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Homepage > Harmonic Mixing Contest 2009 > Official Top 20 + Winners announced. Download and listen to MP3s


Official Top 20 + Winners announced. Download and listen to MP3s
Yakov (Mixed In Key)
11-13-2009
 Hello everyone.

I would like to thank all the contestants who submitted a mix this year. It's great to see how talented and innovative our DJs are.

I also want to congratulate DJs who made it into the Top 20. Your mixes were complex, skillful and amazing to listen to. I am posting them below, so the entire Mixed In Key community can enjoy your extraordinary work.

The top 20 is..... 		Reply
Yakov (Mixed In Key)
12-16-2009
 Accu - Melodic Tech House - http://www.myspace.com/djaccu

Alex a.k.a DTH - Trance - http://www.myspace.com/aciddth

Almar - Progressive - http://www.myspace.com/almarmusic

Christian Martin - Tech House - http://www.myspace.com/christianmartinmusic

Crass.Mix - Drum and Bass - www.soundcloud.com/crassmix

Derek - World Famous Audio Hacker - Fidget House - http://www.audiohacker.com/

Idri - Tech House - http://www.mix.dj/idri

D-Jan - Mashups - www.djsunity.com

Javier - Melodic Techno - www.myspace.com/javierbazan

Nate Nash - Drum and Bass - http://www.myspace.com/natenashmusic

Mark Curcio Jr aka DJ OB - Progressive/Trance - http://www.myspace.com/djoliverbrooks

Nick Synergy - Downtempo - http://www.overmindworks.org/nicksynergy

Lanza - Progressive/Trance - http://www.facebook.com/lanzaaa

Nanotek - Tech House - http://www.myspace.com/djnanot3k

Rene Goulet - Cinematic Downtempo - http://myspace.com/renegoulet

RFunck - Dubstep - http://www.funckarma.com

Rick Maia - Deep House - www.rickmaia.com

Robby M - New Wave / Italodisco / 80s - http://www.robbym.com

Stephane Padial - Progressive - www.myspace.com/stephanepadial

Tamas Horvath a.k.a. Hotta - Downtempo 		Reply
Yakov (Mixed In Key)
11-18-2009
 The grand prize winner is:

TAMAS from Australia

More information about him coming soon.


The 4 runner-ups are:

Alex a.k.a DTH
Crass.Mix
Mark Curcio Jr a.k.a DJ OB
Robby M


Congratulations! I am very proud to have such talented DJs as part of the Mixed In Key family. You had the skills, knowledge and talent to amaze the Mixed In Key team and seven world-renowned DJs.

And last but not least, a special thanks goes to our judges: Enferno, High Contrast, Jonas Tempel, Kaskade, Markus Schulz, Paul Oakenfold and Pete Tong, for judging the top 20. We could not have done this contest without them.

Enjoy the music we've been playing over and over :) 		Reply
DvlsAdvct
11-13-2009
 Massive congratulations guys. Reply
Oscar TG
11-13-2009
 Good work, guys, congrats Reply
JYB
11-13-2009
 LOL. You've got to be kidding me. Reply
Lee Spoons
11-13-2009
 Well done to all! Reply
Derek
11-13-2009
 Congratulations to Tamas and everyone else. :) Reply
idri
11-13-2009
 good work guys.. i'm happy to be in the first 20th..keep up the good work, cheers;) Reply
Yakov (Mixed In Key)
11-13-2009
 Anyone who's in the Top 20: Please check your mail, I just sent you a message to get your details and website links. Reply
JYB
11-13-2009
 I guess I can only be upset with the MIK people who picked probably the worst Top 20 out of 960 EVER. You other DJs, don't act like you don't agree just to be polite. This is beyond awful. Reply
JYB
11-13-2009
 and by the way, what genre was Tamas'???

Crock o' Crap. 		Reply
Chad P (Mixed In Key)
11-13-2009
 Personally I was surprised with the wide variety of submissions, and the top 20 reflect that. It was especially surprising to see that our judges were not biased by the music that they normally spin. It would have been easy for High Contrast to pick a DnB mix, Markus Schulz to pick a trance mix, etc. Tamas's chillout mix clearly stood out as an objective choice, and I applaud them for that. Great job on all of the participants' part, you guys rock! Reply
Yakov (Mixed In Key)
11-13-2009
 How many songs do you guys think are sampled in Tamas's mix? Reply
Christian Martin
11-13-2009
 Thank you MIK for running a great contest. Mixed in Key is the best thing to happen to music since Reason and Ableton. Congrats to Tamas and all the other top 20!! Reply
Sabby
11-13-2009
 i agree with jyb...what genre was that...that tomas played...omg...wow... Reply
Ari Kyle
11-13-2009
 agree with JYB.

not to be an a-hole or anything but not a single one of those 20 mixes is anything special...

I didn't hear any complex mixing in the 5 or 6 i just listened to. 		Reply
PaulWhitetoe
11-13-2009
 F**k WoW, happy to be in 20th :) Reply
solidstate
11-13-2009
 ive listened to about 8 min of Tamas mix and i count around 20 different tracks so far (acapellas, loops, efxs).

i couldnt make it any further.

i tried to listen once before and i didnt get past the 10 min mark either.

i 'want' to say that i like this mix...

it reminds me of an utterly depressing 70's movie. not to mention the mixing is shabby, there is tons of phasing, and the volume is constantly going in-and-out.

i still have lots of love for MIK. thanks for the contest, it was fun :-)

 		Reply
xolunt
11-13-2009
 JYB, Is music, its always going to sound like magic to one and not the other, its the very reason Music has different genre's. Tamas mix wasnt representative of my favorite taste in Music, however i appreciate his skills.

Its not as if Pete Tong And other respective Judges were taking a backhander from Tamas, All they had to offer was their Honest opinions.

I can remember A mix mag compilation that was released just last year and Pete Tong mixed the tracks, at the time i can remember thinking that I didn't like any of the tracks... Now I love nearly every track from that mix..

Is it really nesecery to Rain on someones parade... How about a little bit of recognition to The DJ's, Mik and the judges for promoting and helping other Dj's.... Giving them A stage in which they can be recognized for their talents.

Negativity only makes this world go backwards, constructive criticism is one thing! But your demeanor demonstrates another. 		Reply
DJ Pro Ben
11-13-2009
 Congratulations to all the winners! And thanks to the MIK folks for putting on this contest - it was a fantastic experience. I've really enjoyed all the mixes I've listened to during this contest, and I've learned a lot from this. Cheers! Reply
Foj
11-14-2009
 Def disappointed not to be up there... the finalists mixes i've heard so far have shown lots of effort and creativity... grats ppl!!
I think it goes to show that we can over empathise certain aspects of a mix that may or may not be important to other listeners... :)
Reply
djreevo
11-14-2009
 Very impressed with a number of these mixes. Looks like there is a wide variety of genre's and mixing styles represented.
Something I'd really like to see is a tracklisting for each mix. I think that would be really great. 		Reply
vir
11-14-2009
 Incredible ... this was a great contest guys ... Congrats Tamas ... you've won this and no one can take that away from you ... not even me ... BUT ... personally D-Jan's mix would have won this for me out of all ... my only problem is that this was supposed to be a "dj" contest ... and we were supposed to get ppl to like what we did ... D-Jans mix made me move ... i liked it ... Tamas' mix felt more like a production ... tons of samples and acapella's ... but tht wasnt the objective of the contest ? ... how many people wanna dance to Tamas' mix ? any 1 ? ... what is the objective of any dj ? not what i thought @ least ... but to all congrats ... and can't wait to have more contests like these ! AND two thumbs up at MIK for the timely execution and management of this contest. bravo !

NOW BEFORE I GET BLASTED ... I AM NOT BITTER ... lol ... I ENJOYED MY MIX and STILL ENJOY IT ... hehe ! 		Reply
The Overload
11-14-2009
 --Yakov: How many songs do you guys think are sampled in Tamas's mix?

Um, too many? Seriously.

Respect and congrats to the winners and all the competitors.

But I didn't interpret Rule #1: Must inspire listeners to become fans of that music genre; as: Play every track ever made in that genre in the hopes of finding one they like.

I was hoping to listen to the winners here and be blown away by the skills and track selection. I anticipated hearing new tricks and mixing techniques I had never even considered and learning how to take my mixes to the next level.

I guess I was expecting too much. I think we can all agree that the real winner here is Ableton.

Ups to Tamas, but, yeah, I'm not taking that kind of thing into my next gig.

Peace,
The Overload 		Reply
vir
11-14-2009
 Is the " feeling good " sample from chillout ? Disqualification LOL ... i am just bustin ur balls guys .. dont take me seriously .. i need sleep ! Reply
robbym
11-14-2009
 I'm happy to have made it to the top 5 :)
Congratulations to Tamas! you made a great mix.

Best regards,
Rob (robbym) 		Reply
Danyal.A
11-14-2009
 Congrats to all the winners...and to mik for the contest....however i really dint want to say this ...but i agree with the comments above by The Overload and others...this contest was about showcasing a genre and making ppl like that genre and possibly shake their ass to it...but this contest should have been named....

use only Ableton to win &

and it should have been called: decks 'n' efx ....

caz all i hear is sample after sample in the number 1 mix...its like a junkyard filled with different junk put together....as mentioned above constructive criticism is key...and i think some very pooor judgement calls were made...and the people who really lost out are the new and upcoming djs and aspiring music producers..

i was expecting amazing mixes, with unique mixing and some amazing creativity put into it...but im very very dissapointed...i dint care about winning..ive already got my platform...and ive achieved more then i wanted too in the last 5 years...but i was expecting amazing mixes in the top 20....and expetially the number 1 mix by tamas...i love chill-out and i think its a good mix..just not number1 by far..and for the one genre-rule which really limited all our creativity...he has used so many samples from r'n'b tracks and other accapellas which dont even fall within chill-out/ambient....he has crossed more then three sub-genres and more then two primary genres within the first 5 mins...i dont see how that sticks within the one genre rule...later onwards some track even fall within slow dnb....

tamas mix sounds like a slow porn...being played by kenny g and his band...lol.....as a whole mix...it doesnt have a concrete path/journey towards the end...its just a lot of tracks and samples mashed into 14mins+ with a lot of fast cross-fading...

im sorry for being negative regarding the outcome of this contest...i just thought there would be more thought process put into this and after listening to the 20 mixes ...i dont see that much was put into it....ive heard over 60 other mixes for this contest....and although there are good mixes in the top20...not the best by far...

the contest rules should have been:

1) use hella lotta samples
2) have to use ableton and keep layering efx
3) and put every track under the sun (dont care about the one=genre rule, caz we dont care about it)
4) dont forget rule#2...

on a more postive note....people should use this contest as an experience to learn from...... and whatever i said above was something i couldnt keep back..because by saying they were amazin mixes is simply not true in my books... i was going to use ableton and put 20 tracks plus in my mix...but then i realised that this is not what djin is about and this contest is not called put as many tracks as possible and you will win...so i took a step back and made a mix with 8 tracks and kept to the rules like they were golden...im just suprised that in the end these rules were not implemented & adhered to properly...

Yakov, Chad and the rest of MIK, if you guys really listened to all the 900+ mixes and did your best, then thanks a lot and i appreciate the outcome and your hard-work, and if you guys dint do this with due diligence..then only u will know that....
cheers and peace out to everyone ...

danyal. 		Reply
ThomasMason_MaceCast
11-14-2009
 Congrats to all who made it to the top 20.
Disappointed not to be up there myself, but the contest had the effect of forcing me to learn the software, and there's no going back!
I encourage anyone who likes house music to check out my 'MaceSonica Harmonica' mix:
http://soundcloud.com/thomasmason/macesonicaharmonica

This was ambitious stuff in that it went on an breathtaking journey clockwise right around the Camelot wheel, using every key signature from 8A/A Minor and back! It also took David Guetta's prophecy in 'Just A Little More Love' that "One day too, we'll live in harmony" to its logical conclusion.

Looking forward to listening to all 20 - all you harmonic mixers out there, let's stick together and keep in touch!

Add me at:
http://facebook.com/thomasmason
http://twitter.com/thomasmason
http://myspace.com/macecast


From stormy London, happy listening... 		Reply
ESQ
11-14-2009
 > ..but this contest should have been named....
> use only Ableton to win



Perhaps *now* you will have a deeper understanding of my posting questioning the inclusion of edited mixes....

