What makes life, perfect? I think we could sum it up, as, seemless. All green lights on the way to work. quick turnaround with customer service. Same/Next day delivery. You fill in the blank, with what fits your lifes chemistry. When we spring that question on music, the answer may be the same, seemless.

It’s so interesting, the streaming eeco systems, are now each so interested with seemless playlists, automix, which, has been what Radio has been interested in for the last 50 plus years, but I’ll agree it’s really cool to have it on a much more personal level.

I used to lead musical worship in church services, the question for me, someone with perfect pitch? How to make the music as seemless as possible. The answer I found, was key matching. I started building personal playlists including crossfading and volume processing for friends/family about 5 or so years ago, and I found that answer really helped the songs to blend, the transitions to be that less noticeable. About 3 months ago I took the concept into automation in the radio world.

I went through several thousand tracks, and key matched them. Created folder per key, and then in the rotation matched keys by fourths or fifths so, for example, play 3 songs in E, 4 songs in B, 2 songs in D, 3 songs in A. If I move to sharps, I drop in imaging to assist the transition. I use StationPlaylist software, which already focus’s on energy, so to focus on key matching, makes the listener experience, that much more, seemless/enjoyable. I’ve never heard this anywhere else in life.’

I’m sure, with AI this may become habit, if anyone with high status also figures it out/puts it into practice. I created JAWS Scripting that allows me to copy the focused file, and paste it in the correct key folder with the press of two keystrokes, pretty awesome, and oh how it saves so much time! I playback files in Goldwaves preview, press control+alt+K to enable, Music keys, and then type the key of the song when I know what it is, 5-10 seconds after the song starts playing. The song is copied to the correct folder, that instance of file explorer closed, and focus is brought back to Gold Wave, where I down arrow to the next track, and continue the process.

If you program playlists, or radio, just something really interesting to keep in mind as you do your thang!