Like I said, I’m no expert. But I’ve got thoughts (and at least one real solution) about several of your questions:
Q: With DAW SYNC ON, while playing, if you tap a pattern in section C, the patterns stop playing and I can’t find a way to restart playing of any patterns unless I stop and restart play Loopy. Only work around I’ve found if I don’t want to stop my other loops, is to turn DAW Sync off, then manually restart playing on Scaler (but now you have to align to the beat “by hand”). What am I missing? Why wouldn’t the default behavior be to continue playing the patterns or switch patterns when you clink on the names? What if I want to click on pattern 2 to just display it to make some changes on the fly to a chord, but I want it to keep playing?
A: Per my earlier reply, my only solution has been to treat Scaler instances as separate live instrument performances that don’t automatically align to each other. I hope someone can provide a better solution, if there is one. I haven’t bothered with Scaler DAW Sync in LP, only in my DAW.
Q: If I’m adjusting “Playback Timings” in the seq view, sometimes the Scaler pattern will get out of sync with the Loppy “master” quantization, and again the only way to re-sync it I’ve found is to stop and restart Loopy.
A: I realized I was making a basic mistake in Scaler, and perhaps you are, too. In Sequence view, it’s crucial to remember that each pattern has its own independent playback timing. That means if you’ve set the last bar of Pattern 1 (for example, your song’s “A” section) to play two chords in that measure at two beats each, that doesn’t automatically propagate to Pattern 2, your “B” section. That playback will still default to one chord / four beats in that measure (or whatever you’ve set in your global settings). If you’re changing playbacks, you need to do it separately for each pattern.
Q: If I wanted multiples of X pattern to be played, like if trying to create a whole song structure, like let’s say I wanted my song to be pattern A, A, B, C, A, A, B, B… Is my only option to do that inside of Scaler by copying/duplicating individual patterns in the SEQ view?
A: As of Sept. 2022, this sort of repeat-pattern functionality didn’t exist (How to make a pattern play a specified number of times - #4 by jamieh). Among the various workarounds, simply copying into a new pattern seems to be the simplest solution.
Q: Any way to select sounds through midi? Like is there a hidden PC or CC system so that I can switch from a specific Bass to a Piano sound for example? I would love to build a short list of my favorite sounds and be able to switch between them without having to browse through the drop down menus.
A: Yes! I was trying to do this with Midi Guitar 2 in Loopy Pro, and found that it’s pretty simple. I know a version of the following will work: Add a Hardware Input channel for your controller. Add a Midi Channel that will act as the “translator” of your hardware into Midi signals. Add Audio Unit input channels for each sound you’ll want to generate from your Midi controller - say, a piano and a violin. In the Midi Channel, in the Destinations section, press “+”, then add each of those Audio Units as destinations. In effect, your hardware channel is talking to your Midi channel, which is talking to your Audio Unit-sound channels. You can do this for as many audio outputs as you like.
In this scenario, your controller will play both those output sounds at the same time. So the last step is to set up one or two (or more) widgets that will mute the piano when you want the violin, and mute the violin when you want the piano. Again, you can set up as many instruments as you like this way - you’ll just need “mute/play” options for each of them.
Hopefully, the attached photo of my Midi Guitar setup will make sense and be helpful. The third & fourth channels from the left are my hardware inputs. (Ignore the second from left; it’s the iPad mic.) The ToneStack Pro channel is for live guitar. Midi Guitar 2 is my Midi hardware input (the same live guitar, acting as a Midi controller). It runs through the far left channel, which is MG2’s “translation layer.” You’ll see I have six different Audio Units set up as output destinations. Further to the right are the actual destinations - separate channels for each of those instruments. These are set up so they’ll only record into distinct loops: My bass can only record into orange, my synth can only play into lime, etc. This is for live mixing control. Finally and importantly, I’ve set up two radio dial widgets. The most important is the pink one on top, which allows me to use my foot switch to switch from instrument to instrument, muting all except the one I’m playing. (The bottom radio dial also switches from instrument to instrument to let me control volume on each with my foot pedal.)
I think you can replicate this kind of setup with any midi controller substituting for Midi Guitar 2.
It sounds more complicated than it is. As is often the case, John Paul UK has a great tutorial on this: https://youtu.be/sfK6SC46ki8?si=_6LjvwapBEaUKPol
Q: In pad view, if I duplicate a pattern, it adds a bunch of “Rest” chords to the original and duplicate patterns.
A: I had the same issue. In my case, I’m pretty sure this was happening because I’m working on a very old (2018) iPad with limited memory, so it’s glitchy on this kind of stuff. My best workaround has been to just use “Shift” and “Remove Chord” to delete mistakes, and move/copy the correct chords into the rest spaces. The ultimate solution is probably a new iPad.