I saw this coming from a mile away. 		Reply
Lee Spoons
11-14-2009
 Haven't got round to listening to any of the Top 20 yet (apart from Derek's electro/fidget mix which I heard a while back), but I don't understand the animosity here. This was a (harmonic) MIXING competition, not a DJing competition. Reply
Dom Hedgeland
11-14-2009
 Yeah. What is the best way to get a tracklist for these? do we have to mail the artists themselves or will MIK post them up? Reply
dj alex rocha
11-14-2009
 u have to be kidding me ! what ever ...... Reply
dj alex rocha
11-14-2009
 u have to be kidding me ! what ever ...... Reply
Andriska005
11-14-2009
 Hello everybody!
I would like to congratulate the first placed one first! I would like to ask it though secondly, that Alex's mix it why the top is game for five? This competition was about it in order for us to present our favourite genre in 15 minutes and let 100 be harmonic percentile! I lent an ear to Alex's mix and the musics do not start one altogether and the whole mix loses these 100 percentile harmonic so! Not, that only the musics not harmonic, the mixing they, though if wrong the mixing, all loses the harmony then! Shocks me, that 1 mix like this got further and the envy does not speak from me, but the incomprehensibility! I wanted to hurt nobody with this, I felt so only, that away is needed let me say my opinion! Additional beautiful day for everybody! 		Reply
[binge]
11-14-2009
 @ Alex Rocha: Mate, you were convinced your mix was the shit, been watching all your comments on this forum. pull your head out of your arse. Mixing techno in traktor isn't something that takes skill or is deserved of winning a competition like this. Dunno why, but you grate on met.

Tamas's mix is dope, i can definitely see why it won. It comes down to the fact that it stood out. Mixed in key and the judges had to sift through over 900 mixes, a large portion of which were techno/house. Tamas' mix is refreshing and original enough to elevate it above the others, hats of mate. 		Reply
dj alex rocha
11-14-2009
 after hearing these sets i ask my self did my set even make it on time, cause i dont know if it waz good for 1 first place but come on !! what is alex set ??? anyway we keep on ! never give up! want to listen to a good funky dirty tech house set ?

www.soundcloud.com/beatdiggers


YAKOV ... when u have the time please could u check my set out and tell me what was wrong with it ...? it whould mean the world to me if u could give me some info on the set ! anything u say whould help me soo much.
THANKS. 		Reply
dj alex rocha
11-14-2009
 BINGE .... MY HEAD OUT OF MY ARSE??? PLEASE BRO DO U SPEAK ENGLISH ??? LOL I DO AGREE THAT TAMAS DID A GREAT SET BUT THE RUNNER UPS............... PLUS I WANT TO SEE WHAT U CAN DO WITH TRACKTOR ON 4 DECKS ???? MY SET WAS DONE ON THE FLY BRO NO EDITING NOTHING ! I DID IT AS IF I WAS IN A CLUB. I THINK I PUT IN ALL THAT MIK ASKED FOR . PLUS THIS IS MY STYLE OF MUSIC IF U DONT LIKE TECH HOUSE BRO THATS UP TO U !
I DONT THINK IM ALL THAT BUT IF PEOPLE LIKE WHAT I DO THATS WHAT MATTERS AND THATS WHAT KEEPS ME SPINNING AT CLUBS EVERY WEEKEND ! IF PEOPLE GO CRAZY WITH MY STYLE OF MUSIC THATS WHAT MATTERS, TAMAS WAS LUCKY THAT HES STYLE WAS WHAT THE JUDGES LIKED ! WHICH IS WONDERFUL FOR HIM !

BINGE U SOUND LIKE UR FROM AUSTRALIA ..... ARSE..LOL
ITS ALL GOOD BRO IM FROM BRAZIL RIO DE JANEIRO ! UR MORE THAN WELLCOME TO COME OVER AND CHECK ME OUT AT THE CLUBS CHEERS MATE .
Reply
dj alex rocha
11-14-2009
 BY THE WAY I TAKE BACK WHAT I SAID ABOUT TAMAS MIX .... WHERE ARE THE SKILLS???????? WHERE IS THE CREATIVETY??? WHAT WAS SO INSPIRING ABOUT THE SET ??? I HEARD RAP,R&B,AND MORE .... REALLY I WANTED TO BE SURPRISED SHOCKED WITH SKILLS ! BUT IM NOT FEELING IT SORRY DOSENT MATTER WHAT STYLE U USE, I GOT DEPRESSED AFTER TAMAS MIX SORRY... MATE BUT HEY U GOT A NEW LAPTOP !! PLUS MORE U DHA MAN !! LOL

 		Reply
ThomasMason_MaceCast
11-14-2009
 YAHOV - Like Alex Rocha, I would really appreciate the briefest of feedback on why my 'MaceSonica Harmonica' didn't make the top 20...

It was a real labour of love that I thought ticked all the boxes. I was really trying to innovate with use of the software, by taking the listener on a journey around the entire Camelot wheel.
I also thought the "One day too we'll live in harmony" acapella from David Guetta's 'Just A Little More Love' really set the agenda, especially in the way it was mixed and repitched harmonically.
I also used the full range of harmonic mixing techniques - not just key matching, but complex transitions where segments of tracks were transposed in steps, repitching through tempo adjustment and 'Energy Boost' mixing.
Yes, this sometimes meant attention-grabbing harmonic transitions, and while everything was smooth I didn't consider that smoothness was the only measure of an impressive harmonic transition!

Perhaps attempting to cram in every key signature in 11 tracks was a bit too ambitious - listening to the 20 mixes you seem to have opted for less 'busy' mixes that use fewer tracks (and perhaps more 'space between' - looking forward to reading your blog post about this!). I didn't however neglect this aspect, and did manufacture a decent breakdown that gave the listener pause for breath.

Desiring the 'space between' seems to be a rather stylistic subjective preference. I interpreted the 15-min time window was a real opportunity to produce a "fireworks display" style of mix that would literally blow people away with real energy. I'm afraid very few of the top 20 ticked that box for me - for instance I loved DJ Tolerance's DnB mega-mix (that you commented on in the forum, although said failed on the 'space between' criterion) and would have loved to see more of that sort of stuff in the shortlist.

I think my viewpoint seems to be echoed in quite a few of the other comments - this is not to criticise the winners but more to raise a question mark that perhaps some of the more ambitious, and by that I do mean in some cases more jam-packed mixes, did not make it through to the judging panel.

Obviously there's much more time in a conventional club or radio environment to insert more 'space between' - however I saw this contest more as a harmonic equivalent of Annie Mac's 'Mini Mix' on BBC Radio 1 - where the quality of the mix is usually judged at least partly by the quantity and scale of the ambition.

I really don't want to sound at all bitter, because just through participating in this contest I was forced to start using your fantastic software (I was already mixing harmonically but without the convenience of track shortlisting that MIK provides or the rigour of the Camelot method), and already consider myself a MIK ambassador.

It's just that when, in reference to the top 20, you say you're proud to have such talented DJs as part of the Mixed In Key family, I do hope you're not excluding those of us who are also doing great things with your software, even if it's not to your stylistic preferences!

Hope that didn't sound like too much of a rant - I'd encourage everybody to check out my mini-mixsterpiece at:

http://soundcloud.com/thomasmason/macesonicaharmonica

Thanks for organising a great competition that's clearly achieved what it set out to do - to spark fierce debate and get more people talking about harmonic mixing!

Best,

Thomas Mason aka. The Mace 		Reply
Yakov (Mixed In Key)
11-14-2009
 Hey all,

Here's how I imagine listening to Tamas's mix: Pop open a bottle of champagne, put on his music, and make out with a very hot girl.

It's one of the best chillout examples I've heard, and it's 100% electronic.

Here is a tracklisting from Tamas:

1. Cinematic Orchestra - All That You Give
2. DJ Shadow - What Does Your Soul Look Like, Pt. 4
3. Minus 8 - Sarug & Terah
4. Nitin Sawhney - Market Daze
5. 4hero - Conceptions
6. DJ Krush and Toshinori Kondo - Sun Is Shining
7. Nina Simone - Feelin' Good [Joe Clausell Remix]
8. Sweetback - Chord
9. Anthea - Don't Explain
10. Kruder & Dorfmeister - Shakatakadub
11. Mystery Dub - Edge Test
12. Bonobo - The Plug
13. Funki Porcini - The Deep
14. DJ Cam - Free Your Turntable and Your Scratch Will Follow
15. Fauna Flash - Mother Nature [Blue Foundation Remix]
16. Soul II Soul - Keep On Moving
17. Eggo - La Pappaye Mobile
18. Ronny Jordan - Laidback
19. Ursula Rucker - Brown Boy
20. Boozoo Bajou - satta [Remix]
21. DJ Vadim - London Mind State
22. Tosca - Chocolate ELvis Presley [Bullitnuts Remix]
23. Cedar - Elusive Tides
24. Dzihan & Kamien - Homebase

I thought it had 10-12 tracks at first listen until I heard all the small details. 		Reply
[binge]
11-14-2009
 As it happens, i have a BA in english lit, bro, so yes i like to think i have a fairly good grasp of the english language. Secondly, i'm not an aussie, i'm English and proud of it. Thirdly, i'm a big fan of tech house, and i'm not saying your mix wasn't competent, it just fucks me off when people make a big deal out of using four decks because if your not beat matching, you should be utilizing them, otherwise what's the point, right?

As requested: http://soundcloud.com/binge/mixed-in-key-beatportal-contest-submission-15-min-dubstep-mix --- probably not up to par with yours.

 		Reply
Tamas (Track 11)
12-15-2009
 Congrats to everyone in the Top 20, I believe the judges had a hard job selecting the best.

It's a real honor for me to be judged by such big names and a humbling experience to be the winner of the contest.

My mix is definitely not a dance mix as it was clarified earlier that other non-dance genres like downtempo and chillout would also qualify. In fact Yakov explained later that it's not about the strict categorization of songs they'll look at (eg. trance vs. vocal trance or any sub-genres) but the cohesive nature of the track selection so it fits a single "mood".

This is exactly how I selected my tracks, I call the mix "Nu Dawn - Session One" and the intention was to create something that you can listen to after 3am.

Yakov has posted my tracklist already - I will add some of my comments later on the mixes/transitions with detailed timings as well to help identify songs (right now I'm on holiday overseas). In advance I need to say that there were no samples used at all (I'm surprised by the comments - I believe it's due to the use of some DJ Shadow and DJ Krush tracks which have tons of samples in the songs already), I used the original tracks all through the mix with only 2 songs running and transitioning at the same time (no overlays, and no, I haven't used Ableton).

It is obviously an edited mix as you can hear, it is a cut-down version of a full-length 63 minute mix I've been working on earlier.

Strictly speaking I haven't used acapellas either, the only 3 vocal parts were the original jazz version of "Feeling Good" from Nina Simone that actually starts with Nina just singing without any instruments. The "Don't Explain" cover version from Anthea was mixed over Sweetback's (Sade's band without Sade) "Chord" - I did not have an acapella so I had to use a band filter to get the vocal boosted and the bass/drums cut in the mix. And finally the "Keep On Moving'" version from Soul II Soul is an original remix that happens to start with acapella, nicely building up with drums later.

I had a hard time mixing all these tracks as the groove beats are much more difficult to blend over than a dance track's 4/4 kick-snare. The jury might have considered that, it'd be nice to hear their comments as well. No offence BTW, I have nothing againts house or any other uptempo mixes - I would have probably gone with such genres if I have had less time. It is not about beat matching though, there's much more to a mix than that, that's what the whole MixedInKey community is all about.

Instead of chillout I'd rather call my mix downtempo (since it's also a genre and it's very wide ;-) As for how downtempo it is: the mix starts at 63 BPM (!) and goes up only to cca. 100 I believe in 15 minutes - it was also a non-trivial excercise to make the speed changes seemlessly as it's a huge shift if you look at it in percentage (almost 50% up)

In some transitions I had to actually modify the original tune or melody by pitchshifting up or down a few semitones just a part of the track to keep the mix harmonic - so first of all I selected harmonic matching tracks but even if a track was not harmonic but fitted the mood very well, I made it harmonic by pitch shifting (eg. the "Don't Explain" melody was modified when mixed with Sweetback, I had to shift only certain notes or words and not the whole vocal part to fit the key of the other track - same with the 4hero - DJ Krush "Sun is Shining" transition). This is very different to just locking in the pitch to preserve the tune and then matching tempo.

