Harmonic Mixing

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Hi, I have a question regarding harmonic mixes, which perhaps has more to do with musical knowledge than technical knowledge, but I would like to see if someone could resolve it for me:

  1. Taken from the links:

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The outer ring represents the major keys (which sound more upbeat or upbeat) and the inner circle represents the minor keys (generally darker sounding).

They are arranged in such a way that adjacent keys complement each other, so any track should blend harmonically with tracks of up to three different keys.

Of course, the easiest way to mix harmonically is to mix two tracks in the same key, like two 6d tracks, and they would work together harmonically, but things get more interesting when you move around the circle in certain ways.

Up, Down, Around. Key matching matters because it makes the music sounds like it belongs together. You could, therefore, stick to the same key for your whole set and everything would sound ‘correct’. But after a while it would get pretty boring. Liven things up by moving around the Camelot Wheel – go up or down one increment in a straight line on the wheel and you’ll sound great. Check it out: 8A goes to 9A or 7A, because they’re one number up/down on the wheel, in a straight line from 8A.

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  1. My question is: Think about only one track (no mixing), If the pitch or the speed variation of that track causes the key to also change, if with pitch 0 (original BPM) is in minor key and gives me a “melancholy” feeling, in none of the states through which the pitch passes increasing or reducing the speed seems to change my key to a major, in such a way that the mood gives me “happy” feeling.

For example, the track “Balearic Bill - Destination Sunshine (Club Mix) (2000)”, always moves in a minor key, regardless of whether I slow down or up, changing from Dm, C#m, Cm (down) and Dm, Ebm, Em up.

Can this be possible?

I’m sorry if I can’t explain myself well. My original language is not English. Thank you.

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If I understand your question correctly:

Yes, A is minor and B is major. When the pitch changes along with the tempo, it will still remain either minor or major.

Say we have a track in 8A (A minor), pitching it up will change it to A# minor (3A), B minor (10A) etc, while slowing it down will take it to G# minor (1A), G minor (6A) etc.

Pitching it will never take it from minor to major or vice versa :blush:

Whether it’s minor or major depends on the keys that the root key is combined with. The combined keys will change along with the root key, which is why minor/major won’t change :blush:

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Thank you very much @KrisONeil for your answer. It perfectly meets my concerns.

Excuse my insistence and ignorance on the subject. As a consequence of the above, would there not be a software way (Serato, Traktor, VDJ, Engine…) to change the key of the same song from minor to major in real time or viceversa? It may not make sense, but I’m curious.

Thanks, again.

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I’m not aware of any commercial software that lets you do that - and when listening to the video below, it’s probably for the better :joy:

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Amazing!

What a remarkable difference the sensations it transmits compared to the original version. I think it would take mixing to another level if this could be done in real time. Or do you think that would be awful or nuisance? For someone, it might even be a crime to change a musical theme’s key.

In your personal opinion, would you propose it as a feature to implement?

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In order to use songs with different tonalities, I have created this thread, where you will be able to verify that there are more compatible ones than the ones on the left and right of the circle. Always speaking in the original key and keeping the key locked, so that even if we vary the pitch, the key is not changed, please try it! On the other hand, there is a lot of talk about the next firmware update that will bring changes in this regard, although we will have to wait a few days (possibly in June).

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Being changes to what? :blush:

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I doubt it’ll be possible to do real-time any time soon, with a result that is nearly useful. Real-time stem separation of useful quality is quite professor-heavy already. Next, it would have to do pitch analysis on the individual stems, and then do pitch shifting of certain keys only of individual stems - all in real time. I doubt we’ll see this on a standalone player anytime soon :blush:

The technicalities aside, I do think changing a song from minor to major or vice versa is too big of a change. While it’s definitely a fun experiment to see what a song is like, the soul of it is quite ruined (take the Nirvana one as an example :blush:)

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