5.7. Search Quality and Harmonic Detail

Auto quickly supplies a good complete route, proves the best route when the remaining search is manageable, and otherwise continues as a bounded anytime search. The result reports whether it was proven optimal or was the best route found within that budget.

Optimal uses the same ordering and pruning but continues until the best route is proven or you cancel. It is most useful for a constrained Library or a final comparison where additional search time is acceptable.

Harmonic detail reranks already accepted transitions using the fuller outgoing and incoming harmonic distributions. It does not make an otherwise rejected transition legal and is not presented as a probability that two songs will mix well.

Route comparison sorts transition quality from weakest to strongest. Harmonic DJ improves the weakest transition first, then the next weakest. Personal ratings contribute only a bounded preference below transition-rule and saved-Gem rating steps; track-level preferences, analysis confidence, and preservation of the current slot resolve the remaining ties.

Another Take and New Take on This Segment rank transitions more coarsely, in steps of a quarter of the gap between relationship rules. Smaller harmonic-detail, BPM, and rating differences become ties, but a stronger relationship rule still always outranks a weaker one. A random draw breaks those ties and leans away from the tracks and transitions already in the Mix rather than preserving the current slot. Saved Gems, guided placements, and locked sequences keep their full strength. Takes always use Auto because Optimal has little to prune among many equally strong routes.