I agree that it sounds more like a production, however the contest rules had nothing against it. It does not say anything about my live performance capabilities, true - well, I was finalist in the 2001 DMC World Championship with our team (X-Phaders) so I have some experience with short 4 or 6 minute programs and quick mixing. I have mixed 12 songs live in 2 minutes once in one of the DMC national finals by stacking 6 vinyls on top of each other on the wheels of two turntables, throwing away what I just played and putting the needle to the next one below without having to switch records (of course they had markers) - and this was before the Scratch Perverts have done the same at the World DMC. This is another story though - but it shows that it can be done live too. That's not the point however, I believe a mix is a mix, you listen to the end result that can be quite amazing regardless how it was done.

I reckon my original inspiration here was Coldcut's 70 Minutes of Madness mix (Journeys by DJs series) where Coldcut used 35 tracks in 70 minutes - and still had a consistent mood throughout the mix despite some really surpising track selections.

You can say that my mix is depressing, but the tracks were selected that way intentionally - no wonder why there is a whole genre called cinematic downtempo, or I could also quote DJ Shadow's song title: "How Does Your Soul Look Like?". You're just in that mood sometimes, it helps having matching music :-)

Well, I know I won't probably get any gigs out of this, I even put it into the mix from the Funki Porcini song "The Deep": "It's a real sad song. The only trouble is: sad songs ain't selling this year..." :-)
 		Reply
dj alex rocha
11-14-2009
 binge its not about beat matching its about the creativity with the 4 decks i started spinning 15 years ago with tapes bro! after that vinyls than cdj and now tracktor, with him i dont have to worry about the beat maching which gives me sooooo much more space to be creative on the fly i put out 4 decks because thats how i spinn but i was doing 4 decks before on vinyls and cdj's way before traktor was invented i just use tecnology to improve even more what i did before. thats all bro

plus if this was not a dj contest why have dj's as judges? ......


p.s binge i never heard dubstep before, but really i liked ur set bro it inspired me to listen to dubstep ! ur set alone diserved way more to win than tamas depressing set.

cheers bro!!! 		Reply
ThomasMason_MaceCast
11-14-2009
 Thanks Tamas for such a fantastic defence of your mix, and congratulations!
Chillfully uplifting - it's not your fault you Aussies are just so laidback you fall over!!

I'm sure we'd all love to know where to add you on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc. and keep sharing ideas and great music.

I definitely went down the more uptempo four-to-the-floor house route. Mine was an 11-track whip through every single key signature, clockwise around the Camelot wheel.

So guys, if I can offer up a dignified contrast to Tamas's 3am style, please do check out 'MaceSonica Harmonica':

http://soundcloud.com/thomasmason/macesonicaharmonica

Yahov - I think both could equally be enjoyed with a bottle of champagne and a hot chick!

Well done everybody for participating in this fantastic contest - quoting from my lead acapella, and David Guetta, 'One Day Too We'll Live In Harmony'...

Thomas Mason aka. The Mace

Harmonic mixers of the world let's stick together! Add me at:

http://facebook.com/thomasmason
http://twitter.com/thomasmason
http://myspace.com/macecast

 		Reply
DJTurtle-GL
11-14-2009
 Congratulation Tamas, your mix es really great.
The idea, for me to participate in this contest, is to know new mix music tendencies, and how far I´m to get it
Conclusion: I need to learn a lot,everybody can learn something from other.

Thanks to MixinKey people to give to the DJ Internet community the opportunity to participate in this contest

Peace to All 		Reply
Derek
11-14-2009
 Hi everyone. I appreciate the couple of comments about my mix. Here is my tracklist:

Contains elements of:
01. Tom EQ - "The Beginning"
02. Blatta Inesha - "Blow Up" (HiJack Remix)
03. Dusty Kid - "The Cat" (Crookers Remix)
04. Ryan Riback - "Boom" (Lee Mortimer Remix)
05. HiJack - "Keep It Real" (Oliver $ Remix)
06. Wonk - "Nasty Dog" (Original Mix)
07. Crookers - "Atomic Baile Boy"
08. Jack Beats - "Get Down"
09. The Futureheads - "I Wouldn't Be Like This" (Andy George Remix)
10. The Loose Cannons - "What Have You Done For Me Lately?" (Stupid Fresh Remix)
11. Chunk N Attack - "Rocka Revolution" (Twocker Mix)
12. X-Press 2 ft. David Byrne - Lazy (Mowgli Wobblin' Mix)
13. Dirty Disco Youth -Eye of the Tiger
14. Raw Kemistry - "Micky Slim's Peak Time Punch"
15. Defunct! - "Welcome Back (Will Bailey & Mikey Hook remix)"
16. Heavy Feet - "We Gettin' Crunk" (A1 Bassline Remix)
17. Boy 8 Bit - "Fogbank" (Jack Beats Remix)
18. Cicada - "Psycho Thrills" (Aniki's Thrill Ride Remix)
19. Don Rimini - "Let Me Back Up" (Crookers Remix)
20. Clark Able - "Lemon Head" (Crookers Remix)
21. Will Bailey - "The Dutty Clem" (The Bulgarian Mix)
22. Mowgli - "Pa Po Pon" (Original Mix)
23. Jack Beats - "UFO"
24. Lee Mortimer - "That Thing" (Vocal Edit)
25. B. Rich - "Everyday Hustle" (AC Slater Remix)
26. The Young Nutz - "Nut Master" (Respect to Fatboy Slim Mix)
27. Pascal & Pearce - "Disko Biskit" (Dylan Holshausen Got The Goods Mix)
28. Snoop Dogg - "Pump Pump" (Aniki Bootleg)
29. Spencer & Hill - "Fingertips" (Felguk Mix)
30. HiJack - "Possessed"
31. DJ Dan - "That Phone Track" (Calverton 2009 Remix)
32. Defunct! - "Fokkin Lekker" (Original Mix)
33. Bart B More & MC Flipside - "So It Goes" (Original Mix)
34. Cascada - "Fever" (Mowgli & Bagheera Remix)
35. The Young Nutz - "We Got One" (Original Mix)
36. Mustard Pimp - "Télésiègègee"

...and a little bit more here and there... but throughout the entire mix, it's not just quick cut-up transitions, I also remixed nearly every minute of the mix and combined elements from 3 to 5 tracks at a time across the board.

For those interested... even though I didn't make the 5. :)

D.
 		Reply
crass.mix
11-14-2009
 Congratulation to Tamas! So original and smooth. Big ups!

I never thought in a million years these respected DJ's would hear my set. It is a great honor.

Thank you MIK for this competition, your software is amazing, keep up the good work.

THANKS AGAIN!

crass.mix

http://www.soundcloud.com/crassmix 		Reply
robbym
11-14-2009
 Some details about my mix.

It is a NewWave mix Tracklist:

NEW ORDER-True Faith
YAZOO-Situation
DEPECHE MODE-Strange Love
KRAFTWERK-Radioactivity
DURAN DURAN-All She Want's Is
INFORMATION SOCIETY-What's On Your Mind
PET SHOP BOYS-What Have I Done To Deserve This HUMAN LEAGUE-Don't You Want Me

And a lot of samples from the same tracks or tracks from the same genre.
The mix was made using Samplitude 8 (so no Ableton ;) ) and all the cuts/stretching/slicing were made by hand.

Regards,
Rob 		Reply
DJ White Hawk
11-14-2009
 Hi All!
Interesting!
Just to mention about me here is I am a Lounge master in my area.
Tamas did a nice compilation alright and the transitions could have been better.. BUT the genre 'chillout' is all wrong. This is lounge and nujazz. Noticed the jazzy drumming in some tracks?
Chillout is more of a goa trance and ambient electronic style. Sorry Judges! Absolutely lounge.
You told us to stick to one genre ??? lol
You might say lounge is in the chillout genre?
No, lounge and chillout are in the electronica genre.

Thanks to all for participating, DJs and Judges!
Peace
 		Reply
draxter
11-14-2009
 congrats to top 20 and nr.1 winner! try to listen my dubstep in key mix. I tryed put as much melodic elements, not just minimal grooves, so u can really hear mixing in key...
Hope u enjoy:

Draxter - Dubstep Is The Key by draxter 		Reply
Corentin
11-14-2009
 Hi everyone!

Thanks to the judges, they did a good job. In my opinion, they picked up the 5 best mixes out of the top 20.

Now, concerning those 20 mixes, I must say that I was VERY disapointed. It's not about the style, tracks selection nor the use of ableton. What troubles me is that this contest was about harmonic mixing (which is because I took part to it) and I now I end up wondering if the guys at mixed in key actually know what's the difference between clashing and hamony. Quite an issue for people selling harmonic mixing sofwares....

My words might be hard but this needed to be said.

Wish you peace (and hamony?) 		Reply
Nate Nash
11-14-2009
 Hey everybody, this is Nate Nash and I'm really glad I'm in the Top 20, especially as one of only two drum & bass DJs who made it in!

A few thoughts (as if anybody reads this but to those few of you, thanks haha):

I've never had any experience with music anything, I've never DJed anywhere in any club, and as you guys can see I haven't even made my Myspace yet. I pretty much picked my DJ name when sending my mix in so this is a bit of a surprise to me!

My tracklist (for all you d&b heads) and the times each song audibly enters the mix (for all you non-d&b heads):

1. Pendulum - Spiral (00:00)
> High Contrast - The Ghost Of Jungle Past (01:30)
2. D.Kay & DJ Lee - Tuning VIP (03:16)
3. Commix - Talk To Frank (Break Remix) (05:55)
4. Noisia & Black Sun Empire - Infusion (07:25)
5. John B - When The Time Comes (09:40)
6. Sub Focus - Follow The Light (11:38)

... with NO EXTRA SAMPLES. This is an extremely traditional mix!

I've always took a fundamental approach to DJing and if I can't reproduce it live, I don't like doing it (not to say I don't like listening to it or don't appreciate it, but I won't put it in a mix with my name on it!). The only special thing I've got is Final Scratch and I am a standard 2-deck mixer, no Ableton or any other software or anything. If I want to go faster I don't use samples, I just learn tricky spots to cue up all my tunes.

Nice job to Crass making it into the prize bubble with a d&b mix. If you don't know a lot about drum & bass, you can really hear the difference in approaches between his style and mine. I'm all about LONG blends and double drops where he seems to have a lot more dynamic and unpredictable mixes. Also, our selections overlap a little bit, but I definitely picked a darker and moodier style of drum & bass for this mix. If playing spontaneously, I adhere less strictly to harmonic rules and you'd hear a lot of what he played in my sets. For this, I decided to stick to one vibe and not do too much and just make a solid little mini-set.

A big congrats to everybody in the Top 5 regardless of what approach they took to get there. It's just about doing what you do as good as you can possibly do it instead of finding what's more "right" and less "wrong" about music. It's a universal thing, so big ups!

And you can be sure I'll listen to all these eventually. Great job! 		Reply
Yakov (Mixed In Key)
11-14-2009
 @Nate Nash -- it's really cool that you're a bedroom DJ. That's what I like the most about the contest, we have both established DJs and up-and-comers like you in the Top 20.

I think the judges liked your set because it's what drum-and-bass sounds like when it's mixed in the club. It's a good representation of darker, moodier sound. 		Reply
Nate Nash
11-14-2009
 Yakov,

Thanks so much for the complements! Also, thanks so much for giving people like me an avenue to get onto someone's radar, especially in such a business where it's hard to get your voice amongst a sea of so many others shouting about why they're the best.

I guess now I have to get ready to take a humble approach to what comes next because this is the sort of time I can do good or screw up big time! I guess now I have some confidence in myself to further my own style but from a quick browse on the site, I see there is so much more to learn to mixing and producing music. I signed up just to reply to this thread but then I saw the rule about a quick first tune and a vocal second tune, and also you hinted at an upcoming blog about "the space between". Anyways, now I'm extremely intrigued about how little I know! I certainly want to know more and see where I can take myself and the last thing I want is to stop trying to learn from others because I get a big head!

On a side note, of course I'd love to know what High Contrast personally thought of me mixing his own track. :)

But most importantly I guess I'll be visiting this site a bit more in the future! 		Reply
DJ OB
11-14-2009
 What a great competition. It is a true honor to share the stage with some outstanding DJ's.

