Engine/SC6000 Key Sorting

Hi all. Just picked up 2 x SC6000’s and an X1850 mixer. Overall, loving the product. I’m coming off a Pioneer DDJ-1000 for home use and years of playing clubs with CDJ-1000s/2000’s etc.

I have a way of organizing my songs by key that involves me manually typing in the key while using a piano, all keyed at the same BPM, that I’ve been doing for years and works very well for me. I’ve started to do this within Engine DJ, but when sorting by key, the keys do not display alphabetically. I have F’s…then A#'s…then D#'s, then G#'s…It’s all completely out of order. This was never a problem on Pioneer players and it’s driving me absolutely crazy that the software and players wont sort alphabetically. Anyone know how to fix this? Is there a workaround?

Thanks for the help.

Seems like something that will bother me as well when I finally try to mix in key xD

Just switch to Camelot, they are all number ordered (now), and it’s dead easy!!

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Honestly I’d rather not. Also, regardless of key system, I still don’t see why it cant sort alphabetically. Seems crazy.

How does it organise if not alphabetically?

But what would be “in order”? Do you want it to start with C as on a piano?

Really there is no “correct” order because keys are circular (see the Camelot Wheel) so there isn’t a start point and a finish point.

If it did get changed to start with C then that’d be 8B (Camelot system) so then you’d get the Camelot users asking why it’s out of order - “Why doesn’t it start with 1A?”, which would be A flat Minor.

Really we shouldn’t be associating musical keys with alphanumeric ordering.

Yeah we should, since it helped me understand this stuff and its immensely useful when u try to do harmonic mixing^^ Also just start with C major cause its the only “standard” that exists, not sure which number that is in the 5 different notations, but it really doesn’t matter… helps to remember the first one in the sorted list is C major anyway :smiley:

As mentioned in the original post, alphabetically. A…A#…B…C…C#, etc. Rekordbox has no problem doing this.

Yes or via setting. settings don’t have to be bad. if you don’t need them, don’t use them (that’s what everyone is used from CDJs anyway ^^)

Engine is sorting by circle of fifths compatibility, rather than alphabetically. I actually prefer it this way, it’s helped me learn (harmonically) which keys are compatible at a glance, instead of having to figure it out by trial and error or by wrote memorization of the circle of fifths wheel.

I do what you’re doing as well, as far as identifying each tune’s key manually with a piano during the track prep process.

What’s up @EricAllen,

As mentioned earlier by @yeltsin, using the Camelot Key Notation method works better (and sorts better) in Engine DJ.

Go to:

USER PROFILE / LIBRARY TAB / KEY NOTATIONS/ Then selet CAMELOT

The Camelot system translate as follows:

CamelotWheel

Good luck!

So no matter if I select classic key notation or Camelot (or whatever else) the order stays the same and only appears ordered if one uses some notation which is ordered by the circle of fifths (which is indeed what I want to use it for)?!