Middle Eastern scale

Scaler 2 General Discussion
1

This set of NI Middle Eastern materials contains Middle Eastern scales, which can be easily played.
Which chords in SCALER are more suitable for Middle Eastern scales?
Can you recommend it? thanks

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2

Hi,

If the VST-i you mention uses strict Middle Eastern scales with notes that don’t conform to diatonic pitches it might not be possible to get an exact match. I’d try to come close with scales such as Persian scale, which I think Scaler has (not at DAW and don’t remember…I think its one of the named scales).

3

Scaler does support the Persian scale and its modes (in chromatic intervals being 1/2/5/6/7/9/12). It also supports Egyptian Pentatonic, but that scale is equivalent to a minor pentatonic anyway. Where a scale is not directly supported in Scaler, you could enter it manually as long as it is a subset of an equal temperament chromatic scale.

The challenge is when when a scale does not conform to 12 TET, and in this cases what you can do is rather dependent on whether the VST supports other tunings. So DUNE for example does not, but Omnisphere supports a huge range of alternative tunings e.g. this Arabian tuning.
al

As far as I can see, scales in the NI Middle East instrument are defined in terms of the Western TET chromatic; however there is a mechanism to associate a note with an offset in tuning to give a microtonal approximation to some other tuning framework. The manual says “Tuning: Each degree can be tuned in cent via the Scale Tuning control. The tuning is represented as its deviation from the Western Equal Temperament.” . So fundamentally its driven by TET with a sort of ‘bend’.

4 Likes
4

I have Omnisphere but have only minimal experience with such tunings. I should explore them more. I’d love to hear music using Omnsiphere with such alternate tuning being driven by Scaler. In theory, I think it should work with some effort. Good idea.

5

I remember being in Saudi Arabia writing music live in front of the royal family on my laptop for the ‘Open Saudi Open Doors’ event and really wanting to create my own microtonal scale in scaler to control third party VST’s. I managed to get by but Scaler could have been a game changer there. No doubt we need to get there but we need to funnel down to it first. NI Middle East, Sonokinetic Sultan Strings and the Rast Sound libraries where invaluable.

2 Likes
6

There is quite a lot in the Omnisphere manual about this, but it seems to me that to address it fully is not trivial. Other than the NI ‘bending’ method (a sort of kluge) if it is
to be midi driven it means associating a frequency with each note, I guess.

Woah - live… super brave … all those guys sitting around with Saif’s at their waist :slightly_smiling_face: I have done many software demos in my life, but always tried to do a pre-cooked setup … Murphy’s law (“if it can go wrong, it will”) always seemed to apply :frowning:

7

Woah! You get around and know people! :smiley: