Ricky Figueroa

Hi Pascale,

Sorry for the very long message, but there’s a lot of stuff to cover in addressing your questions and concerns. I’ll try to help you but with a disclaimer: I profess to have great expertise in music theory, and while I have a lot of experience with djay on the iPhone and iPad, I have only tinkered with djay pro on OS X since the new version came out.

So, first, I suggest that when using djay pro (and really, with any other app, unless you’re using Mixed in Key, which is a whole different story) you should rely on a <standard> circle of fifths chart, which has C major on top, and not the camelot wheel with the clock-like numbers, which has E major at the top.

Here’s a link to a standard circle of fifths chart with C major at 12 o’clock = http://www.musiccrashcourses.com/images/notation/circle_of_fifths_colors.png

Now, regarding your djay pro-specific questions:

The note icon next to the tempo slider is for engaging key lock. The software will use whatever key lock algorithm it has for trying to keep the song on its original key signature regardless (in principle) of the tempo changes you make with the tempo slider.

But it’s actually more tricky than this.

For the purposes of the discussion below, let’s assume that you have djay pro set up for only two-deck mixing and horizontal waveforms, and that you have loaded in deck 1 a song in the key of A major and on deck 2 a song on the key of B major.

In this case, notice that when you click on the note icon next to the deck 1 (left deck) slider, the icon at the top center of the app that has the key signature of the song (A major) will light up. This means that you have engaged key lock. Like I said, in principle, the software will try its best to keep the song on its original key while you make tempo changes with the slider.

However, notice that I said “in principle” because not all djing software has truly good key lock algorithms, so if you make drastic tempo changes, going, say, from 116 to 128 almost all djing software will have a hard time keeping the song sounding good because the greater the bpm change, the greater strains you put on the app’s algorithms.

(Side note: By the way, that the exception to this massively important rule is Serato DJ, which uses a proprietary algorithm based on its widely-acclaimed Pitch N Time plug-in for Pro Tools, a professional music and sound production app. For more info, google the comparative key lock tests done by DJ Tech Tools when Serato DJ added its Pitch N Time module in early 2014.)

Anyway, let’s get back to your other questions.

Technically, when you say that you perceive that the sound of the song changes (deteriorates?) when you light up the key lock icon, to me this raises other issues: the sound of the song should not change much at all if you engage key lock but do not move the tempo slider. If that’s actually happening, then either your computer doesn’t have enough horsepower to handle properly the computationally-intensive key lock process, or the key lock algorithm in djay pro really sucks. (I want to test this one day with my brand-new, top-of-the-line MacBook Pro and studio reference monitors. But let’s move on.)

Furthermore, to address now another one of your questions: you should <not> keep the key lock icon on (engaged) all the time because, sooner or later, it will introduce sound artifacts, based on the issues I raised above.

You should activate key lock only if you are going to change the tempo while mixing, but should avoid changing the tempo too much. I think that Phil and others here on Digital DJ Tips advice people to not go further than, say, maybe 3 or at most 4 bpms, up or down, unless you’re using Serato DJ with Pitch N Time, or you’re willing to deal with sound artifacts and use any number of techniques to hide it during the segue from one song to another, then move the song’s bpm back to its normal bpm or close to it. (There’s more about this topic for another day.)

Now, in terms of the other issue, of where djay pro takes the song’s key when you click on the key signature icon at the top (in two-deck horizontal view), what happens is that you are confusing the steps in the circle of fifths with what the plus or minus numbers mean in the change-key pop up menu in djay pro.

When you click on the right arrow in that pop up menu, what djay pro is doing is moving up half a semitone, or to the next black key that follows the A major (white key) in a piano, in other words, it moved from A major to the black Bb\A# (B flat\A sharp) key. Conversely, if the song is in A and you click on the left arrow, it will move the key to the next semitone to the left, the Ab\G# black key.

In other words, it is not moving one step forward or backwards on the circle of fifths, as you have been assuming.

By the way, notice that if instead you click on the “match” button in that pop up menu, the key will be shifted to B major, which in my example is the key signature of the song loaded on deck 2 (right deck). Notice also that the pop up menu will now indicate that the app has moved the key +2, in other words, a full semitone forward from A major to B major, from the A major white key to the B major white key next to it on a piano keyboard.

Actually, if you check this on a standard circle of fifths chart you will notice that although B major is two piano keys up (a full semitone) from A, in the circle of fifths B major is seven steps forward, clockwise . . . but this would take us into more complex music theory territory, so I will defer to others with more music theory expertise to go further if you want more details.

