added energy in slightly faster tempo, it can do things that can't be achieved in any other way...extremely musical. More musical than anything else in fact.. But only in the hands of a skilled DJ with an exceptional ear for music.
The tell tale signs of Keylock, which 9/10 DJs today leave on by default is the phasey sound, lost of transients and dynamics, which sucks the soul out of the music.
Hi, i'm djing and never use master lock. I always use tracks that are on the same bpm (+-3% max) and on compatible keys. If i need to shift a track to a semi tone, i speed up or down to about 6% (that's make a track to shift to a semitone) if possible to match keys. I mean i always try to mix harmonically without master lock and it's a big work at home to find correct tracks that fits together. I met many dj's that says to me : "Why you bother doing that????", many of them doesn't know what is a key lol ^^ Also i'm guitarist, bassist, keyboard player and i guess my knowledge of music made me to mix more harmonically. The fact that in a band every instruments must be in tune gives me the habit to try to make mix the most perfect as possible. On the dancefloor, it's a pain sometimes, listening to a dj that mix tracks regardless of the key they are. Anyway thanks for the video, subscribed and liked the video. Keep making videos on producing and mixing, it's always fun to watch, thanks. 😀
I love you man!!! That video was boring AF! But you are right!!! I DJ using ableton cos i dont have space for cdjs and a nice mixer and i can really hear the warping at times and drives me crazy. Some people will never hear it or care enough to say anything but if you can reach people out to educate then all the better to you!!! Keep doing everything you do, fuckin legend!!!
Thank you...The thing is though, I do not actually care because all that band aid mixing is a bunch of shortcuts. I learned with turntables and records, so it was about raw skills, so everyone and their Momma could not DJ. You had to invest time, resources, and learn your music/records by memory. When you spin, if the records do not fit, they just do not, yet with these band aids, there is less than 1/3 the work to play music. I mean, the industry decided to make these band aids, to take DJ culture further financially, to make corporations more money. They make these tools, people bought them and use them, so why complain? Part of being a DJ or making music is knowing music theory, knowing acoustics, knowing where you want to take your crowds.
hahaha. I'm a DJ mate. In fact, I'm visually impaired so my hearing is heightened to accommodate for the lack of vision. A couple of things here. You're talking about DJing. Where is the demonstration on an actual piece of DJ hardware? Second of all, you're using Ableton in complex mode, so of course it's going to cause artefacts. Finally, you referenced Wikipedia rather than an actual article on DJing, so all of these things make your argument fall apart. Not to mention that this only really becomes a problem if you're mixing between different genres.
I don't use Key Lock, because when people hear me DJ, they get to hear tracks in a unique way (slightly out of pitch). This is how I grew up hearing music on the dance floor, and I love it. Harmonic mixing doesn't sound like live DJing to me, it sounds like computer mixed, lifeless compilation albums. Also, slightly dis-harmonic mixing with clashing tracks sounds really interesting. Great video.
Oh... You have just explained why sometimes kicks from a track disappeared! Thank you. Very useful! Keep sharing advices like this, please!
totally agree!!! that's what i'm talking about since years...
If in doubt, consult the all knowledgable Alfonso Muchaco….This explanation of why some tracks in Tractor sound out of sync clearly demonstrates a higher level of intelligence that I, admittedly, don’t possess ! Heck, I used to start my day at 7am before I watched Life advice 001….now I’m up at 3am with a large glass of Portuguese red! Genius.
vinyl enthusiasts like the sound of because music is mastered differently for vinyl. It is not as loud and in your face than many digital releases and vinyl brings a warmth that digital files and CDs lack. Key lock is really good these days on the newer decks such as CDJ-3000 and Denon Prime decks that the issue of poor key shifting is not there. The problem with using keylock too much is that some music is not meant to be pitched too much up or down regardless of how transparent and proficient the key shifting is. It just sounds funny on some music. I do use it, but only on the higher end decks.
While I agree with your points from the perspective of the impact you lose with key lock, I've tested using fully key locked and using no key lock I've found the effect on the dance floor was massively improved once I started considering harmonics between tracks. There's just something magic that happens on the dancefloor when two compliment each other so well and you feel it from the energy levels of the dancing crowd. An example might be a vocal harmonizing with a lead synth.
