Dear folks,
I love scaler! What an awesome tool. I am using two features in modulation a lot. These 2 are Neo-Riemannian and Modal interchange. Awesome!! I understand what they are in music.
What are the other 3, mediants, secondary scale and progressions?
I can not find a good tutorial that explains this?
please advise,
futire
Dear lelek,
Thank you so much! Out of this video I now learned that mediants is basically what is know in music theory as, chromatic mediants!
So now I understand neo-riemannian, mediants and modal interchange.
Does anybody know what secondary scale means and how to use it? Is it to go from one scale to another or…I don’t understand it…it has arrows with all sorts of exiting options?
And does anybody know what progression does? I see the same stuff as in secondary scale, what, how to use and what is the term in music theory?
Documentation is not clear and the videos dont cover this at all?
Anybody know?
If you have a progression in one key (let’s say I-iii-V-ii in C Major) and you want to go to the same progression in different key (let’s say i-III-v-ii in E Minor), Scaler will sugest a possible transitions/bridges that you can switch with arrows.
Similar as progression above but it assumes that you do not want to keep the progression. Simply “change the key and do whatever” 
I do not know how to use it “properly”. If there is even such thing as “properly” in music 
exactly what @lelek said, both screen allow you to “modulate” in the broader sense (ie: progress into another scale).
Compared to other screens in the modulation page, “Progression” and “Secondary scale” are not limited to a specific subset of relations. You can try to go anywhere, in any scale. Scaler helps you find a path.
It requires a fair bit of trial and error to make the most of the feature, but it allows you to try things quickly by adding visual cues on compatible chords and degrees.
Dear Ed,
Thank you for your prompt response. But I still don’t understand the musical direction here. After a whole morning of experimentation I figured out that mediant is chromatic mediant really
The modal thing I figured out right away. And it is awesome!!
The neo-riemannian I also figured out right away. Also awesome! one can make very dramatic cinametic music with this.
But the secondary scale and progression…I am totally lost with what this is doing and what the meaning here is? i guess with progression you have one scale and then a destination scale. I get that. But the row of chords that come up in the middle is confusing. Are you supposed to pick a pivot chord as it is known in music? I saw that on a demo vedeo the whole string is copied over?? This does not make any musical sense…
Some very sufesticated and smart programming went into this.
So, it needs to be properly explained what is going on here and how to properly use it?
Because folks who know advanced chord theory like me are…totally lost…
I am going to make some screen shots and send it via email to you. Because this forum does not accept pdf’s. I placed it in a pdf with my questions.
We need a good video on modulation with a good explanation with what steps to take and what musical theory is behind it.
Again, a lot of smart programming with good stuff, but no documentation or good explanations?
A couple of rappers tried to explain but…they are all wrong. There is one guy that came close to explaning the progression thing. That one one helped me understand how to use this.
This is a very powerfull vst, a lot of this horsepower needs to be explained properly.
Very respectfully,
future
Those are suggested paths between the 2 scales. They are different ways to get to the destination scale. They have been written by artists, Scaler shows them as a guide. When looking at the degrees, you can see some of them use common modulation “tricks” like secondary dominant (ii-V-I), etc…
You can, but don’t have to. Transitions between scales will sound smoother if you use shared chords as pivots between the different parts.
However, modulation highly depends on the context, we didn’t artificially limit those screens to scales with shared chords, they can be used to build two parts with no related chords if that’s what you want to do.
More content is on the way to explain the modulation features.
Our goal with Scaler is to leverage theory where it is helpful and provide an efficient workflow around it.
Those modulations screens are really what this is about, allowing you to think quickly around concepts that are sometimes hard to grasp without visual cues.
Thanks for the feedback,
Yes they are indeed chromatic mediants. I think we should specify this, although you could argue that they could fall under altered mediants and submediants so Mediant is a decent enough headline but I think of this modulation as the John Williams Chromatic Mediant modulation and maybe to be clearer we should categorise as such.
A very clear explanation on how to use chromatic mediants
