Here is the biggest disadvantage of the current scaler version: I cannot use more than 8 chord changes.
I often have more than these 8 chords in my progressions. Unfortunately if there is a 9 chord progression within 4 bars - how can I get them with midi capturing?
In Section C, select all your patterns by dragging the mouse across them
and then just capture the midi.
Ah, now I see the concept. Every pattern has 8 fixed keys like form C2 to (including) C3, the next pattern starts with D3 to D4, the next again from E4 to E5, etc. Phhh…
However I can capture Midi from section “A” as well as I found out.
I think the concept is based on the precept that many musical phrases are 4 or 8 bars in length, and chord changes often occur on the first beat of the bar,although there are many pieces of music where this is not true, and Scaler can handle these situations through the EDIT page or by binding patterns to midi clips or keyboard inputs.
? I don´t understand.
The concept is based on simplicity and accessibility really. The PATTERNS are designed to give the flexibility and as you point out work like traditional drum machines. I think moving forward we will do all of this better whilst maintaining the simplicity.
Each square in each pattern is divided into 4 smaller squares. One block is allowed, 2, 3, 4 are also allowed.
I feel lost….what do you mean by square in a pattern?
Hmmm… doesn´t make sense to me. Seems I don´t get what you mean, sorry.
Make the blocks more subdivided, which solves volume issues, rhythm issues, etc. Of course, there should be a better way.
If I understand the Scaler timing for playback there are two parts to setting it.
Globally playback timing can be set to a range from 1/2 beat to 16 beats in the Settings page (click on the littkle gear wheel at the titop right to open this)
This sets a base for playing back every chord/block in the patterns and the default is 4 beats (i.e. when playing back the Scaler patterns every block will play for 4 beats).
Individual blocks can be edited in the EDIT page which I think resolves many of @swingmix 's issues with rhythm. For more information on this I have prepared a short tuorial here.
More complex rhythms may be used by binding to midi clips which can also mitigate the limited (7) number of patterns.
As for volume I would like to see more patterns, again each of 8 blocks.
Spending a little time playing with Scaler has taught me how flexible it is, and whilst it may be a bit awkward I think that adding some hot keys and or more drop down menus to enable easier navigation would solve the issues with making it simpler, although it is pretty simple to navigate between pages.
I would hate to lose the flexibility for the sake of ease of use when actually it is not difficult to use or navigate around.
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I think SCALER probably didn’t think much of it at first.
They let customers find their favorite chords into each “pad” for easy mouse clicks.
But now SCALER users prefer to make a song or even the whole song.
As a result, the squares become constraints, and the current EDIT page feels unwieldy.
Expect SCALER3.0 to improve.
The EDIT page is not difficult to manage. As in everything, you have to spend a little time learning to handle it. On the contrary, I think it is very versatile and leaves a lot of freedom to the musician to create different things.
In addition to Edd’s good tutorial, others in the Forum have previously explained how it works to configure how long you want a chord to last. And, if you follow a little the steps of the tutorial that Edd has made, you will discover that it is very simple.
The EDIT page also has the functions to edit the octaves and inversions in which to set the chord.
But it also has another wonderful function, which is the Playback Performances.
If version 3.0 is going to bring those novelties that you predict (based on “But now SCALER users prefer to make a song or even the whole song”, I insist on saying here that I will not update. I like Scaler as it is. what you say Scaler users ask for (I would like them to say who they are) there are other types of programs and complements, as you already know
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I feel I must respond to a couple of @swingmix 's comments.
I do not find the EDIT page unwieldy, in fact I believe it follows good design practice in that it groups a related set of processes (editing individual blocks) together. The only slightly inconvenient thing is having to open separate panels for each of the editing sections - voicings, timings and performances. But it is only one click. This could be mitigated by using hot keys or jump menus ut that is still one click so…
If you wanrt to make the same edit to more than one block simply select the blocks and make the edit once. I am not sure what is so unwieldy about this.
If you are adding performances to blocks in the PLAYBACK PERFORMANCE panel that too is very easy.
How do you, @swingmix, think it could be improved? I know you have suggested being able to subdivide blocks, and maybe this could be achieved through a jump menu to the Edit page, or right-click to show the timings edit list from the EDIT page
But will that be any easier than going to the EDIT page to edit the timings?
That will still leave 8 blocks in a pattern . but I think there is a good reason for this: over 50 % of western music is based on patterns that are multiples of 2 - usually 2, 4 or 8. Occasionally the patterns are longer than 8 but that is unusual, at least in classical, folk, country, pop, rock, blues, and even jazz.
I find some other programs unwieldy (e.g. BIAB), but that is because I have not invested any time in them so I am not familiar with them (nor have I invested any money: I haven’t got BIAB but looking at it I do not want to get it as Scaler does everything I want. That is not to say that BAIB is not good, it is probably better than Scaler at some things, but it is simply not on my wish list)
I think this shows how versatile Scaler is as their uses of Scaler evolves. There are videos that show you how to make a whole song in Scaler, and it doesn’t seem to be too difficult or time consuming to do so.
As most songs only use a few phrases albeit with variations (unless it is a symphony or long jazzy improv’ based thing) I think they can be accommodated by Scaler. But as I said elsewhere
This could help in allowing more harmonic or melodic variations on a theme.
I had a suggestion before. Just make an arpeggiator.
In this arpeggiator, you can control the speed, you can also control the playback of chords, you can also let the chords play chords, and then control the rhythm in a rolling window.
There can be official fixed styles on the left.
NEXUS’s arpeggiator can refer to.
Then add drag and drop MIDI functionality.
I think a programmable arpeggiator would be nice, but I wouldn’t put it to the top of my wish list: there are plenty out there, already.
Looking at Nexus and your description of the functionality it sounds like rather more than an arpeggiator.
But I wonder if the issue here is more about workflow?
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It is definitely about workflow. I’ve been over this with Swingmix and I’m not sure he has a clear idea of
A. Learn the tools you have completely to get the most out of them.
B. Come up with a workflow that highlights what it is you want to achieve.
There is the language barrier too. He ends up asking for the same things again many times so I’m not sure we always get through.
Thanks for taking you time to explain things @ed66. Swingmix does get confused by the timing setting on the pads and says he doesn’t use that much if at all.
Cheers,
Jamie
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I must admit that I tend to use midi clips to trigger pads and control rhythm as it gives me much more easily programmed control, and I find it quicker than editing pads. But that’s just my workflow.