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Odesi: harmonic sketching from Mixed in Key

Dan Morse·
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There’s been some heated debate recently about the link between the DJ and producer, thanks mainly to David Morales’ musings on the matter. There’s always been a lot of crossover between the two, thanks to the symbiotic relationship they traditionally had together, so it makes sense for DJs to strive to have a better understanding of music theory and production in general. Any tool that can help with that (like the recently-released Melodics finger drumming software) should be useful.

Mixed in Key, the makers of the eponymous software, are continuing their march to diversification with some brand new software: this time a web app to help you with your productions. Odesi (pronounced Odyssey) is designed around the concept of harmonically sketching ideas for tracks to see how they sound, before exporting them as MIDI to a DAW to finish your track.

[youtube id=“3zh6icr_WZI”]

Odesi, the start of your musical journey

Miami, United States, December 9, 2015

Today, Mixed In Key has released Odesi, a new type of software that’s designed to speed up music production in Ableton Live, Logic, Reason, Pro Tools and all other music production software. Odesi helps producers, vocalists, song-writers and DJs create melodies, basslines and chord progressions, as well as memorable hooks.

Odesi’s website is: http://odesi.mixedinkey.com

YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zh6icr_WZI

The most important features at a glance:

  • Sonic sketchpad: Odesi is an ultra-fast MIDI editor that makes it possible to sketch musical ideas and save them to a session that can be opened in any other DAW to choose the sounds and finish the production
  • Automatic “Snap-to-Key and Scale”: The default view shows which notes are allowed in a specific Key and Scale, making it impossible to go off-key in the composition
  • Chord Progressions: Odesi makes it easy to write custom chord progressions, or use a bank of 138 memorable progressions used in today’s popular music, with deep customization options
  • Rhythms: The musician can apply rhythms to both Chords and Basslines, creating endless combinations of intertwined rhythms. There is a bank of 138 highly-customizable ideas, discovered by Mixed In Key, in Pop music, Hip Hop, Rock, Caribbean and Latin music, as well as the most popular rhythms found in electronic music tracks produced from 1986 to today – starting with early Chicago House and ending with the latest Beatport top 100
  • Intelligent basslines: When the project contains a Chord Progression, the Bassline generator will adjust to match the chords, making it easy to experiment with different basslines without having to edit the MIDI notes with every chord change
  • New visualization of MIDI: Odesi displays all notes on a single canvas. Chords, Melody, Bass and Drums are visible on the same screen, enabling edits to be made faster and more easily
  • Acceleration of Ableton Live, Logic and other DAWs: Odesi supports MIDI export to Ableton Live, Reason, Pro Tools, Logic and all other DAWs
  • Access your sessions from anywhere: Odesi runs in a web browser, and is accessible anywhere, anytime. Older sessions will no longer be lost on external hard drives and buried in a closet. When a session is finished, Odesi automatically sends it as an email attachment for backup and safekeeping
  • Recording on the road: Odesi allows you to record melodies, chords and bass from both your MIDI controller and your computer keyboard. If you’re on a Macbook and don’t have a controller available, you can use the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 keys to play the beats, and ASDFGHJ keys to play notes.
  • Sound banks pulled from today’s hottest music: Although the “grand piano” sound can be used in the web version, there is also a companion app for Mac OS X that extends Odesi with support for 117 different sounds, pulled from today’s hottest music. It contains pianos, leads basses and drum kits that sound crisp and “current.” The musician can put together an audio demo of the track without leaving Odesi when running Mac OS X 10.10 or newer.
  • Change Key and Scale anytime: Odesi can change the Key and Scale of the entire composition, even after the entire MIDI was already written. It’s possible to change the mood from Major to Minor, or to add a Blues feeling to the track. It makes it easier to adjust the composition to fit a vocalist’s range as well and experiment with different keys.

Odesi Pricing and Availability

Odesi is now available as a web-based version. The price is a one-time fee of $49 USD. There is a Mac OS X companion app that requires Mac OS X 10.10 or newer, which gives Odesi account holders the ability to use Audio Units on their computers, as well as the bank of 117 sounds. A similar Windows companion app is planned for the future.

Odesi requires Internet access and does not work without a connection. This is by design, because it enables future collaboration and project access from anywhere.

Education

By popular demand, the team behind Odesi is launching a new YouTube series to examine what makes music so memorable. Six videos are available now, and 20+ more are coming soon. These “Top Hits, Analyzed” videos examine Chords, Melodies and Basslines of popular songs and explain the unique features of each one. The first six videos are:

Future videos will be posted on: http://odesi.mixedinkey.com/top-hits-analyzed/

About

Odesi was created by Mixed In Key, the award-winning software company known for its harmonic mixing and DJ products. Other products include Mixed In Key for harmonic mixing, Platinum Notes for audio quality improvement of MP3 and WAV files, Flow 8 Deck for live DJ performance with 2, 4 or 8 decks, Mashup for remix and mashup creation, and Beyond Beatmatching, a book written to empower DJs to play great shows. The company was founded in 2006 in Washington DC and moved to Miami in 2010.

My thoughts

I have no disagreement with the fact that Mixed in Key make decent software, but I’ve always found their software to be expensive. The company are charging almost $50 for a web app here, which is on-par with many full-fledged DJ software out there. I know that web apps have become extremely flexible over the last decade, but to not have the option for a standalone application doesn’t sit well with me.

That said, I do really like the idea behind Odesi. Anything that not only helps us better understand how harmonic music works but makes it quicker and easier to sketch out and prototype track ideas has the potential to be a powerful tool… particularly if it imports seamlessly into a DAW like Ableton or Bitwig.

Your thoughts

What do you think about Odesi? Does it make a difference that it’s a web-based app?

You can grab Odesi over on the Mixed in Key site for $49.