Guide
The Camelot wheel, without the mysticism.
Camelot notation renames the 24 musical keys as a clock face so that compatible tracks sit next to each other. That is the whole idea. Here is the full chart, the moves that hold up, the one everybody uses that is not really harmonic, and what happens when the detected key is simply wrong.
The chart
A is minor, B is major, and the numbers run 1 to 12 around a clock. The two keys sharing a number are relative major and minor, which means they contain the same seven notes. Neighbouring numbers differ by one note.
| Number | A, minor | B, major |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1A A flat minor | 1B B major |
| 2 | 2A E flat minor | 2B F sharp major |
| 3 | 3A B flat minor | 3B D flat major |
| 4 | 4A F minor | 4B A flat major |
| 5 | 5A C minor | 5B E flat major |
| 6 | 6A G minor | 6B B flat major |
| 7 | 7A D minor | 7B F major |
| 8 | 8A A minor | 8B C major |
| 9 | 9A E minor | 9B G major |
| 10 | 10A B minor | 10B D major |
| 11 | 11A F sharp minor | 11B A major |
| 12 | 12A D flat minor | 12B E major |
Three moves that always work
Stay put. 9A into 9A cannot clash, because it is the same key. Boring on paper, invisible in a room.
One step, same letter. 9A into 8A or 10A. One note changes, so the bassline moves without arguing with itself. This is the workhorse move and most of a harmonic set is built from it.
Switch letter, same number. 8A into 8B. Same seven notes, different tonal centre. It is the cheapest way to change the mood of a set without changing its harmony, which is why it lands so well on a drop.
The energy boost is not harmonic, and that is fine
Plenty of DJs swear by the plus seven move, 8A into 3A, sold as an energy lift. It is a real technique and it can sound great, but it is not a harmonically close move: five steps around the wheel is a long way, and the two keys share few notes.
MixGrade will mark it down. A key distance of three or more costs 22 points on that transition, and the plus seven move counts as six. If you played it on purpose over a percussive break where no melodic content overlaps, the deduction is the measurement being literal, not you being wrong. Read the transition card, not just the number.
How distance is counted
Distance is the shorter way around the clock. Same letter means you count the steps directly, so 9A to 12A is three. Different letters at the same number counts as one. Different letters at different numbers counts as the step distance plus one, so 8A to 9B is two.
The score follows straight from that: zero or one is free, two costs 10 points on the transition, three or more costs 22. There is no hidden weighting between them. Details of the other three deductions are on the transitions guide.
When the detected key is wrong
Every key detector, from library software to the analyzer in your pocket, correlates the note content of a passage against 24 reference profiles and picks the best fit. That works well on melodic material and badly on everything else.
Percussive intros, atonal noise, heavy sub bass and vocal-only sections have little pitch content to correlate, so the answer wobbles. MixGrade measures chroma over ten second windows and then requires a new key to win twenty consecutive seconds before it accepts the change, with any run shorter than 35 seconds absorbed into its neighbour. That smoothing is why a set reads as a handful of keys instead of hundreds of flickers.
It also means a genuinely short key change can be swallowed. If the wheel shows something you know you did not play, trust your ears and treat the harmonic sub-score as the weakest of the five.
Camelot codes are a shortcut, not a rulebook
The wheel exists because reading key signatures mid-set is impractical, not because harmony has twelve legal moves. Vocals clash on notes the wheel calls compatible. Two tracks in 8A can still fight if both have a busy midrange.
Use it the way it was meant: as a filter that removes the obviously bad options, so you can spend your attention on the interesting ones.
See the key path your last set actually took.
MixGrade draws your set on a Camelot wheel and flags every jump that cost points. Free download, 3 full analyses.