Tamas, your mix is ABSURD man. I hit it for about five minutes, stopped it, lit my hookah, and then listened to it all the way through. WOW, epic. (also the girlies I was with were DIGGIN the mood your mix set.) Yakov is right, truly a mix for mackin' on babes.

Like Nate Nash, I would also consider myself a bedroom DJ, although I am starting to get gigs in hole-in-the-wall bars. I've been Djing since I was twelve and have practiced/studied relentlessly ever since. And yes, what a HUGE confidence booster this contest was for me. I would also love to hear what the celebrity DJ's thought of my mix, especially my idols Paul Oakenfold and Markus Schulz. The mere fact that those guys and the others listened to my mix and found something special about it means the world to me.

I also took a pretty traditional approach to creating my mix. I first went through a long track selection process by mixing them in traktor and making sure the harmonies/tones did not clash. After I was confident that I had the proper tracks, I went into ACID Pro 7 and chopped them up to my liking. With about a week left in the competition, I took the rough draft of the mix and threw a house party with fellow DJ friends and took mental notes on how everyone reacted to the mix. People were groovin' HARD so I knew it was finished.

Once again, I am truly humble and honored to have been selected for a top 5 spot. Thank you MIK for having this contest and for creating such a fantastic product. Congrats to everyone in the top 20.

Mark aka DJ OB 		Reply
Dj DTH
11-14-2009
 Hello i'm Dj DTH (Alex) i wanted to say congratulations to the winner and rest of the djs. I was playing in front of a really large crowd when i got an email informing me that i was one of the top 5 djs. So Yakov sorry about that messy reply, hope i sent all the info you needed. And now something about my set it's recorded live, the first part from a 3 hour set, and it's made using 4 decks and a mixer.

Here's the tracklist:
01. Arnej - Dust In The Wind (Intro mix)
02. Marcus Shossow - Form My Heart (Original Mix)
03. Marco V. - Coma Aid (Remix)
04. Tritonal feat. Soto - Invincible Sun (Air Up There remix)
05. Be:Gold - Starstruck (Jochen Miller Remix)

Again congratulations, have fun and take care

 		Reply
Tamas (Track 11)
11-14-2009
 Derek, you are probably my personal winner with 36 tracks, that's incredible! I will definitely check it out and "analyze" it. Although it's not a contest about how many songs you can squeeze in the shortest amount of time, I really think that this is the direction to take DJing to the next level. It's like Shadow's Endtroducing album made full of samples, or Prodigy's Dirtchamber Sessions with an enormous amount of tracks mixed - some of my favorites.

Bottom line we make music without being musicians and using any instruments - we just use other songs as building blocks to create someting new that did not exist before. Scratching and turntablism gave us the freedom first to do this live by using the decks as instruments - now we have a new dimension where the likes of Ableton Live, Traktor, Serato and Final Scratch make another paradigm shift.

In the early stages any new tricks are hard to perform live so they start in the studio as they require excessive pre-production and preparation. However as technology catches up they go mainstream and live. I don't have any issues seeing people slicing and dicing grooves and tracks as a preparation for an Ableton Live gig - it is all about the end experience, what you hear. It's true that some will make very rigid, strickly pre-built and well rehearsed mixes and do the same gigs all the time - but it's no different to a classical concert and a jazz jam session where the latter just has a loose basic theme and live improvisation on top of it. These new tools give us the freedom to improvize much faster and react live to the mood of the crowd in a much faster way - it's up to us whether we use them or not.

I see it as a waste of time when a DJ has to look for the new track, find the vinyl, put on the record, match the tempo and key, cue it up - these are just technicalities, I think creativity starts over and above these things, so if software can help us eliminate these boring steps it's all better. A 4 turntable set was once a very unique and challenging thing to do - today it's a commodity with Traktor and it's not about keeping the tempo across 4 decks any more, it's about how you control the sound to build the mix.

I remember the 1992 World DJ Championship with Q-Bert's Rocksteady DJs team. They created something new there, something unheard of before and changed the game of turntablism forever - also making the new genre of dirtstyle. To be honest I did not like that set at all the first time I saw that - it took many repeated watches and listens until I understood it, realized how genious they were and started to like it. Where are the songs? - I asked. Where are the smooth mixes, build-up? Any beat juggling? Melody at all? And hey, it's not fair that they were cutting their own vinyl with all their samples lined up nicely after each other in the proper order - I could do the same if I could cut my own record!

Today everyone of us can cut our own records - and more. I don't see new DJs appreciating this fact and understanding the enormous possibilies and capabilities it gives us for our creativity. If we look back into those days and see how excited the DJ Culture was about those new techniques, I don't think we live up to that dream today with all these thigs we have at hand. It's OK, there's more room to improve, hence I think Q-Bert or maybe Yoga Frog (Q's manager) said once that we're entering a new era of turntablism and DJing where we shift from technology to creativity. I couldn't agree more.

The last time I saw Mixmaster Mike in Sydney a few years ago I went and watched a couple of his older gigs on YouTube. It was amazing to see how much improvement his show had on its flow just because he did not have to switch records any more - much faster, much snappier. Will someone ever accuse Mixmaster that he's not doing the "real" thing by using Serato? I doubt that. It's all about embracing the new technology and controlling it - requires new sets of skills but it definitely improves what we'll hear at the end and that's all that matters. So these multitrack, sample-heavy, quick-cut and many overlay mixes might soon also become mainstream and we will be able to perform them live - I'm looking forward to it.

(PS: Not that I want to put myself in the group of the DJs I've mentioned above - these are just examples, I'm a single piece of dust molecule compared to any of them :-)
 		Reply
The Overload
11-14-2009
 @Tamas: Just to be clear, I meant no disrespect to your or your mix. Nor did I think you needed to defend it, but thanks, that was an interesting read. I'd love to hear the proper full length mix.

Congratulations on your win, and enjoy your new toys. 		Reply
Tamas (Track 11)
11-14-2009
 White Hawk - I couldn't agree more with your comment about the genre of my mix: I would also like to call it lounge as lounge mixes have been my favorites for many years now.

Although I don't think lounge itself is a definitive genre: at least not to me, I just think of it as something you can "kick back to, relax, feel the vibe" as Guru was saying in "Loungin'" (should be the anthem of all lounge songs...)

So there we go - is Guru's "Loungin'" a lounge song? I believe very much so but as for the genre it's also definitely rap, hip-hop and jazz. So when I say lounge I talk about a mood rather than genres - I line up tracks in the lounge session that will create that particular atmosphere whether it's dinner time at 8pm while it's raining outside, chilling out after a party at 3am in the morning or relaxing in a cafe in the sunshine at 2pm in the afternoon. The same probably goes to chillout - you call call it a genre but it's also just a mood when you want to "chill out" literally. You can use ambient and electronica but even laidback jazz tunes as well. Who says it's not chillout if it's not electronic and it makes it lounge? There's certainly heaps of pure acoustic ambient chillout tracks (well, at least on the many chillout compilations)

The company DMX Music is pretty good with all this - chances are that when you hear a mix in a cafe or hotel it's by DMX Music - they create programs based on moods not on genres. In a lounge mix I do the same, I will line up 70s funk with smooth jazz, trip-hop, acid jazz and nu jazz, even standard jazz songs, downtempo and lo-fi and hip-hop in the same mix.

For example I had Ronny Jordan in my winner mix, which is strictly Smooth Jazz, definitely not "chillout" if you accept chillout as a genre. However the track has a heavy bassline and a hip-hop drum groove and laidback guitar solo so it could easily pass by itself as an instrumental downtempo or trip-hop song - even if the artist in general is a smooth jazz guitarist.

Same with Soul II Soul: Keep on moving' - would you call it chillout? Well, the whole term of chillout did not even exist at the time the track was released - strictly speaking it was one of the original acid jazz songs, it would have been hard to categorize it otherwise, you could have said it was "soul" as it was probably closest to that up until the birth of a new genre.

We've seen many songs categorized retrospecively as "acid jazz" that were released way before the whole term was invented - remember the roots of acid jazz series where we had Quincy Jones songs labelled as acid jazz from the 70s... Back then it was just called pure jazz...

So fast forward to current days - what is nu jazz? I don't believe there's any exact definition, you could say that it's jazzy acoustic instruments with a touch of electronic samples. Hard to define as there's jazzy atmospheric drum'n'bass as well which fits the previous definition (eg. a track with live acoustic bass and trumpets/saxophone but dnb beats - which would be definitely not nu jazz). There are also a lot of nu jazz instrumental songs with mainly acoustic instruments (Lllora, re:jazz or many tracks from the St. Germain des pres Cafe series) which could actually pass as simple jazz songs, period. In fact acid jazz in the 90s had a lot of purely acoustic "new style" jazz which were a bit funkier than standard jazz - many nu jazz songs today match that category and you would not distinguish a 90s acid jazz acoustic track to some of todays nu jazz acoustics (instumental or vocal). Then there's the Nina Simone "Feeling Good" remix in my mix, probably one of the icons of Nu Jazz since it's from Verve Remixed Vol 1. - however it is just a remix of a standard jazz song.

Then there's my other favorite genre question: jungle vs. dnb. We had something called "jungle" as a genre back in the mid 90s which just disappeared suddenly and gave way to dnb. But again if you listen to some of the jungle tracks you could not precisely describe why it is different to dnb.

All I'm trying to say it that I don't see the point in precisely categorizing music and sticking to definitions. It's true that it was a rule for the contest and I think it was very much controversial - my mix could have been rules out quite easily. However I think Yakov and the judge panel did an excellent job in clarifying that it's not about analyzing all the categories and sub-categories of every song with a microscope just to rule people out. I did not even care about this rule as I thought my mix was cohesive enough and I was really surprised to see many people getting bogged down to the definition of the rules.

It was very subjective, true, but music is subjective as it's an art so we have to live with it - you can't keep yourself to the word of the textbook and make good music. It just does not work like that. Same with mixing - you can have hints, tips and tricks and techniques, like the Mixed In Key wheel of chords and tunes - however it is not hardcoded and it's not the only one true way to go where anything else is not accepted.

I mean if you look back to classical music it was a hard rule to finish every piece with a harmonic tune or chord. The idea was to give closure to the audience and calm them down after all the harmonic changes and tensions especially what the dissonant or just minor chords might generate. It was a crime to do it anyway else.

And yet breaking this rule is the very essence today in most of the popular genres - using strange minor chords all over the track without the matching major tone to resolve the tension - that is the goal, to keep up the tension without any closure. Most of my favorite tracks are like this, extreme minor keys all over and no closure - you can say it's depressing but it's also a technique and it's well excepted today even if it was way out of line with the textbooks in the classical days.

Or a more recent example - Herbie Hancock's "Rock It". Where would we be today if someone had the power to tell Herbie that "Dude, you are a jazz musician, you either play jazz or you change careers and play synthesizer music, you cannot mix and match the two, this is the rule. And by the way, what is that terrible noise you're making in the song, ziggy-ziggy - drop that please, we don't do that in jazz...". Well, that ziggy-ziggy in "Rock It" has started the career of many of the top DJs today (as we've seen in the movie "Scratch" - amazing to see that almost everyone there mentions "Rock It" as a first early influence.

So what is the genre of "Rock It"? I don't even know. And on that note Herbie did not stop and created "The Essence" and the Future 2 Future album few years ago - what is "The Essence" - can you call it drum-n-bass? There is a jazz drummer actually drumming drum-n-bass groove on an acoustic drumkit as opposed to using drum samples - quite a performance that only the genious of Jack DeJohnette could match as it's bloody hard to play a groove drum patterns so fast live. So bottom line it's jazz, or is it jazzy dnb or a new genre of dnb jazz? Or shall we call it RnB as Chaka Khan sings on it, or maybe dnb rnb jazz? :-) Fits well into any "lounge" mix anyhow :-)

All I'm saying is that crossing genres is what makes music moving forward, that's where the most exciting things happen. Yeah, I know it was not what the rules of the contest said - about that please ask the judge panel not me - if you're lucky you might get me disqualified :-) I'm not saying that genres are not important, I love drilling down into arguments about genre definitions all the time (as we all do) - however when it comes to mixing I probably don't give a damn. I remember now that the best moment in that Mixmaster Mike gig I've mentioned was when Mike played Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" almost unmodified and untouched in the middle of his hip-hop and rnb set (OK, well it's always heavily guitar and rock influenced because it's Mixmaster and there's also the Beastie Boys heritage...). No rules and definitions will ever tell you whether it's OK to play "Teen Spirit" in your set or not (it can be quite lame as well actually) - he just felt the crowd and at that point and time everyone just went mad. That's what DJing is all about. 		Reply
Tamas (Track 11)
11-14-2009
 Overlord: sure, no offense taken, I just wanted to share some backgound and my philosopy behind the mix rather than defend it (although I used to do DJ battles so the competitiveness might be a result of that :-)

Thanks for all of you who listened to my mixed and liked it - I will post the full length version when I return from my holiday in a week. I also have the tracklist for another 4 "Nu Dawn Session" mixes in the similar style, I have not started yet to work on them. Winning this contest is a big motivation for getting back to them and finishing it all up.