So, to conclude, let me reiterate that I wonder what’s the processing capacity of you Mac and whether it might be affecting the performance of the computationally-intensive key lock and key change algorithms in djay pro.

It might be worth mentioning here, for example, that algoriddim, the makers of djay, did not allow key change in the mobile app until the iPhone moved to a 64-bit processor, so this makes me wonder if you’re running into a horsepower challenge with your current computer, or it could be an issue with having other apps (and utilities such as wi-fi, bluetooth, dropbox, etc.) running at the same time as djay pro, for example.

Peace.

Ricky

Great thread!!! +1 to what has been said. May I add two comments?

(1) On the issue of developing a connection with the crowd, as D-Jam and others expertly say, I try to make eye contact with some of them (though not in a creepy way, of course) to convey a sense that I’m having fun and I hope they’re having fun, too, even if they’re not dancing. I do a lot of events where dancing as such is not part of the program, but I usually (though not always) get people to dance after a while if I’m with them. Some will eventually nod at you for playing some kind of song or another, for example, so take those cues.

(2) OK, so this might sound a bit sexist, but one of the most useful pieces of advice I got from Phil when I began to watch his courses here a few years back is this: pay special attention to the women. 98% percent of time (except for Latino crowds) it will be women who will start moving their feet and eventually dance, and a lot of the time with another woman or two (regardless of whether they are straight or gay because even straight women love to dance with other women). In my experience (like I said, except for Latino crowds), 98% of the time guys will not start dancing unless women start first or their dates pulls them into dancing. So, yes, connection is important, but, above all, connect first of all with the women.

I want to support Terry’s suggestions and add a bit more, too.

I have used Spotify extensively in various ways: not just it’s “radio” suggestions, but also by using the “appears on” compilation-album lists, which are great rabbit holes. I also use the list of associated artists lists when they are available.

I tried to use Beats Music, Apple Music’s ancestor, but I hated that it didn’t offer categories of House other than so-called EDM. I might try Apple Music later, but only after Apple fixes some lingering problems with iTunes.

I also use the Traxsource iPhone app a lot. Each week I check the hype charts for the several genres I play (where else can you find Afro House, for example –this was a tip from D-Jam way back), as well as the full 100 lists (some gems are actually in the lower ranks, for whatever reason), as well as some DJ playlists (either of producers with similar tastes to mine, or just random ones just for the sake of “feeling lucky”).

Finally, one thing that involves a bigger investment are the record pools. I use ZipDJ to keep track of more mainstream releases via their charts and most-downloaded lists, which go backwards (this helps compensate for Traxsource’s heavy underground bent). And I also use DMS because I have to access old stuff going back decades and because they post remixes and edits not found elsewhere.

I must admit, however, that the nature of my day job gives me huge chunks of time for music discovery.

DJ Vintage, I’m very grateful to you for teaching me so much in over two years, but I would add a wrinkle to what you said above regarding BPM changes.

I honestly think that the traditional parameters for changing the BPM of a song too much before it begins to sound weird (this is, obviously, while keeping the song in its original key) have changed quite a lot since Serato introduced its Pitch N Time add-on in early 2014.

I tested it before using it “live” (so to speak), using both fairly good Rokit reference monitors in the studio, and also QSC K12 and KW122 speakers (plus subs) in different rooms.

In these tests and in lots of gigs in the past year, I have found that using Serato’s P’N’T keylock function you can now safely make bigger tempo changes without noticeably affecting sound quality. And I mean changes even from, say, the low 100s to the high 120s, for example. For me the clincher was using it in the far quieter environment of a fashion show, a situation in which you always try to keep your BPMs at no more than 114 to 120, which meant now being able to slow songs from like 128\130, and speed up songs coming from the low 100s, to have them “join hands” in that 114–120 sweet spot.

In fact, another well-respected website did a comparison of keylock functions in various digital DJing apps and it was no contest.

Just saying … 😉

Sorry for commenting so long after the previous posts but want to add this:

In my (still budding) experience as a mobile DJ the nature of the room influences whether I use either those big QSC subs or my preferred choice, which is the compact but still very effective K-Sub.

If the room is not huge, a pair of K-Subs placed next to each other under my DJ table (hidden from view) rocks. By putting them next to each other you effectively increase their db capacity.

I learned this trick from a YouTube video made by a very experienced, high-end weddings DJ. I tried it and can attest it works.

Moreover, I must admit that being of DJ Vintage’s age group