How do I make Scaler play *all* songs sets in the *same* key?

I’m sorry if this has been covered elsewhere. (I did look.) But I’m thoroughly baffled by the lock feature, as it doesn’t seem to do what I want, which I would have expected to be so simple:

As I go from song set to song set, I simply want Scaler to play each song in the same key! I thought “Maintain Current Tonic” would do this, but it doesn’t. I’m working in B♭/Gm, and as I audition song sets, I simply want each set to play in B♭/Gm. Why is this so difficult in such a sophisticated piece of software? (Or if it’s not difficult, please enlighten me!)

Thanks.

Hi minor7flat5, here I have pasted pictures where you can do that. Right click with your mouse button that lock picture and you get that menu, (that you can see in the below picture) here you choose Force into Scale and after that you choose your note A# = Bb note and then Major Scale. Hope this help :slight_smile:


Cheers
Juhi

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Thanks for your reply. While this feature does work, Scaler’s developers have overlooked an important option: Once a key has been selected here, this unfortunately overrides a song’s intended mode (i.e., major or minor).

When auditioning songs, if the song was intended to be in a minor key, but I’ve specified a major key, Scaler will override the intended minor feel and will force it into the major key. I wish Scaler were smart enough to give us an option to select relative keys, so that if we select C major, any songs that are in minor keys would automatically play in A minor.

As far as I can tell, there’s no way to do this, and this is a surprising and unfortunate omission.

Still, thanks for pointing me to this menu. I guess this is the only option for now.

You’re welcome. Yes I think so that this is only way at the moment.

An easier solution would possibly be to put the original key in the song title. So that way you would know if it was minor, major, pentatonic, etc… and then the end user could decide to stay in that range or change it if they want.

Yes, it would be helpful to have the keys in song titles, but having to manually switch settings when auditioning songs in sequence would not be easier than having Scaler made smart enough to (a) automatically play major song sets in the chosen major key and (b) automatically play minor song sets in the relative minor to the chosen major key (or vice versa if the chosen key is minor).

In sophisticated software that’s all about keys and scales, this is an unexpected oversight.

But what happens if I want to play that major song in a minor key? That’s kind of the one the major points of having Scaler. If you want to hear all the songs in their original key just don’t set any key and you can hear them as they originally were. Otherwise, I think they should follow whatever key I tell them I want it to be in. But that’s just my opinion.

I probably just have a different work flow. When I do use the song sets (and that’s maybe only 20 percent of the time, tops) I find ones I like first and either I just use them in the keys there are already in or I find what I like first, then set the key to what I want.

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No one is even remotely advocating for the removal of the feature you described. I’m advocating for the addition of a feature that doesn’t yet exist.

Having chosen a key to work in, I want the option to hear all song sets in related major or minor keys. When auditioning dozens of song sets, I want to hear them in keys related to my project. It’s impractical to have to manually transpose every song set before hearing it in a related key.

This in NO way removes any features allowing you to work as you prefer.

Preposterous. Shocking. Astonishing. Slightly heavy adjectives I would say! I do see what you are suggesting and I get it. Although I am always hesitant to insert a feature that adds another feature and further complicates an already complicated piece of software for a first and one time feature request. It’s on our list though and thanks for the suggestion.

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Thanks so much for your reply. I’m truly sorry that some of my adjectives felt too forceful to you. As such, I’ve softened them.

Perhaps some context will help clarify my position:

I get the impression that many of Scaler’s features are designed for users who don’t already know harmony, and that’s fantastic. Scaler cleverly opens up, and perhaps demystifies, the world of harmony for them.

I happen to have degrees in music, so I’m approaching Scaler from a different point of view. I’m an accomplished songwriter, and I thought it would be fun to play with Scaler’s song sets as a way to find chord progressions—that might not occur naturally to me—that I could use for inspiration while writing.

At the time of my original post, I was writing a song that’s in B♭major/G minor, and much of the song was already complete. But I was writing an additional section and thought I’d browse Scaler’s song sets for chord progressions that would fit my song. This is where I discovered that there’s no easy way to do so in Scaler.

Although Scaler can do something as sophisticated as forcing all song sets into the F# Locrian natural 6 scale (for example), it cannot simply play them in a specified major key or its relative minor (as is appropriate, depending upon whether the song set is major or minor). Put differently, while Scaler can do some truly wild and crazy (and inspirational!) things (and bravo for those!), this more fundamental feature was overlooked. :blush:

As such, doing so currently requires calculating the distance in semitones from the original key to the desired key, then manually choosing the transposition. Not a big deal for one or two sets, but if one is scrolling through dozens of song sets, that becomes impractical.

Since no one has asked for this feature before, perhaps I’m the first user who had already begun writing a song in a particular key that I needed Scaler’s song sets to match, rather than using Scaler as a tool to begin a song from scratch.

All that said, I’m thrilled that you understand the request and that you’re willing to consider adding this functionality. And, again, I apologize for any unintended offense.

Scaler is a truly remarkable piece of software, and I look forward to its further development. :blush:

Are these new icons/ buttons specific to the latest version of Scaler? I can’t find them in my version. Or is there something else you have to click on to make them available?
Cheers

Hi Jumbodude!
You have to click that lock icon with your mouse right button and then you choose Force into Scale and choose there root note scale that you want that stay in song root note when you browse different songs. Hope this answer your question.

Cheers
Juhi

Thanks JKFlashico. However I can’t see the icons at all on the right hand side of the GUI. Is it only on the latest vrs? I am only using the last but one updated vrs. So is it a new thing?

We can’t tell what version of Scaler you have.

The lock button is definitely in Scaler 2. (I don’t know if it was a feature in previous versions, as I never owned a previous version.)

I just Googled “Scaler 2 lock button” and found this. I hope it helps: