Hi,
I’m trying out the demo of Scaler 2.5, liking it so far but I have a question for when using a MIDI clip to drive scaler.
So I have a MIDI clip on a track in Reaper.
I add Scaler followed by a Lounge Lizard VSTi.
Setup my chord progression in section C, no key binding.
Set Scaler to sync and follow the host.
Press play in Reaper.
Now I hear the MIDI clip and the chord notes as Scaler plays through the progression.
Can Scaler transpose the MIDI clip according to the chord progression, also not playing the chords themselves?
Thanks for the info, I didn’t know about the section A transpose.
However, that is for the built in clips. What I am hoping Scaler can do is to have a clip in the DAW (Reaper in my case) and have that transpose, on the fly, based on the chord progression.
My apologies if I didn’t explain very well. What I was looking for is:
So, MIDI plays in Reaper → Scaler where it is forced to fit with the chord currently playing → VSTi.
So each time the chord changes in Scaler the MIDI from the Reaper track is changed based on the chord. At the same time I would want to mute the internal chords just leaving the MIDI passing through from Reaper.
I’ve tried all the different Keys-Lock settings but either the MIDI coming into Scaler doesn’t change or it doesn’t play correctly.
I’m not sure If I’m explaining this very well, or perhaps it is something that Scaler isn’t designed to do.
It’s not the sound I want to mute, it’s the internal MIDI for the chord. I already have the sound set to off. But I have my VSTi (Lounge Lizard) that the output from scaler is playing.
I found info in this post which I thought might be the answer, but it messes with the MIDI coming into Scaler from Reaper.
Let me clarify, do you mean that you do not want Scaler to play chords, but you want it to output the root of each chord to the VSTi (i.e. if Scaler has a C maj chord you want it to output just C and not CEG)?
Ha, no. Cleary I’m finding this difficult to explain. Once more unto the breach
I am also testing Rapid Composer (RC). In RC the same sequence will be changed depending on the chord at that point in the track.
So If I have the same 1 bar sequence copied to 4 bars, and each bar has a different chord in the chord progression track, then the sequence will change to match the chord at that point.
So I was trying to get Scaler to do the same looking to see which features each program has that the other maybe does not. However I wanted to have my own MIDI sequence not a built in one.
I’m not familiar with RC so I’ll have to look into the functionality you are describing, but it sounds as if you want Scaler to detect your midi input, follow it and in real time output midi to your VSTi.
No this is not how Scaler works. I use Rapid Composer as well. It deals with chords in 2 ways - Absolute and Relative. Absolute setting means the pitches of the MIDI are used to output the chord information. i.e. an Amin MIDI chord will output as an Amin chord. In Relative Mode it uses the Chord setting of RC (like the chord track in Cubase) and adjusts the pitch of the MIDI relative to that. Scaler does not do this. In fact the only way for Scaler to use External MIDI chords is for it to detect them and assimilate the information. If you play a MIDI clip on the track Scaler is on and nothing is set to Bind it will just pass that MIDI clip info thru.
I think I understood what you want to do. It’s something I normally do in Reaper and also in Ableton. In RC I have not succeeded.
I hope that with the video I just made you get what you wanted to do Scaler performances in Reaper - YouTube
Scaler in Reaper
1º Receiving the chords of a midi clip in Scaler (Detect)
2º Passing all the chords to section C and selecting Section C as the source of the interpretations. Turn DAW Sync OFF
3rd Sending the Scaler performances to another channel (in this case Staccato Strings) and muting the Scaler
4º To hear the original chords, we copy the chord clip in another track, in which I have put Long Strings
5º Finally I play the piano melody along with the rest
Thanks for the turorial, however I don’t think this is what I was looking for either
I’m not looking to capture the chords from a MIDI clip but rather have the clip processed by Scaler to conform to different chords defined in Scaler.
I did this in RapidComposer demo last night. Created a midi item in Reaper with some notes and some chords, this could have been in any key. Imported that into the demo of RC. As RC plays the imported midi clip changes to suit the chord track. I can then experiment with the key and the individual chords to try out different feels to the music.
I don’t use built in patterns much, preferring to make my own. I really like Scaler and was hoping it would do this.
I think jamieh is right, Scaler does not (at this time anyway) have this function. Though Scaler can clearly do this with the built in patterns so there is potential there for the future I also see some calls for user patterns so that might be another way of doing this.
I spent a few days going through all the videos I could find before trying the demo. I’ve now spent about a week testing.
I like the plugin but I would want to have my own patterns in there, or have it work in relative mode like Rapid Composer.
I’ve spent more time in Scaler than Rapid composer and I’m still testing and comparing the two programs. As usual each one has it’s strengths and weaknesses.
I’ve found that Rapid Composer has some great pattern generators, especially fingerpicking. But Rapid Composer is not as Rapid as scaler for composing for me. So I take progressions from Scaler into RC and use those along side each other to trigger various things and it works a treat.
Also, it has been hinted that using our own performances will be coming to Scaler at some point.
I don’t believe Reaper has a chord track, or it didn’t last I used it. But I have switched to Cubase and using MIDI Clips from Scaler and Cubase’s Chord track is superb. Pretty much like relative mode in Rapid Composer.