I'll keep you posted.

Cheers,

Tamas (a.k.a. Track 11) 		Reply
vir
11-15-2009
 i could listen to construction sounds and enjoy it ... if i did it the way Yakov imagines it ;) Reply
Lanza
11-15-2009
 any mix that incorporates vadim, shadow, and krush is winner in my book. good job guys, keep up the good work.
-lanza 		Reply
DJ big O
11-15-2009
 Guys ,

I have something that came to my Mind - I think there is a huge miss understanding happening here when people submitted there entry. I have a question , What do you call an entry of 15 minutes that contain 25 Tracks, with samples and loops....etc. For me this is not harmonic mixing anymore...its pure production...and i can call it harmonic production...Honestly speaking..the whole initiative of doing the competition was great. but i think there should been different categories maybe to enter, because you cant compare someone who mixed 7 tracks 100% harmonically on CDJ's with someone mixed 40 tracks using ableton live and tweaking all the audio..this is totally different. the winning entry sound great. But iam sorry with all respect to everyone this is not harmonic mixing , this is a produced piece done harmonically. And what we all know that when you mix harmonically is the actual mixing happening on CDJs or Turntables , when all the phrases are completing each other perfectly. This is Harmonic mixing. But when you squeeze in 30 tracks in 50 minutes this is not mixing. So what i kindly request from the MIK team for future competitions to be more specific in deciding on the rules, because again i tried to decide on a Genre for the winning entry and couldn't find a specific , maybe i can call it Chill Tempo or something. Because it was full of chill out kind of beats with minimal and down tempo grooves....etc anyways....The winning entry suits a more of a produced new track rather than a peace of Music that its completely mixed in harmony.


Cheers all. 		Reply
DJ big O
11-15-2009
 Yakov , Honestly speaking , Having all those tracks in 15 minutes ...is called mixing? , or production from separated Files.? Reply
Hytex
11-15-2009
 Hey people!

Congrats to all top 20 DJs! Nice work!

Just wanted to say some quick words. I've listened to some mixes in a particular genre I work with, and I'm quite dissapointed. Where's all this stuff like "take listener on a journey" and "complex transitions"? Some of the mixes have it.
While working on my mix I built some sort of love story there, made some unusuall mixing...But as I see, probably I should have recorded just a simple 5-fresh-track-mix and send it ;) But what's done is done.

My favourite mix - DJ OB, well done mate! Although, Markus Schossow and Veracocha = one genre?

I'll post my entry here in case you'll want to listen to some uplifting stuff.

Hope we'll have one more MIK contest later ;)

Cheers,
Hytex
 		Reply
DJ White Hawk
11-15-2009
 Yeah too bad that it was just egoistic liking of the music as the judgment.
The judging should have been according to the rules of the contest and judging on the quality of harmonic mixing even if the judges didn't like the music, no egos involved. But rather it was judged to the personal ego liking of the music and the rules didn't stick.
Anyway this was a great opportunity to meet all of you guys!
Keep on mixin!
Cheers
DJ White Hawk 		Reply
Derek
11-16-2009
 @Tamas: Haha, thanks for the kind words. I hope you like it when you give it some time to listen to. I hope actually hearing it doesn't make you change your mind. ;) I'd love to hear your full length version when it's up... mostly to hear how you went about chopping a full length mix down to 15 minutes.

Derek.
 		Reply
Rick Maia
11-16-2009
 Hey all,

First of all i'd like to congratulate everyone who made it into the top 20. I've had a listen to a few mixes and there is alot of quality up there!

I was lucky enough to come in the top 20 and I've had a few requests on facebook that I put a track listing up.

So here you go:

Glitterbug - Coming Out Again
August - Frames of Dub
Sebastian Davidson - Kwango (Foolish Horse Remix)
Joakim - Peter Pan Over The Bronx
Randall Jones - Cultural Assertion (Spoken Word Accapella)
Boris Hotton - Memories (Astroboys Rework)
Hakan Lidbo - Dyssomniac (Senso Remix)
Schiller - Dream of You (Chillout Remix)
Laurent Garnier - Jeux D'Enfants
Trentemoller vs Dj Lab - Rauta (Boys Remix)
Sebastien Thibaud - Duke
Chokko - Childhood (Mr Dee Remix)
Ben Klock - Subzero (Function Regis Remix)
Carl Craig - Attitude (Acapella)
Abdomen Burst - Underwater Cave
Sao Paris - Musique Box (Instrumental)

In case you were wondering, i didn't use ableton but I used Sony Acid Pro to produce the mix with different elements/loops of all the above tracks.

If you wan to get in contact you can find me on:
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rickmaiamusic
soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/rickmaia

Well done once again to the top 20, all of you deserved to win :) 		Reply
Echo
11-16-2009
 @Derek. I would have picked yours to win, even above my own! But I had fun doing my mix and I'm not a sore loser.

Well done Tamas, I really liked your mix and could feel the passion in your work.

I'd just like say thanks to Chad and Yakov for their paitience and dedication to this thread over the last month.

In my opinion, everyone who purchased MIK is a winner! I for one have evolved to a higher place. Music is, and has always been my oxygen. I don't have perfect pitch. Looking back on my old mixes, I only got it right about 50% of the time. Now I can get it perfect every time and boy does it save time as well.

 		Reply
Derek
11-16-2009
 @Echo Haha. You're too kind. :) I'm like you on this... It was a lot of fun to do my mix, I loved the process of making my mix and I had a blast listening to everyone else. It was such a pleasure to make it to the top 20, but I think the contest was a great event regardless of my placement... I'm happy for everyone who was a part of it and came away from it having had a good time. Seriously, though, can you point me in the direction of your mix? I'd love to hear it. I'll check the forums, too, and see if you already have a thread for it. Anyway, thanks again for the kind words. :)

http://www.audiohacker.com/
 		Reply
Derek
11-16-2009
 @Tamas If I didn't make it clear before, congratulations. I've listened to your mix a few times over now and really enjoyed it. I've been enjoying it even more with all your production and liner notes above, so thanks for the great amount of effort you put into it! :) Reply
Echo
11-16-2009
 @ Derek, here's the link for my mix and playlist.
http://rapidshare.com/files/292014493/djecho.com_gmail.com_-_DJ_Echo_-_Tribal_House_Mixed_In_Key_DJ_Competition.zip.zip.html 		Reply
Chad P (Mixed In Key)
11-16-2009
 I'd just like say thanks to Chad and Yakov for their paitience and dedication to this thread over the last month.


Thanks for that, it definitely makes it all worth it :)
 		Reply
DJ DA3DALUS
11-17-2009
 Congratulations to all the winners! If you don't need any of that software... I DO!!! =P

I'd also like to say thanks to all the peeps at MIK for taking the time to make this contest happen. I've learned a lot and have certainly grown as a DJ.

If anyone would like to check out my stuff, check me at:

DJ DA3DALUS

on either my Facebook Group or on SoundCloud. XD

http://soundcloud.com/dj-da3dalus

I'd love to hear some feed back! Thanks again to everyone! Keep that beat thumpin 'n bumpin!!!

-DJ DA3DALUS


 		Reply
Nanotek
11-17-2009
 I'm so happy and proud to be in the top 20. Thank to MIK, extremely useful program. I analize all my tracks with it before mixing with Traktor PRO. Reply
trucker
11-18-2009
 well I enjoyed doin my mix and entreing this comp and reading some of the comments raised by sore losers and listening to some of the wining mix , wicked stuff cheers

Mother Trucker 		Reply
trucker
11-18-2009
 danyal pick up your dummy and listern again to the wining mix all the way through to the end Reply
solidstate
11-19-2009
 tamas, you sound like a nice guy, thanks for sharing your thoughts, made for an interesting read, and i definitely better understand your musical approach much better by reading your posts. genre aside, i think you (and your mix) epitomize the present day pulse of electronica. you are knowledgable about music and you can mix and mash with the best of them. so, good job, and i hope your hold onto your inspiration...

you write "I was finalist in the 2001 DMC World Championship with our team (X-Phaders) so I have some experience with short 4 or 6 minute programs and quick mixing. I have mixed 12 songs live in 2 minutes once in one of the DMC national finals by stacking 6 vinyls on top of each other on the wheels of two turntables, throwing away what I just played and putting the needle to the next one below without having to switch records (of course they had markers) - and this was before the Scratch Perverts have done the same at the World DMC. This is another story though -"

lets hear that story (i dont see any videos on youtube, kentaro vids, but not yours. kentaro is siiick, i mix his birds eye view video into my video sets all the time)

and btw, I classify downtempo as a sub-genre, ambient would be the main genre: house, techno, trance, ambient, lounge, electro, breaks, jungle, d&b (i have different folders for the two), goa, 303, jazzy, groove, latin, intro & outro, disco funk, tribal... i guess any of these could be classified as sub-genres (tribal & jazzy are a good example of house sub-genres, but when its more bongo'y or jazzy per say then electronic i put it in its own catagory) 		Reply
Derek
11-18-2009
 Yeah, definitely a big up to Chad, Yakov and everyone who gave this so much great life and maintained all our questions through the whole process! :)

D 		Reply
solidstate
11-19-2009
 derek, nice website, thanks for the thievery mashes.

i assume thats a pict of you spinning somewhere? looks like a killer party

and yes, your mik contest mix is dope. not sure what 'fidget' is lol, must be an oregon thing... 		Reply
DU3
11-19-2009
 Tamas, Grats on winning. In your comment you say that beat matching and queuing are technicalities. I think they are necessary if you are going to spin a vinyl set. Have you ever spun a vinyl set? or heard a vinyl track next to its digital counterpart? Beat matching and queuing are the result of enough hours spent in front of two tables and a mixer, and are required if you are going to unlock the full phonic potential of the music we listen to. Its sad how many DJs are turning there backs on vinyl without ever having gotten to experience the true superiority of vinyl. :) I agree ableton's got tricks, but strong fundamentals eliminates the need for this. Anyways, I was just wondering if you had ever spun vinyl? grats once again. Reply
Waveform
11-19-2009
 ^ Read his posts. In fact it's been quoted literally above you that he was a finalist in the DMC championship in 2001. Reply
solidstate
11-19-2009
 lol, thats funny! Reply
Riley Warren
11-19-2009
 These are definitely extraordinary mixes!! Thanks for sharing DJ's AND Mixed In Key crew!!

Riley Warren 		Reply
DeviousD
11-19-2009
 Wow Hater #1 JYB, what? You don't like Downtempo, really? Tamas' mix is spot on, and props to him for sampling so many tracks, that's the beauty of MIK. Reply
Zita Zie
11-19-2009
 Hi! Just curious, is there a way to find out where I possibly placed? This way I have an idea for next time. =) Thanks. Z Reply
DJ Maroon Soul
11-19-2009
 hey yakov, how is everything?

first of all , thanks alot for a really great software that i think from my opinion will change the meaning of the harmonic mixing with respect to live mixing :)

second, im very sad of the top 20 list that the "judges" have choosen them and specially the top mix..it had never been with alooot of tracks "edited" in one mix that will define it as the best harmonic one , number of tracks doesn't even matter ... the best harmonic mix should make u feel that the whole set is like one track, and the word "transitions" should be put in consideration to what a harmonic mixing means, if u really listened to tamas mix ( and i don't mean its not good, i actually listen to it in my "chilling" time) u can hear the pauses in the transitions and i can tell when it start and when it ends, how come for the judges not to see this thing in the mix (listen to transitions vol 4 by John Digweed and u will probably know what the word transition really means ..NO OFFENCE)

third , abt the other 4 mixes...the only thing i'll mention specially in the trance mixes is the beat matching...how come the judges can't hear the slightly delay of the overlapped beats and harshness of them...how these are considered HARMONIC mixes and i suppose not to be bothered by that :(

finally, i'd like to thank all MIK team for this great effort and wishing that next you would make the rules more understandable( bec of the editing thing in mixing that is not mentioned in the rules)

cheers
DJ maroon soul 		Reply
X-AxSys
11-19-2009
 Way to go TAMAS! After reading a lot of the other comments before yours I cannot help feeling there is a element of sour grapes in some responses and egos getting the way of others. Before you get out your flamethrowers, remember it’s just my opinion and just like A$$holes, everyone’s got one...

