Over the past few years I have been consistently impressed with how Scaler and Scaler2 have developed in terms of depth and range of functionality. There aren’t many VSTs you can say that about so kudos to Davide and the team.
I am an amateur musician/music producer whose productivity varies considerably as I try to fit may hobby in with everything else that goes on in life. However, one constant is that almost everything that I create starts off with Scaler2. I simply find it to be the best source to spark new musical ideas. A recent example is my very first music-video, Subconscious Mathematician (a nod to Thelonious Monk’s famous quote).
Subconscious Mathematician (TM) - YouTube
I thought that it might be interesting to share my methodology (if you can call it that) for producing this piece:
- Audition chord progressions in Scaler2 and select one I like. Choose it’s key as the home/target key for the song. In this case, Eb Minor/Bb Major.
- Use the force-key function in Scaler2 to audition and select a number of additional chord progressions for potential use
- Change each of the progressions (re-order chords, modify chords, drop chords, capture playback timings etc) to create something different but still in the target key i.e. make them your own
- Feed the chord progressions into sequencer/arpeggiator VSTs of your choice and record multiple patterns for each progression. In Subconscious Mathematician, I used Animation Station and the native Arpeggiator in Omnisphere and fed the generated patterns into various instrument plugins such as Omnisphere, Equator 2, Noire and Pharlight. Generally, I create 3 - 4 patterns for each chord progression.
- Using Ableton Session View, develop and refine the overall structure and arrangement for the song. Ableton is perfect for this type of iterative song development. This is very much the hard part as, at this stage there will be potentially dozens of different chord progressions and related riff/arp patterns to order, group and sometimes discard. I often use the Ableton Scene Follow Actions function to produce a rough-cut, complete version of the song and then use this as the basis to drag the chord sequences and generated patterns into Ableton’s Arrangement View into something that might approximate the overall end result.
- Work within Ableton Arrangement View to develop and finalise the detailed arrangement ready for mixing and mastering.
This is very much a summarised take of what I do but I guess the key message that I want to get over is that Scaler 2 provides the foundation (Steps 1 - 3) that underpins the complete process.
This is one of the approaches that I use with Scaler 2. It works for me. However, I am keen to hear how you use Scaler 2 to drive your own music creation process.
If you like Subconscious Mathematician, there is a higher fidelity music copy of it on Soundcloud together with a bunch of other tracks that have almost all been based around using Scaler 2 as their starting point.