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Forum: General Discussion

Topic: Key. - Page: 1

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My main question was going to be about the keylock on "virtual dj". I know that key lock is a very fickle thing on any sort of device or software. I was wondering is there anyway it is ever going to get better? Iam not to worried as after researching my question i bumped into a few other things i have always been curious of and may just solve the issue of wanting to use "keylock". I may be able to learn how to mix in key and also learn how to use "key diff" to mix with songs that are out of key so i dont have to use "keylock" in my mix.

I noticed that in browser view you can have the key of the track displayed. I noticed that the tracks are keyed with the same numbers as the "camelot system". 1A, 1B etc.

I also spotted Key diff, on the 100 or so tracks i have it has the numbers from 0 up to 2, what does this mean.

Thanks.

Lee.
 
Posted Sat 10 Jul 10 @ 2:24 am
lee eather wrote :
I know that key lock is a very fickle thing on any sort of device or software. I was wondering is there anyway it is ever going to get better?

It does work fine once setup correctly.. but as you mentioned, it can be "fickle" and you have to play with it a bit to get it right..
As to it getting better, It probably will IE: the setup and setting changes will probably be streamlined at some point..
no one knows when though. its been asked for by users, but its probably not high on the priority list to get it revamped..


Quote :
I also spotted Key diff, on the 100 or so tracks i have it has the numbers from 0 up to 2, what does this mean.

it shows the difference in the key between the song playing (or selected deck) and the songs in the browser.
making it easier to choose what song to play next..

you can even set up a filter that incorporates this..

Filter "song is close"= bpmdiff<6 and keydiff<2
 
Works fine once setup correctly, well how do you set it up correctly, that would be great to know. Thanks.





hppydog wrote :
it shows the difference in the key between the song playing (or selected deck) and the songs in the browser.
making it easier to choose what song to play next..

you can even set up a filter that incorporates this..

Filter "song is close"= bpmdiff<6 and keydiff<2


Ok, so what does it mean but.
 
When mixing harmonically and changing key you can either go -1 or +1; so if the key difference is 0 or 1 you're good to load the track.
 
Well you can use different mater tempo setups based on your system/sound card strength... LOL

I stopped using it... it has a few bugs like drifting sample when changing pitch slowing (The most annoying)

Since I have upgraded my laptop it seems to be working well so try 6.1

 
haz0rd wrote :
Well you can use different mater tempo setups based on your system/sound card strength... LOL


What?

Master tempo on VDJ and probably everything sucks. It says its meant to chop out at about +/- 10% but its sucks as soon as you press it.

Andrew87 wrote :
When mixing harmonically and changing key you can either go -1 or +1; so if the key difference is 0 or 1 you're good to load the track.


Ok but what does this mean, cause obviously if the track is out by one then it is out. What does this mean, like i heard once dont know if it is true but +/- 3% pitch goes into the next key? Something like that ...
 
The keys are mapped into the camelot system. In the camelot system you can change key if the difference is one. If it says the difference is one, it is 'camelot safe'. If the difference is 0 then obviously there's no key change, but you're probably going to struggle putting a set together all in the same key.

Key does change with pitch (I'm not sure at what percentage or other variables) but if you have master tempo enabled you shouldn't have to worry about it - well, assuming you stay at reasonable pitches and not 12% or something silly. I don't know what you mean by chop out.

The padlocks used to lock key in skins lock the pitch at whatever the current setting. It is better to enable it while the deck is at 0% or create a specific shortcut for master tempo.
 
Andrew87 wrote :
The keys are mapped into the camelot system. In the camelot system you can change key if the difference is one. If it says the difference is one, it is 'camelot safe'. If the difference is 0 then obviously there's no key change, but you're probably going to struggle putting a set together all in the same key.


Yea but thats how the camelot system works. You mix around the circle or something don't you.

Andrew87 wrote :
Key does change with pitch (I'm not sure at what percentage or other variables) but if you have master tempo enabled you shouldn't have to worry about it - well, assuming you stay at reasonable pitches and not 12% or something silly. I don't know what you mean by chop out.


Well in the user guide it says chop up or something like that meaning the song sounds choppy/crappy when you change the pitch with the key lock enabled after about 10% but i reckon it goes shit as soon as you press it.
 
lee eather wrote :
Well in the user guide it says chop up or something like that meaning the song sounds choppy/crappy when you change the pitch with the key lock enabled after about 10% but i reckon it goes shit as soon as you press it.


Then your settings are probably wrong..
I can easily hit +/- 10% on most of my songs.. (not all, but most) with no apparent choppiness or major loss of quality..

of course, the original quality of the song does seem to make a difference too.. my mp3's are mainly 320kbps, and my mp4's are 256 kbps AAC..

The BEST are my VOB's that use PCM audio (basically an uncompressed WAV)

Quote :
as soon as you press it

???? huh?
keylock needs to be engaged and the pitch at zero BEFORE you make pitch changes..
 
lee eather wrote :
Works fine once setup correctly, well how do you set it up correctly, that would be great to know. Thanks.
.


You start with the preset slider in the "prefomances" tab set to the left,
and then bring it up a notch at a time until your sound card/computer maxes out..
 
hippydog wrote :
Then your settings are probably wrong..
I can easily hit +/- 10% on most of my songs.. (not all, but most) with no apparent choppiness or major loss of quality..