Where I found Harmonic mixing less useful was when you needed to preserve the textures of the sounds - typically tracks that rely more on their percussive qualities (like Jungle or hard tecnho) with less melody / vocals. These days I take a considered approach and it really depends on the type of set I'm playing whether or not I'll keep key lock on.
for house and techno this all makes sense. as you say though, for more mainstream situations key lock has a bigger place i think - but not quite because of your comment about track length (ie more harmonic content near the start and end. i mean, DJ city has versions of top 40 music with intros...) but because of the greater tempo range a DJ has to cover. i almost never go below 0% (artefacts are too bad esp on snare hits) and rarely more than between about +2 to +4 % when mixing two songs. BUT over the course of half an hour i can easily go from an MK track at 122bpm to a Hannah Laing track at 140bpm. i move in quite small increments, but for me, the compromise of key lock is a reasonable trade off so that clubbers can't hear the pitch sliding up each time while the track is playing!
Pitch inflation is the main reason why I don't use Keylock. It is a very powerful tool in the hands of a skilled DJ. The other reason is the sound quality of course. There are extremely rare situations in which I might use Keylock (live remixing), but if I am remixing a track rather do in production and not live.
Pitch inflation fixes the flaws of music being fixed to Equal Temperament Scale and together with the added energy in slightly faster tempo, it can do things that can't be achieved in any other way...extremely musical. More musical than anything else in fact.. But only in the hands of a skilled DJ with an exceptional ear for music.
The tell tale signs of Keylock, which 9/10 DJs today leave on by default is the phasey sound, lost of transients and dynamics, which sucks the soul out of the music.
Hi, i'm djing and never use master lock. I always use tracks that are on the same bpm (+-3% max) and on compatible keys. If i need to shift a track to a semi tone, i speed up or down to about 6% (that's make a track to shift to a semitone) if possible to match keys. I mean i always try to mix harmonically without master lock and it's a big work at home to find correct tracks that fits together. I met many dj's that says to me : "Why you bother doing that????", many of them doesn't know what is a key lol ^^ Also i'm guitarist, bassist, keyboard player and i guess my knowledge of music made me to mix more harmonically. The fact that in a band every instruments must be in tune gives me the habit to try to make mix the most perfect as possible. On the dancefloor, it's a pain sometimes, listening to a dj that mix tracks regardless of the key they are. Anyway thanks for the video, subscribed and liked the video. Keep making videos on producing and mixing, it's always fun to watch, thanks. 😀
Thanks for this
This is gonna be awkward if we ask who is responsible for the set. That song sounded pretty dope and the synth eerily familiar .
I love you man!!! That video was boring AF! But you are right!!! I DJ using ableton cos i dont have space for cdjs and a nice mixer and i can really hear the warping at times and drives me crazy. Some people will never hear it or care enough to say anything but if you can reach people out to educate then all the better to you!!! Keep doing everything you do, fuckin legend!!!
This idea that keylock gives you more options is a lie. It gives you more options to mix songs that aren't meant to be mixed together.
Thank you...The thing is though, I do not actually care because all that band aid mixing is a bunch of shortcuts. I learned with turntables and records, so it was about raw skills, so everyone and their Momma could not DJ. You had to invest time, resources, and learn your music/records by memory. When you spin, if the records do not fit, they just do not, yet with these band aids, there is less than 1/3 the work to play music. I mean, the industry decided to make these band aids, to take DJ culture further financially, to make corporations more money. They make these tools, people bought them and use them, so why complain? Part of being a DJ or making music is knowing music theory, knowing acoustics, knowing where you want to take your crowds.
hahaha. I'm a DJ mate. In fact, I'm visually impaired so my hearing is heightened to accommodate for the lack of vision. A couple of things here. You're talking about DJing. Where is the demonstration on an actual piece of DJ hardware? Second of all, you're using Ableton in complex mode, so of course it's going to cause artefacts. Finally, you referenced Wikipedia rather than an actual article on DJing, so all of these things make your argument fall apart. Not to mention that this only really becomes a problem if you're mixing between different genres.
Sounds to me like you also have shit for ears.