I got Scaler to learn scales and chords quickly, so when I find the program actively preventing me from learning and slowing me down as well I am not happy.
Specifically the SCALE LOCK toggle which is unhelpful, prevents quick learning and teaches bad habits and laziness. Because when SCALE LOCK is engaged press a key outside the selected scale and the computer redirects incorrect key press instructions to the nearest correct key in scale on behalf of the user, spoon-feeding them and not teaching them a thing. Professional keyboards with a scale lock feature have a toggle OFF of notes outside of a key, OFF - as-in you press a wrong key you get silence. Pretty big incentive to press the right key and get immediate learning. Imagine for a moment, using this feature I am requesting, I’ll call it: “true scale lock”. Select any key, like G Major, or F minor, whatever… and press any key on the keyboard. It either makes noise or remains silent. Just 12 key presses later (about 10 seconds) and you now know exactly which notes on the keyboard are in the scale you chose. You start to learn the key positions of that scale IMMEDIATELY, pretty soon with Scalers help you know all 7 triad chords in that scale. I guarantee you could learn the position of all triads in any scale in under one hour if this “true scale lock” feature was implemented instead of this dodgy “I’ll fix your mistakes so you don’t need to know where the keys are” scale lock that Scaler currently contains.
As a workaround, in Ableton, there is a MIDI effect called “scale” which can be dragged ahead of the Scaler plugin in the chain, then select whatever key you want to work in in the Ableton MIDI effect, this then filters your key strokes on their way to Scaler and effectively does what I am requesting should be a feature WITHIN Scaler. The result of using the Ableton MIDI effect “Scale” is: the keys outside the scale remain silent when pressed on a keyboard. So I have an Ableton preset saved that basically creates this professional “true scale lock” because I want to learn quick and Scaler just does not cut it alone with its current Scale Lock.
