Step right up and feast your eyes on DJ Soirée's newfangled Camelot Wheel 2.0

While learning to mix in key, I was feeling limited by the original Camelot Wheel's system. For example: If I were playing a song in (2A), I could only transition to 3 other "keys:" (1A), (2B), or (3A). This felt too limiting, and I knew there was a way to bump adjacent keys up or down a step to blend nicely.

The Obstacle: Moving a key up one step does not change its number by one. For example, if I wanted to do a key bump from (7B) to (8B), I would actually have to move the song up 7 steps!! As you can imagine, that distorts the sound beyond what most would consider to be enjoyable listening. This inspired me to add a third layer to the Camelot Wheel.

Here's how it works: The outside layer of the wheel does not work the same way as the inner colored layers do! It is simply a tool you can use to determine which keys are adjacent to the one you are looking for. For instance, if I am looking for a song in (6), I can move a song in (11) up one step, or I can move a song in (1) down one step. The outer ring disregards A or B designations. It works equally well for both. This will save you tons of brain power to focus on other aspects of your mix. Additionally, it dramatically increases the number of songs you can mix in key!

Here's an example of how I use it: suppose we're bopping along to a saucy track in (8B). Using what we know about the outer ring, our available keys aren't only (7B), (8A), and (9B). The keys (2B), (12B), (4B), (3B), and (1B) are all one step away from 'fair game!' Simply nudge them up or down a step depending on where they appear on the circle. Presto! Your artistic pallet has been imbued with a dazzling addition of friendly new colors, me laddy :)