I am very new to scaler 2.4. I’ve been trying for weeks to figure this out so hopefully somebody out there can explain it to me or point me to a good tutorial. I have Band Lab and so far I’ve been able to get scaler loaded onto a track and operate within scaler but I can’t figure out how to get scaler’s chord patterns to come through an external VSTI. For instance I’d like to load audio track into Scaler, let scaler figure out the chords. Then put scaler into the mode which lets you let’s you play chords using single keys, then play those keys inside of scaler but have the sound come from a VSTI on a separate Is track, as I press the keys inside of scaler. Is this possible in band lab?
Here is the Tutorial and Overview video. I don’t know BandLab but it looks like it’s online only. If that’s the case I don’t see how it can use Scaler. BandLab would need to see VST plugins.
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Hi @Mlp I suspect that you are using Cakewalk (from Bandlab) and it may well be that many here are not familiar with Bandlab as such, but may be with Cakewalk.
[@jamieh I think he is using the old Sonar product, rebadged under BandLab, and now called Cakewalk (its original name), which is a local PC app]
If you are using Cakewalk, then yes, scaler will work with it.
“then play those keys inside of scaler but have the sound come from a VSTI on a separate Is track, as I press the keys inside of scaler. Is this possible in band lab?”
Yes, all the things you mention are possible. I’ll try and fire it up later today and put a couple of screen shots up.
I’ve had Cakewalk for 20 years (!) but I don’t use it now, and drive everything from Live, so I’ll have to blow the dust off it. You will find Scaler is a great source of ideas!
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I’m assuming that you are familiar with Cakewalk. To get used to the general setup with Scaler, open up a new CW instance which is blank. and add a midi track.
On the right hand side of CW, click on ‘Instruments’ and you should see Scaler under Plugin Boutique (CW should have scanned for VSTs.) I’ve used DUNE3 VST3 synth as a demo, which you can see under Synapse audio below.
Now add two instrument tracks, defining Scaler on one and (in this case) DUNE3 on the other.
Call up the Scaler interface, and turn off the inbuilt sounds
Now set up the routings,
Set Dune3 as the linked instrument on track 1 (which you initially created). On the DUNE track set the inputs to be from Scaler, and (in this case for simplicity to get going) ‘Omni’.
Set the audio outputs on the DUNE track to whatever is going to make the noise - in this case ‘out1+out2’ of my MOTU interface.
Now, pressing a key in Scaler should send its midi out to DUNE, which sends the audio out to the interface (or soundcard). You can check on the DUNE track mixer display
that its out is going to the audio channel, which is also shown on the master fader.
Have a go and let me know if you have any problems.
PS: CW designed its own plugins (DX) but lost the plug in war to Steinberg with VSTs. The result is that the setup is slightly quirky to, say, a Ableton Live user. Some of the old Sonitus effects are quite good, however. BTW, things like Boost11 (cheap and cheerful loudness booster) work perfectly ok as VST’s in other products.
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