I listened to the mix and have mixed feelings about some of it and just plain like many other parts of it. I'm definitely of the opinion I'll need to listen to the mix several times before I really 'get it all' but that to me is the mark of a mix that will stick around on my iPod. Thanks for taking the time to explain what went into your mix, that was definitely an interesting and informative read.

Like many people I'm not at all sure the top 20 mixes would all have been my choices. My opinions don't matter a damn though. What does matter though is that 7 other judges who know their stuff decided your mix was the cream of the crop.

The fact that others don't agree with the judges is to be expected. The lack of grace though in their criticism and comments sadly speaks volumes about the authors. As has been said nobody can take away the win from you and all the other winners... Congrats to you all! Your mixes may not all be my personal style but you all did great work. Keep it up!

Phil
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Leon Ross
11-19-2009
 Amazing sumbissions. Can't pick a fav, all are very nicely done. And of course, Tamas is the man to learn from. Reply
SoSo
11-20-2009
 well done guys. Reply
mmxbreaks
11-20-2009
 Wow, if I knew some of these would be so lame I would have entered. That mix out of Airplane in the D&B mix is far from right. Sigh. Reply
music_fiend
11-20-2009
 Congratulations to everyone who made the top 20 or who took the time to enter. A 15 min mix is not an easy thing to organise musically.

For all the moaners, if you put as much effort into your mixes, as criticising the winners then this would have been a much more competitive affair.

Suck it up, grow some balls and try harder next time - only you are the reason why you haven't made the top 20. 		Reply
Andriska005
11-21-2009
 http://www.myspace.com/tomniel Reply
D^3
11-21-2009
 Congrats to those who made the cut. It's actually kind of neat to know that I actually know a couple who made the cut.

But I have to agree with some of those who feel that the "rules" were somehow bent to accommodate. One of the rules I clearly remember is that: ALL SAMPLES MUST BE CLEARED. I wonder how many of those samples the winner actually cleared through the original artist?

Then there's the whole guidelines around originality. I'm sure that there are people out there who submitted original works. As a producer myself, I would have thought that this would have weighed heavy with a panel of judges who are also producers. But I get not. Gone are the days when for a dj to actually get accolades that he/she must actually create their own music as well.

Now with all things said and done. I think that this contest should have been named: The MIK Mash-Up competition. Where rather than exemplifying the nature of the software with steady, harmonic mixing and blending; you present a mix-up/mash-up of as many "like sounding" samples to create a hybrid collage of noise that neither represents any one genre nor your specific style. 		Reply
winchie
11-21-2009
 Great Mix, I havn't heard something like this in a while. Keep up the great work. I'm also new to the game of mixing. Reply
Ptichka
11-21-2009
 You know that the really most beautiful girl never wins the first place in the beauty competition.
And you know why?
Because it wont make this "big hype" that will make everyone say something about it the next day.
So guys (and girls), please don't be naive saying that the judges didn't hear the clashes phases, boring mixes, sub gernes combinations etc etc...

MIK made a great and a smart job here, and that's what we should thank them for.

they made a great community here, letting us, DJ's, talk about ourselves, our way of mixing, producing, giving tips to each other and sometimes criticizing too.

this is something that is much more appreciated than winning notebook a being forgotten after a month.

I've learned a lot from this forum a just listening to all the great mixes. from what I've heard (and really liked many mixes) my no 1 goes to: ToleranceDJ.

And not because his mixes were perfect (there where some sub gernes combined too) and other technical stuff. It was because I'm not the biggest D'N'B fan, and I just found myself sitting with a big smile in front of my desktop while listening to this set. that's the moment when all this technical stuff suddenly becomes not that important.
I was on a journey. This is the journey that I will remember the next time I'll listen to this kind of music.

Of course It's my personal opinion. And it is an honor for my to be part of this community.

 		Reply
Tamas (Track 11)
11-22-2009
 @Ptichka - are you referring to the famous beauty contest theory of John Maynard Keynes? :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest 		Reply
Tamas (Track 11)
11-22-2009
 @DU3: Have I ever spun a vinyl set? There is a very short answer to that, it's 03938. That is the serial number of my limited edition gold plated Technics SL1210 turntable :-) (I only have one, bugger). I've been spinning vinyl since 1988 - you've seen in my previous posts that I have attended DMC Championships, which is quite hard if you don't do vinyl :-)
Although it was mainly scratching that attracted me to turntables (no, it was not "Rock It", the tune that started me was the Coldcut remix of Eric B. and Rakim's "Paid In Full" (7 Minutes of Madness) and that part with "ziggy-zig-zig-zag-pump that bass...". Took me a few weeks to learn that one...) but I also had my years of mixing and tempo matching. BTW I need to clarify that I am not a pro DJ. I have had some paid gigs in clubs and elsewhere but it's been always a hobby for me, I've never done DJing for living. I still consider myselft a "bedroom DJ".

So yes, I understand what you mean, that is a certain experience most of us acquired for years with vinyl as it took years to master the skills of beat matching, just because you have to learn to feel the decks, touching the side gently to slow it even during the actual mix so it's can't be heard and does not make an abrupt wow effect - and the right pressure to give a push on the top if you want to catch up with the tempo but you believe the speed is otherwise fine. Most of us have worked with many non-electronic songs as well where you don't really know if your speed setting is wrong so you need to change it, or is it just the inprecise acoustic, manual drumming causing the beat not to match at all. I loved mixing acoustic acid jazz/funk tracks but those tracks don't keep the beat like electronic music, so you cannot have really long transitions.

I have all respect for vinyl and I do think that it certainly helps if someone has been spinning for years. However I don't see it impossible for any new DJ being as creative as anyone else without the background in vinyl and turntables - as technology has evolved to a stage when you can use software to do most of the things for you _and_ still be creative. We are talking about two different things here, 1) the experience, practise with vinyl and 2) the quality of the turntable/vinyl "interface" to control the sound. Again, I agree that the experience with vinyl helps a lot, but I also think that _any_ long experience with _any_ kind of tool will help you a lot. The key to any music is practising a lot, whether it's drums, guitar or turntables - or Ableton as a matter of fact. The catch here is that turntables have been around so much longer that it's easier to find people with solid experience with them - versus the new software tools are relatively younger, so it's not even possible to have that much years of experience with eg. Traktor (without a turntable controller). However it all changes and you can also put extra hours in within a day. That's why I'm saying that in the future we'll probably see a lot of good DJs with no vinyl background.

Also when someone uses the term "Software DJ" it has a very wide meaning: you can be a "Software or Computer DJ" and still use turntable/vinyl as a controller. Some still prefer a traditional turntable with needles to drive Traktor or Serato, but now with the Numark CDX/HDX and alikes you do get the turntable mechanics and the vinyl experience in a CD Player or hard drive player or just as a simple controller with no playback like with the Numark NS7 and other future ITCH controllers (I drive Traktor with my CDX as the position signal is also available on CD not only on vinyl - I still touch the vinyl on the top of the CDX that's true).

After all the turntable and the vinyl is just a controller, the only reason we still use them with software is that many people have years of experience with it so it's more familiar and it's easier do do the transition (no need to re-learn). However, who says that it's the best controller experience? It's been the best so far, I personally love it but there is a radid development today with these controllers. The Numark CDX has been definitely a breakthrough technology and who knows what the future will bring (ITCH and NS7 is just the beginning).

If this argument was focused on scratching and turntablism I would probably agree with you - one has to have real vinyl experience, there are in fact a lot of scratches and tricks you can only do on real turntables with a needle (eg. feeback and many others) so turntablism today still very much requires real turntables and vinyl played with needles. But if it's about only pure mixing and beat matchning it's obvious that a Numark CDX/HDX or any turntable based controller driven digital sound is far superior to mixing with needles/vinyl records. You can be faster, more precise with Traktor or Serato and there's automated tempo matching, BPM counting, real-time looping, effects, quick track selection, cueing etc. so why sticking to vinyl? There is definitely an emotional attachment to it and it's also hip and retro now - apart from that it's more creative to use software today (again, strictly for mixing).

There is however good and bad use of software as well, so yes, we can whinge and whine about novice Traktor and Ableton "DJs" who think they are DJs because they can get Traktor to mix two tracks - big deal. That's why I said that it's just technicality - you still have to understand what you do, how sequencial mixing works, what the structure of the song is, where you can cue, count the bars, etc - harmonic mixing is the next level then. The more you automate, the better results you can get as you have more time to spend on creative parts.

I might be overly passionate about the future of controllers but we never see how even a small piece of technology improvement will effect a creative art, like DJing. Those of you familiar with the history of scratching and turntablism know that when the new generation of really smooth and sensitive cross faders came out, they gave us a handful of scratches that were impossible to do before, like the crab (quickly running your 3 or 4 fingers on the fader whilst holding back with your thumb on the other side to create a"stattering" sound) and orbits and hamsters etc. All because of a smooth fader and a very steep volume fading curve that allows you to cut the sound in and out with a sub-millimeter movement of the fader.

If you look at it from that perspective, Traktor and Serato does to mixing and tempo matching what the supersensitive cross-fader did to scratching - it's changing the game, elevating it to a new level and opening it up to new possibilities and creativity. Half of it is the software the other half is the new controllers. (Well, more like quarter and quarter as the last half is the DJs style and creativity as it's always been and will ever be).

I think we're still in early stages, the industry has been spending years overcoming the limitations of laptops and soundcards (latencies) - it's still not the most reliable. I think what we need is a single software-hardware-controller platform, all-in-one, designed to just work together as opposed to linking laptops and soundcards to controllers and mixers. Serato's ITCH is a great initiative to at least having a single architecture and standards to design equipments to work together - but you still need a laptop and that's a painful point.
I had many discussions years ago with my friends about a universal DJ platform with a customizable flat multi-touch screen interface where you could put everything where you wanted to and define your buttons, knobs, faders, the spinning wheel and other controllers your own way. This link here shows a video of something similar – it is very primitive just like the comments say, but there are definitely some possibilities here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNb9MSn2ZB4

Also, there’s also a lot happening today with “human controllers”, just think about the Wii console. DJ Hero was just released on gaming consoles, it still uses a traditional-looking wheel-and-mixer controller, but look at this video of the next generation XBOX:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oACt9R9z37U&videos=yqbWL_pUC_I&playnext_from=TL&playnext=1

Imagine this kind of technology used together with DJ Software, basically reading your finger, arm movements, body language, eyes, lips… You just say the track’s name and it’s cued… etc.

I do enjoy spinning the wheels but you have to admit that there’s lot more potential if you break away from the traditional needles and vinyl.
(And yes, vinyl and analog has a superior sound quality but that’s another discussion for audiophiles…)
 		Reply
Tamas (Track 11)
11-22-2009
 @ DJ Big O: I see your point, it's probably true that the rules were not clear and even I was confused with the single genre rule as I mentioned earlier.

Although I still don't see why is it a problem if someone uses samples or loops? You mention the CDJs, you can easily loop on those decks real-time, so why is it a sin? :-)

BTW I haven't used samples or loops if it's looped grooves or beats what you mean by loops. I have looped some parts of the songs here and there where the brigde was not long enough to make the transition - that's all. You can easily do it on any CD player as well in realtime.

I would argue that my mix is a production: the tracks are mixed in a very sequential manner, I have only used SAWPro (Software Audio Workshop, a multitrack non-linear recorder/editor) and Sound Forge - no ACID, no Ableton, no nothing with automatic beat slicing, dicing and tempo adjustion. SAWPro is very old-school, I basically adjusted the tempo manually by bringing selected parts to the same size :-)

I have then cut the parts of the tracks in-between the mixes and transitions as much as I could as it was not relevant for a mixing contest - that is where there's "nothing" happening, you don't show any mixing skills there, it's just "overhead". 15 minutes is a very short timeframe - I did not think that mixing 5-7 tracks was impressive enough and was gonna beat others (you can call it a Beauty Contest syndrome, you want to figure out what others are doing and outsmart them...) Not that I have the luxury of thinking like that, as I mentioned I had an existing mix that I was cutting down in time.