I still wouldnt trust it.


hippydog wrote :
???? huh?
keylock needs to be engaged and the pitch at zero BEFORE you make pitch changes..


Serious, on the one song i tried i engaged the pitch, at 0 pitch, and the song chopped up like a dog.

On the 3 songs i tried then one sounded good and the other 2 sounded crap with the pitch at about - 4%.

It sucks.
 
hippydog wrote :
lee eather wrote :
Works fine once setup correctly, well how do you set it up correctly, that would be great to know. Thanks.
.


You start with the preset slider in the "prefomances" tab set to the left,
and then bring it up a notch at a time until your sound card/computer maxes out..


K, thanks for just telling me.

This is what "haz0rd" was talking about, sorry, been a bit out of control trying to get off these anti depressants the doctor got me on, im a a bit off.

I can get it all the way to 256ms of latency, its a pretty good sound card "M-audio conectiv". Not the best quality but from what i remember its meant to be able to handle 256ms of latency, and the computer seems to be handling it fine, toshiba core 2 duo t9600 processor, could probably tweak a few things on it to make things run better but at the moment the PC is fine, its putting up with it ok by the lokks of things.

I tried only a couple of songs cause i haven't got the time ATM but it seemed much better. I may be able to incorporate this into mixing in key with "key diff" and the key of the tracks displayed in VDJ.

Thanks hippydog.
 
Nup.

I tried a song then and it chopped when i engaged the "keylock" and moved the pitch only millimeters. I say its going to be to much of a hit and miss type thing.

I tried moving the latency back to 512ms because on that song it was struggling and it made a bit of difference but still not something you would play over the loud speaker.

Maybe a new soundcard or a few tweaks on the PC?
 
Your PC needs serious tweaking, run DPC Latency checker, you're probably constantly in the yellow (if not red).
 
As I always prepare my master playlist before I gig, I always use harmonic mixing (if I get a request, then I'll drop it in when it's at the correct harmonic point).

In Virtual DJ you will see in the browser list (if you have the column selected) the Camelot Key for each of the tracks that you have scanned.

Here's a link to a simple explanation of how it all works...

http://www.mixedinkey.com/HowTo.aspx

and here's a link to my June Trance Themes which is harmonically mixed - excuse the EQ's...didn't have the recording mixing deck set up correctly...doh!

http://www.bailey.dj

Simon
 
lee eather wrote :
I can get it all the way to 256ms of latency, .


unless your scratching or doing things that require no audible delay from button press to speakers,
LATENCY is not very important.. most people would not even notice the difference between 256ms and 512 ms ..

Also make sure that "safe mode" is turned off!
 
hippydog wrote :
unless your scratching or doing things that require no audible delay from button press to speakers,
LATENCY is not very important.. most people would not even notice the difference between 256ms and 512 ms ..

Also make sure that "safe mode" is turned off!


Yea, i haven't mentioned this but my memory and concentration is that of some where near a goldfish so i suck at remembering things sometimes.

I remembered latency from ages ago but got confused when i was trying to think of everything in this thread and trying to comprehend that at the same time. lol.

I'll try the latency checker when ive got time. Thanks.

P.s Safe mode is turned off haha. I remember that from ages ago when someone was telling me because i had trouble with the audio sounding choppy or something.
 
With the latency checker it says "This machine should be able to stream real time audio/video without drop outs"

Test interval: 1000us.

Current latency: On most songs it was averaging around 1000us, 1000us = yellow

Absolute maximum: varied from song to song.

It had the odd glitch up in the red to around 8000us.

It also says "some devices on this machine may behave bad and cause drop outs in real time audio/video streams... to isolate the misbehaving driver.. etc etc"

I'll give it a go tonite.

Thanks.

P.s how accurate is the "key" determination in VDJ? I heard the "mixedinkey" is supposedly around 95% accurate or something?

Thanks.

Lee.
 
To run any realtime audio program optimally you need your DPC Latency to stay in the green, yellows are bad and reds are very bad! Although the Latency readings are in microseconds I've found they correlate well to what you can expect in milliseconds from your soundcard, e.g. if you want to run with a latency of 256ms using ASIO you'll want your DPC Latency to be less than 256 microseconds. With your current rate of 1000 it's no surprise that your master tempo sounds bad.

Windows isn't designed to be a realtime operating system and I could never get Vista gig-ready on my laptop (although many people on these forums have, it all depends on your motherboard and other components) so had to use XP instead. Windows 7 fares better than Vista for me although in XP my DPC was less than 10 microseconds (at least 10x better than Windows 7!).

See my posts here to learn how to diagnose which device drivers are giving you such poor DPC Latency: http://www.virtualdj.com/forums/104080/General_Discussion/DPC_Latency_Questions.html?page=2
(There may be better methods, I think Scott {SBDJ} recommends something called Rattv3)

If you're on a laptop try disabling your wireless and bluetooth before attempting this. Also disable as many unneeded processes and services as you can.
 
Ok, where do i download the "windows performance analysis tool". I searched and came only found the explaination of it on the microsoft site but no where to download from? It says these tools ship with "windows SDK" but there are a few kits there for different frameworks?
 
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