Producing in key

[Avtershock]

Hello I am a somewhat new producer and fresh to the forum! I have been working on multiple tracks and heard before that it is important to produce all in the same key. I was curious if this is something that makes or breaks many tracks? I believe I have somewhat of a good ear being around music for quite awhile, but I'm not completely sure. I don't really know the chords like C major and such but I am totally willing to learn them in order to maximize my producing skills. Do chords, bass, and leads all need to be in the same key or can you stray from particular patterns and place in somewhat random notes that sound good? Thank you all and let me know

[tjmidge]

Hello I am a somewhat new producer and fresh to the forum! I have been working on multiple tracks and heard before that it is important to produce all in the same key. I was curious if this is something that makes or breaks many tracks? I believe I have somewhat of a good ear being around music for quite awhile, but I'm not completely sure. I don't really know the chords like C major and such but I am totally willing to learn them in order to maximize my producing skills. Do chords, bass, and leads all need to be in the same key or can you stray from particular patterns and place in somewhat random notes that sound good? Thank you all and let me know

sometimes when in the studio too long my ears deceive me and i go off key but then fix it afterward. basically u need your elements to be in key or they just sound brutal....for example if your bass is completely off key with your lead it will just not fit together. or if u have sample loops in there that arent in key with your melody....basically yes u pretty much need to keep things in key.

[DJRoyRada]

This always have been the hardest part for me, got al the tech stuff right but lacked musictheory knowledge.

I want to be able to hear a song and just tell wich key it is in,, pretty hard though., my remixes used to suck because of having acapellas in the wrong key.

[tjmidge]

three words: mixed in key

[Avtershock]

Yeah that makes sense, I've always heard to definitely mix in key. But when you make a song do you say "this song is going to be C major"? I typically just stay stick to what sounds right and it has done me well I just want to know if there is some magical harmony I'm missing out on by not following chords and such..

[Hrelja]

Methinks tjmidge was referring to a certain program named "mixed in key".

[DJRoyRada]

Mixed in key looks interesting, never heard of it but looks like a lot of people are using it. 58$ seems like a lot though for just finding out in which key a track is, finding the bpm is too simple. Still looks like a usefull tool.

[tjmidge]

Mixed in key looks interesting, never heard of it but looks like a lot of people are using it. 58$ seems like a lot though for just finding out in which key a track is, finding the bpm is too simple. Still looks like a usefull tool.

its really good wen creating bootys of tracks n stuff or mashups...you can find which tracks fit together harmonically.

[DJRoyRada]

Ive been thinking about making a mashup pack, for on blogs and in my dj sets, it went kinda slow because finding fitting tracks took up most my time, so thanks you have made it a little easier for me

[onimojo]

If you wanna know more about basic theory there's this book "Music Theory for Computer Musicians". I've read it and it's very interesting!

[Durt_Grizzly]

If you wanna know more about basic theory there's this book "Music Theory for Computer Musicians". I've read it and it's very interesting!

haha yeah!! I just read this actually! very helpful stuff in there... But yeah I can normally tell right away if something sounds in key or not but it's a lot harder to try and find the right notes to match an acapella especially. Might have to look into getting that Mixed In Key plug-in instead of spending like an hour trying to figure out why "that one note" doesn't sound right lol

[E-Tjen]

Mixed in key looks interesting, never heard of it but looks like a lot of people are using it. 58$ seems like a lot though for just finding out in which key a track is, finding the bpm is too simple. Still looks like a usefull tool.

its really good wen creating bootys of tracks n stuff or mashups...you can find which tracks fit together harmonically.

I've trained myself for 0$ to do it by ear and I'm not that familiar with musical theory although I know some.

[Sebas]

Mixed in key looks interesting, never heard of it but looks like a lot of people are using it. 58$ seems like a lot though for just finding out in which key a track is, finding the bpm is too simple. Still looks like a usefull tool.

its really good wen creating bootys of tracks n stuff or mashups...you can find which tracks fit together harmonically.

guys. just find the rootkey note. Play along with a piano. What key fits the best is the root key. Then find out if its in minor or major. Find the musical scale and that's it! (look on wikipedia music scales /minor /major, semitones/ half /whole tone etc ).

[rockwell]

I agree with sebas. If your doing a remix it can be good to use a program like mixed in key to find out what key the original is in. Once you know the key of the song you can look up the wiki scales etc. and stick with the notes that are in that scale. but for the most part if your really into music you can tell when your out of key. the bad notes tend to stick out