My other point is that if I cut down my songs the way I cut them in the mix and burn them to CD then I can perform my whole mix live on two turntables or CD payers any time. I would have to memorize the tempo settings very hard as there would be no time for beat matching by listening but I could sequentially mix the whole set. (Only exceptions where I pitch shifted parts of the song to be harmonic but that could also be cut that way as part of the track)

So I don't really understand all the comments about live and "traditional" mixing. The limitation of playing a track as it is unmodified only applies to vinyl mixing - as you cannot modify vinyil on the fly (or at all). If you just use CDJs or anything else that is digital, CDX without Traktor or Serato, just as a CD player, you can already modify your songs and burn what you want to burn on that CD and mix it live.

I tend to agree with Ptichka that the real value of this contest was bringing so many people together and also getting all the bedroom DJs out of their bedrooms and giving them an opportunity. It made me work on my mix that I've neglected for a long time and I now have some good motivations to finish some other mixes I've had in my mind for a while. As Rakim would say: "It can be done, but only I can do it - for those that can dance and clap your hands to it" :-)

 		Reply
Tamas (Track 11)
11-22-2009
 @Solidstate: Your comments just made me think about putting up some of my old DMC videos to YouTube - I don't have anything published at the moment.

However our 2001 World DMC video is available online here:
http://www.muzu.tv/dmcworldteams/xphaders-hungary-2001-dmc-world-team-championship-music-video/189241?country=us

I am the second guy from the left with glasses (told you I was a bedroom DJ :-)

In case you get confused, this is the Hungarian team as I was born in Hungary, I just moved to Australia 6 years ago. 		Reply
solidstate
11-22-2009
 "I have only used SAWPro (Software Audio Workshop, a multitrack non-linear recorder/editor) and Sound Forge - no ACID, no Ableton, no nothing with automatic beat slicing, dicing and tempo adjustion. SAWPro is very old-school, I basically adjusted the tempo manually by bringing selected parts to the same size"

no wonder your mix didnt sound "perfect." when i first listened to it, i had trouble finishing it because of all the (what i consider) mistakes (if you where using ableton.) but now that i know you used SAWPro a non-linear recorder/editor, well, thats a completely different ball game. so my question is, why not use the best and most simple software? ableton 6.03 is free (if you can find it ;-) now, considering you won this competition, maybe my question is a stupid one! perhaps, in the end you simple out thought us all?! i will say that you out thought me for sure lol. i do believe your different approach and mixing logic won you this competetion. if there is ever another MIK competion, we all know where the bar has been set...

thanks for the link to the dmc championship, good stuff. i saw the guy next to you doing the crab lol, wicked stuff. 		Reply
Tolerance
11-22-2009
 @Ptichka

Many thanks for the kind words mate :D

It's really nice to hear my effort is appreciated and ticks all your boxes. . . makes it all worthwhile! :] 		Reply
Tamas (Track 11)
11-22-2009
 @Solidstate: the reason for using SAWPro is much simpler, it's not a logical bubble or about outsmarting people... :-)

One one hand I've been using SAW for many years so I have the experience with it - I had it waaaay before ACID, Ableton and similar technologies were out and then it was one of the best options to make a mix. It is outdated now (for DJ mix purposes), but I'm still emotionally attached (you see, same story as the vinyl/digital mixing, why people still use turntables with needles).

The other reason is (and I haven't mentioned this as it's very funny) that I made my original full lenghth mix back in 2002 :-) There was no Ableton Live at that time, I believe it hasn't been released yet, there was ACID but not in the current form, it was not as convenient to use as it is today.

When I cut down my mix now for the MIK contest the project was already in SAWPro, I just dug it up from my archives - I did not have time to transfer it to any other tool and frankly - I don't have any experience with Ableton, as I have not ever used it. We all had a deadline. I haven't been working with music for a few years now so I am a bit out of practise. I own Final Scratch with the scratch amp and Traktor but it's a fairly old version, I reckon it's hardware revision 1 - I was lazy to do the upgrade when there was a promo offer to switch to the new amps. As a result I'm not even familiar with the recent Traktor releases that much.

It's quite funny knowing all this that I still won the contest. Someone said here in the forum that my mix represents a good glimpse at what downtempo/electronica is today. Well, it rather represents what it was in 2002 as I don't have any tracks younger than 7 years in the tracklist due to the above :-) (the oldest is probably the Soul II Soul track, it's exactly 20 years old - still a very nice fit for downtempo... ;-)

You might be thinking now - well, if I was able to win this without using the latest and the best tools, what if I used these tools and took advantage of them? (I'm not saying this, that would be way overconfident :-)

Now that I won a bunch of new software and latest Traktor Scratch Pro, but more importantly I have the motivation to work with new software again and I'll probably dedicate some time to it, so we'll see how it goes in the next MIK contest.

BTW any feedback and advise on those mixing inperferctions and mistakes are very much welcomed. I love constructive feedback especially when it comes from an expert who takes the time to drill down into the details. My email is hotta11@hotmail.com.
 		Reply
solidstate
11-23-2009
 "Someone said here in the forum that my mix represents a good glimpse at what downtempo/electronica is today."

that is funny, especially bc i said it lol. what i meant, was not the tracks per-say, but more the way you layered the tracks. sure your software is outdated, but it was also way ahead of the curve. as you probably know, quantizing has been around for a long long time, artists such as stevie wonder (or rather his engineers) have been using this technology since the 60's. leave it up to the germans (ableton) to figure out how to deliver this concept to the masses.

Reply
Andriska005
11-23-2009
 http://www.nightinfo.hu/live-es-promo-mixek/tom-niel.ni Reply
solidstate
11-23-2009
 What really cracks me up is the fact that Tamas didn't even use MIK to make this mix.

I quote him, "I made my original full lenghth mix back in 2002 :-) "

and considering the The first version of MIK was released on March 25, 2006...

I also find it amusing that tamas didnt use any loops or 'beats' to layer his tracks. everyone, including myself, got that one wrong. however, i am not a professional musician so i will excuse myself (as i will excuse the countless others on this thread who got it wrong too), but the distinguished judges! LOL.

perhaps the reason why tamas' mix rose to the top was because it was the only mix that wasnt being mixed in key?! perhaps it was the the only mix that didnt use acapellas, loops, beats etc?!

tamas, please take no disrespect; you made a mix, and entered it into the contest (and won). and best of all you have sparked many interesting discussions... 		Reply
Tamas (Track 11)
11-23-2009
 Hey, Solid, you're right that I did not use MIK or the wheel concept - however my mix is harmonic and it is absolutely in key all the time. You don't have to use MIK to be harmonic, your ears will also do :-) Harmonic mixing is a very old concept, obviously anyone with a bit of a musical backround and good hearing will find a disharmonic, clashing key mix very disturbing (unless it's intentional - that's also part of the art).

I remember, back in the 90s DMC and some other vinyl record DJ mail subscription services were labelling their 12" singles and putting the key on them together with BPM count as part of their mail order service.

The MIK software is a great idea as you can automate the scanning and discovery of the keys in your whole collection - but many DJs have been doing this manually, just by listening and avoiding clashing key transitions (or purely mixing at a bridge where the music goes away and just the beats stay - which is a bit limiting).

There is always some conspiracy theory and fuming around the results of any DJ Contests - I've seen this many times even at DMCs as well. It's hard to define the rules and judging criteria as personal taste and preference will always influence the judges - at the MIK Contest there weren't even too many specific rules (especially around loops, samples or what equipment is allowed to make the mix). I would be also interested to see some comments from the judges as well on why they're chosen my mix and what they thought about the Top 5.
 		Reply
ESQ
11-24-2009
 > What really cracks me up is the fact that Tamas didn't even use MIK to make this mix.


This brings up an interesting question:

How was it determined whether a mix was 100% harmonic or not? Was this verification done by human ear or software? 		Reply
Dil Kris
11-24-2009
 Hello from Mauritius! We can see that key mixing has been around for well, decades. Some DJ's can find the keys by their ears; some may say 2 songs are harmonically compatible just by listening; and some have to use Mixed In Key.

Mixed In Key for me just helps me to arrange the huge database of songs and helps me choose what songs to put next in my tracklist. Thanks loads to the whole team of MIK!

When I listen to mixes, I can say if 2 songs are harmonically compatible (just by hearing). And to know if a mix is harmonic, I have no choice but to listen to it altogether.

Is that so for you DJ's and members of the jury (also DJ's :P)?

Another question:
In a live back-to-back environment (where each DJ comes and plays a track after another), how would you guys find the next song that's in key? 		Reply
Tamas (Track 11)
11-25-2009
 I agree Dil Kris, "just feel the vibe 'cause your ears never lie" quoting Rakim...

You gotta admit that that's what DJing is all about.

"And deejays play hits with hard bass kicks
And then they display tricks like The Matrix
Make the record fly undetected by the naked eye
So just feel the vibe 'cause your ears never lie"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KZbdFyzkds

I haven't seen Rakim compared to Shakespeare so far, see the comments on the youtube link :-) There's a 14 year old kid who says he only listens to Rakim, Nas, NWA (the real hip hop) _today_ in 2009 - tears come to my eyes...

Talking about the real hip hop we could also say that "DJs have used up extended warranties, while real MCs and DJs are a minority..." and as a winner "right about now I use my authority, 'cause I'm like the Wizard and you look lost like Dorothy..." (Gang Starr - You know my steez)

Boy, hip-hop battles are so much more competitive, it's more fun when you can drop lines like that in your set... :-)

In contrast to that we're having a very civilised discussion here. 		Reply
solidstate
11-25-2009
 you sure are a white hungarian lol

sure you can simply listen to a mix and tell if its in key (probably not which key, but perhaps between whether its a dark and moody key or its a light and uplifting key- tamas may know his keys, he seems to know everything else ;-) and if you have a great mixer, like a urei 1620, you can mix ANYTHING and make it sound good. personally, other than for producing/mashing tracks, i have never worried about keys. specific genres like dark progressive house, or trance tend to gravitate towards specific keys, so 'genre' mixing tends to work just as well. the bottom line, iis a dj should play his/her hottest tracks. hottest tracks imo are tracks that no one has heard before. and this brings me to the reason why mik works well in a production environment. say you have 5000 tracks, using excel you can sort by key then my tempo. from there you can take quickly and easily figure out which combinations to classic tracks and new tracks to mash up, and this is how djs today can freshen up their old tired classics. of course, there are a million ways to mix and match combinations, ie creative ways to mash tracks together. now considering there is only so much time in the day that one can spend working on music (at least this applies to the majority of us) then we need to become more efficient in or production mode of operation. enter mixed in key, enter ableton, enter beatport... in hindsight i probably shouldnt have titled the mix i entered into this contest "beatport contest mix" lol, what was i thinking! aye aye aye 		Reply
Tamas (Track 11)
11-25-2009
 @Dil Kris and others - my main concern with harmonic mixing is that you need to find two tracks that have matching keys, and then you need to lock-in that key while you're matching the tempo. This assumes a few things:

1) Your keys are all in good order at the base tempo (they are at the right pitch)
2) You have good quality time stretching (pitch lock) algorithm to change tempo while preserving pitchand key


Implications of the above:


a) This almost rules out conventional vinyl mixing since there is no time stretch there, you cannot lock the key as you change the tempo. You gotta be really lucky to find 2 tracks that will have both matching keys _and_ matching tempos. You might as well look for non-matching-key tracks where there is a BPM difference hoping that the tempo matching will push up or down the pitch exactly a semitone (roughly +/-6% speed change) so two clashing keys might become harmonic with this transposition (you can transpose a key into another by shifting all notes by the same amount of semitones). This also means that any pitch change that is not exactly a semitone change will not be harmonic.

b) You can fix issue no. 1) using MIK's Platinum Notes, that's the whole idea. However remember that Platinum Notes will do pitch shifting there (preserving the tempo but fixing the key) saves it as a new file and then later when you play the track in your set you have to lock that pitch in and do time-stretching to modify the tempo. Fixed tempo pitch shifting and pitch lock time stretching are two similar (almost the same) algorithms, they will both do a full Fourier transform back and forward that ruins the quality of the sound - and you actually do this twice to your original track. To my ears most pitch locking algorithms will have an audible distortion above +-5,6% tempo change so you don't really want to mix tracks with bigger tempo difference. If you do the algorithm twice on the same track it might mean that you only get good sound quality if you remain in the plus/minus 2-3% range of tempo change with pitch locking. That is quite limiting in your set.

