If you ever made a music mix on your computer you know there are many ways to go about it. There are applications that simulate turntables giving you that analog feel or those that draw out waveforms so you can align the songs the way you want them to be played back. But one common aspect between these types of applications are that you really have to pay attention to the tempo to get them synced together.

We're not gonna pretend here, it's not easy to get different songs mixed together. So when we heard about MixMeister and it's automated mixes we were intrigued.

After selecting the songs you would like in your set, MixMeister will automatically determine the tempo as well as the key the song is in. From there, arrange your songs in the order you would like them played as well as their mix points.

Now here is the best part of the program, MixMeister will automatically sync the tempos of the 2 songs together so that when the mix occurs the beats are matched up seamlessly. MixMeister will also handle the fading from one song to the next and what you end up with is a perfect mix each and every time. We were absolutely floored when we heard our mixes as each song was perfectly synced up to one another.

MixMeister comes in several different versions ranging in prices of $50 - 400 and is available for both Windows and Mac operating systems. Unfortunately, the $50 Express version is only offered in Windows format. Those with Macs will have to spring for the $200 version.

[Thanks, Koan]

VirtualDJ is one of many mixing applications out on the market today. But what separates it from the rest is that it combines some nice features to help beginners as well as pros get the most out of their mix.

The greatest feature we like about VirtualDJ is that it displays the actual waveform of the music. This allows you to see the musical beats, giving the user greater accuracy when mixing two songs together. Also you can see breaks in the music, which gives you some key points to where you might want to mix in another song.

In addition, VirtualDJ also tries to figure out the tempo of each song and gives you indicators along the bottom edge of the waveform that act like visual aids to help you mix. And if you just can't get both songs playing in tempo, it also provides you with a sync button that will stretch the new song to fit the tempo of the current song.

We did notice that the accuracy of the tempo matching feature depends largely in part to the type of music. Your standard disco style beat gives more accurate results than one with more a more complicated drum pattern as it tend to throw off the system.

Other notable features include a built in sampler so that you can make loops on the fly, audio effects, scratching via the virtual turntables and cue points. These cue points are saved to a VirtualDJ file, so that each time you load up a specific song you can go directly to the cue point saving time in locating certain parts in the music.

VirtualDJ is available for both Windows and Mac operating systems and should be seriously consider for those wanting to dabble in electronic mixing.

If you've ever played a musical instrument the concept of playing in key is nothing new. But what about DJs? Are there lessons out there that go over majors, minors or even basic chord progressions? Having 2 songs mixed in key gives the impression that the songs were made for each other.

MixedInKey has developed a software for DJs that will analyze your songs to determine what key they are in. That way when you are building your set you can select songs that where performed in the same key or a complementary key.

In order to have your mp3s analyzed add them to MixedInKey. From there, the software will determine its key and display them according to their Camelot Sound keycode. Add songs according to their keycode using your favorite mixing software and start mixing.

We had our reservations about this program, fearing that all your mixes will be in the same key leading to one boring set. But the system itself, teaches you musical concepts and if you follow the system you can move from one key to the next to add chord progressions to your mix.

MixedInKey is available for both Windows and Mac and cost $58.

Intel is getting ready to debut a closed beta this month of their new mashup tool accessible to non programmers.

The new MashMaker was spotted at the SIGMOD conference in June in a presentation that was prepared by Intel and Yahoo Research. The gist of it was the creation of a tool that made it easy to create mashups from many different sources.

Intel's MashMaker will be a web based tool that makes it easy for normal web users to create mashups from live online data. It will be able to query and combine data that uses an interface that has been inspired by both spreadsheets and web browser. The spreadsheet side will allow for the mixing up of data and editing, while the browser side will allow for navigation to interested content, bookmarking it, and molding it into new widgets.

Just picture simply pulling in information from Google Maps, with Facebook, ebay, Digg and Twitter and creating a complex, yet easy to develop mashup, this is what MashMaker could be like. If it is as easy as Intel and Yahoo made it sound, this has the potential to be a killer application that a lot of people are going to be using to create some crazy mashups.