So the big question for DJs is: Should you use Mixed In Key, the “industry standard”? Or should you just rely on the key detection built in to your DJ software? Or something else? So… which software is best? And there are other alternatives, free and paid for, either standalone or part of other music-related apps. Move forward to today, though, and nearly all DJ software has key sync built-in.
This information could then be “seen” by DJ software, enabling DJs to mix in key. But luckily there was a piece of software called Mixed In Key, a standalone key detection app, to add this information to MP3s.
(I remember doing so with a piano keyboard and some rudimentary chord knowledge, gained from my training as a guitarist.) The arrival of key detection softwareĮven as recently as a few years ago, DJ software didn’t even have key detection built into it. DJs wanting to mix in key “back in the day” had to do this, too. Trained musicians can quickly figure out the key of a piece of music – some can even do so without resort to an instrument. The combination of being able to know the key of a song, “lock” that key even when changing tempo, and even have your software suggest potential matching tracks, has been a game-changer for DJs in recent years.īut just as when your software guesses your tracks’ BPMs wrong, no amount of hitting the “beat sync” button is going to save your mix, if the key detection is incorrect, you’ll have a similar problem too. But which key detection is best in 2020? That’s what we’ll find out in this article. Mixing in key – making sure your tracks are compatible harmonically when you DJ – is one of the big areas of DJing that has been made easier by digital DJing.