In theory you could do the harmonic mixing and key matching another way: let's not fix the base tempo key, if it's wrong, it's wrong. We will use normal speed-up, slow-down to do tempo matching which will change the pitch as well anyhow. Then, when the tempo is OK, you compare the pitches - if the 2nd track is out-of-key then you apply pitch shifting (locking the tempo) of the exact amount needed (might be just cents of the semitone). You just avoided the double Fourier and double pitch-lock/timestretch algorithms. Since you will correct the pitch to the closest semitone, by definition it'll be only maximum 50 cents (tonal cents) you're shifting either in one direction or another so it's no more that +/- 3% change (equivalent tempo change) - it will be hardly audible as the algorithms work now pretty well with such small adjustments.

BTW this approach can work with vinyl as well as we're not using pitch lock, just pitch shifter - you can use an external signal processor with a good quality pitch shifter just to correct the pitch.

So Yakov - here's a good product idea: instead of fixing the pitch in the original track, we need something that tells us the pitch correction that’s needed real-time, when the tempo matching is done (with traditional pitch bending). We still need to use MIK to find matching harmonic keys with all the above. Keys and pitch are two different things (I believe even MIK got it wrong on the Platinumnotes site) - even if you correct a song with Platinumnotes to the closest semitone, which is say C, that only means that the central dominant tone is C but the key can be C major or C major depending on the note progression in the scale – if you look it up in the wheel, C Major and C Minor are not harmonic keys, they are clashing. What I’m suggesting is that PlatinumNotes only analyzes the track the same way it does now _without_ applying the pitch correction – it would only put it into an attribute in the file to show the offset (eg. Key: G Major, offset: -43 cents). Traktor or other software could pick this up and apply the correction real-time – Traktor for example does the beat matching itself hence it knows the percentage pitch bend it has applied, so it could offset it with the required pitch shifting by the number of cents in the offset field of the track.

BTW this is the method I used in my own mix – all tracks were tempo matched via normal pitch bend and no time stretching or pitch locking. When the pitch was not matching at a transition I used pitch shifting for that part to correct it by the required semitones (for full transposition) and then some cents (for tune correction). Most of the time I was “lucky” as the keys and pitch matched even when the tempo was changed and matched together. One reason for that is that a few tonal cents of difference is not really audible – musicians use the technique of vibrato where they “vibrate” the pitch of the note basically with plus-minus a few tonal cents (definitely much less than a semitone as it would be called bending or gliding). As the note stays quite close to the base pitch it’s not that harsh for the ear. At mixing the real problem comes when you have two G Major key songs, you think they match but you have to apply 4% tempo change to one – well, it will be out of tune, even if you shift one full semitone, it will then become a transposed key which is not harmonic to the original).

At the same time you can also get lucky if you have the same pitch offsets in two tracks eg. there’s a G Major and a C Major track, you look it up on the “Camelot Wheel” (which is in fact the so called “circle of fifths” that’s been used for a long time in music to describe scales and keys) – they’re harmonic, sit next to each other, fine. You run PlatinumNotes and it finds that they are both off by +42 cents from their respective closest note – well, in this case you’d be surprised that you don’t have to correct them with PlatinumNotes, you could mix the two records (given they have exact same tempo) and it’ll be perfectly harmonic. This is because most of our ears will detect the _relative_ difference in pitch and not the absolute pitch, so if the distance is exactly the multiple of semitones, we hear it harmonic. There’s only very few people with absolute pitch hearing who would be able to distinguish those pitches without hearing a standard measure tone you can compare pitches to. What we do when we’re “tuning” or correcting a pitch (like PlatinumNotes) is standardizing the pitch so it matches the standard A tone at 440Hz. It’s more important in a band when all instruments have to match each other, but when mixing a whole song where we change the pitch anyhow together the tempo, it’s not important – it’s only the relative pitch distances that count when you’re actually transitioning two tracks. Especially because most of us will keep changing the tempo, speeding up and down the tracks while playing it alone so to match the next track, it all screws up the pitch and key if there’s no pitch lock.

The other think we have to realize is that we cannot change the key of the song to any neighboring (harmonic) keys via pitch shifting or even pitch bending. When we say pitch shift or pitch bend, we mean that we change the pitch _in the entire track_ so all the 7 notes in the key will be changed by the same amount – that is called transposition in musical terms, and you do get into another key but it’s on the very opposite side of the wheel. In order to change the key to a harmonic minor or major equivalent (moving in-out in the circle) you only have to transpose a single note in the scale – in DJ terms you would have to find every occurrences of that note in the song and change the pitch of only that note. Whilst it is possible with a single singer’s voice as it is monophonic, we can only sing one note at one time, the music will most definitely have chords where you cannot just change a single note in the chord in the mastered and mixed final song.

With this I just wanted to highlight that I have indeed made these key modifications (not full transpositions) in my mix. I mentioned above the “acapella” of the song “Don’t Explain” that did not match the key of the Sweetback song I was mixing with. I have done exactly what I described above, I shifted only the notes in the scale (every occurrences of them in the singing voice) that required modification, basically changing the key of the song to one that was harmonic with the original track. I could not tell you what the key was here and there as you might find it surprising but I don’t really have any formal musical theory education, I just picked up all of the above here and there. I basically just used my ears and corrected the disharmonic, clashing notes.

Knowing the above we could also ask: what did exactly the harmonic mix criteria mean in the MIK Contest? Was it just a soft criteria meaning that all songs had to be in a relative harmonic key to each other, or the hard criteria meaning that all tune had to be standardized in all songs to match the 440 Hz “A” tone. In the latter it’s extremely hard to speed up/down your mix as you do fall out of pitch and any change – again you would have to use pitch lock and time stretching to make speed changes all through the mix – I personally don’t like to use it due to the compromise in sound quality.

The other funny thing is that the nature of the contest ruled out a few genres and even countries from the competition: You could not use eg. Indian downtempo or house with sitar solos, as the Indian scale only has 7 notes as opposed to the western 12 and AFAIK they don’t have the same distance between the tones, plus they also play a lot of microtones where the distance is less than a western semitone. Basically the Camelot Wheel, the concept of harmonic keys and scales do not apply there.

So if we had any DJs competing from India, you guys can start complaining now! :-)

I also might be wrong with some of the above, so someone with a better music theory background could correct me.
 		Reply
Andriska005
11-25-2009
 http://www.myspace.com/tomniel Reply
Chad P (Mixed In Key)
11-25-2009
 That's interesting that you mentioned Indian music Tamas, we've actually had to give a refund to one Indian DJ because our key results didn't apply to the music he was playing (don't get me wrong, we've had Indian DJs love it too ;).

You asked about the criteria we used for judging a mix harmonic - our definition of harmonic mixing entails that the DJ making the mix took the keys of the songs he used into consideration when creating the mix. You obviously did this.



Cheers,
Chad P 		Reply
Johnny Beats
11-25-2009
 Hey all Grats on top 20! Most of those Tracks had me listenin till the end. Great stuff. But wait this is a "DJ" competition right?? As for the talk about the whole #1 thing.. I would have to agree with all the "Haters" out there, Tamas' production should of been far from first givin the circumstances.. And i can honestly say that i was diggin majority of the tracks up there, really good stuff,Then saving hopefully what would be the "best" for last.. I listen to Tamas' Mix. a couple minutes into it and i couldnt take it, I had to scroll thru the song just to get through it and realize how many other samples he actually had in this Ableton production... Not to be jabbin daggers but i think Me and a whole lot of other people are dissapointed with this #1 outcome. Someone else from that top 20 should of been the winner In my Honest opinion. Anyways thats my thoughts but thanks MIK for doing these events. Be a little more specific on the title next time :) Reply
Tamas (Track 11)
11-26-2009
 @Chad P: I was just joking about the Indian DJs, it's so funny that you really had a case of refunding MIK!!!

My question about the criteria was just rhetoric: I just wanted to show that "haters" (now that we have arrived to this term) can always drill deeper into the details, and even if a mix is totally harmonic and it's relatively in key everywhere, one could question if it's "absolutely harmonic" as well if the pitch of the notes is not tuned to the standard A 440Hz note.

I'm still on the opinion that it's all about your ears and what you hear. MIK is a great help and I can definitely see it fitting into my track selection process so I don't have to test each transition and pairs of tracks individually by ear to see if it sounds cool.

 		Reply
Tamas (Track 11)
11-26-2009
 @RobbyM: Mate, I listened to your mix again, you use a sample at 4:06 and 4:10, is that Duran Duran - Save A Prayer? It sounds very much like it, one of my favorite tunes... If that's the one, you probably modified the melody in the second sample at 4:10, am I correct?

It sounds like you polished this mix to an incredible level of detail, there's way more songs samples here than the ones you've listed. The "Relax" sample does not sound like it was Frankie Goes To Hollywood, is that a cover version? There's Pet Shop Boys "Heartbeat" just popping up for a second and you haven't listed it...

Can you maybe post a full list of all songs and samples? I'd be really interested to see it. 		Reply
Andriska005
11-27-2009
 http://www.4shared.com/file/160882450/9a5e06a/Tom_Niel_-_HARMONIC.html Reply
robbym
11-27-2009
 @Tamas: Hi, I tried to make a complete list but the mix is on another harddrive which is not connected so I tried to do it by scanning my memory banks :)

The Relax sample is taken from a remix CD I got.
And if I remember correctly I played around with Duran Duran by stuttering the track with the Cue button of my CDJ and recorded that live into the mix.

The list:

[INTRO]
Information Society - Seek 200 (begin sound / sliding door)
Information Society - Think (begin sound / radio seeking signal)
Information Society - Chemistry (Hey we don't take no shit from a machine)
[TRACK 1]
New Order - True Faith
> Sample Information Society - How Long
> Sample Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence
> Sample Depeche Mode - Strange Love
> Sample Information Society - What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy)
> Sample Yazoo - Situation
> Sample (Laugh)
> Sample (Reversed Breath)
> Sample Countdown (eins, twei drei vier) - Information Society - Now That I Have You
[TRACK 2]
Yazoo - Situation (reversed synth sound from beginning)
[TRACK 3]
> Sample Information Society - What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy)
> Sample (Think About It)
Depeche Mode - Strange Love
> sample Stuttering High Noise
> Sample Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax
> Sample Pet Shop Boys - Heart
[TRACK 4]
Kraftwerk - Radioactivity (Pitched way down)
> Sample Duran Duran - All she Want's is
> sample Stuttering High Noise
[TRACK 5]
Duran Duran - All She Wants is
[TRACK 6]
Information Society - What´s On Your Mind
> Sample It worked so far...
[TRACK 7]
Pet Shop Boys - What Have I Done To Deserve This (Filter out new track filter in)
> Sample breathing
[TRACK 8]
Human League - Don´t You Want Me

> Samples from the intro come back
> Edits on the melody of Human League

I did this mix in Samplitude in combination with my CDJ-800 players. I switched over to use Ableton and Mixed In Key now, but I'm still very much satisfied about the mix I did, maybe I should make a part II with other tracks, maybe for another competition :)

Best regards,
Rob 		Reply
DJ Richard Artimix
11-28-2009
 Hi Robby M,

Really love your mix with all my heart!

Thank you so much for the mix....

Love 80's....
 		Reply
dj snowy
12-23-2009
 Congrats to the winner and the runners up for submitting mixes, it takes balls to pluck up the courage to enter in the first place, I think it unfair for people to critise as everyone has different tastes in music, one mans wine is another's beer, why knock down others, at least they are actively taking part doing something positive.
Reply
tizzy
12-23-2009
 im kinda baffled as to how the guy that won the mixed in key harmonic contest didn't even use mixed in key software? I listened to the mix and really enjoyed it but they guy that won keeps mentioning all these softwares like traktor and abeltron ect?? it makes me think that he used one of those softwares and pretended that he didn't. Then again i could be wrong and the guy is just really really fucking good at using his ears to listen. But then he mentioned Mozart and Beethoven and that they used the same Technique when playing music but come on the guy is not Mozart. i smell a rat on this one. btw i didnt even enter the contest as i knew i wouldnt stand a chance but something about his mix doesn't add up? Reply



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