Scaler duration/repeat problems in Ableton - need support

Scaler 2 Support
1

Plugin Boutique says to post a Scaler issue here and someone from Scaler support will respond to it.

That has not been my experience.

There does not appear to be any direct support contact email address or website for Scaler. It there is, please let me know.

I posted a version of this issue a while back and no one from Scaler support addressed it. The title was: “Scaler starts first pattern with playback timings of third pattern.”

Please reference that topic if you want clarity.

Does anyone know how to contact them (Scaler support)? I don’t know if I am doing something wrong or I have a corrupt environment or what? All I know is that I keep banging my head against this wall and it feels like I have no place to go.

I am fine accepting I have done some bonehead thing, but if no one from support contacts me, how will I know that? The moment I start getting creative I run into issues. I am spending more time debugging than creating. I am about to abandon this tool, but I do not want to. It is powerful and opens a lot of doors.

I am still having issues with Scaler.

I have multiple working sets, but new sets have issues. I can recreate the problem is in both Ableton 11 and 12.

Now, the simplest setup with two little patterns using key switches fails consistently.

I have gone back through the tutorials and searched the web and I just don’t see where I am going wrong.

This is very frustrating.

If someone from support will contact me and tell me what they need from me to figure out what I am doing wrong or what is wrong with my environment I would appreciate it.

If there is a direct support contact email, please let me know what it is.

Support should be easy to access. I do not understand why it is so difficult.

2

Hi @kkatzer. There are several members of the Scaler team active here on the forum who can help you. I did notice your earlier post however it was marked as solved and it appeared as though you were in touch with Plugin Boutique for support.

If you are still after support here we’re happy to try to help. The Scaler state WeTransfer link you posted has expired. Would you mind posting it again so we can investigate?

Thanks.

3

I marked the post as solved so it wouldn’t lay around mucking things up. The only person that responded could not reproduce the issue. The link is at the end of this post.

There are three patterns.
Bar 1 key switch C1
Bar 14 key switch D1
Bar 20 key switch E1

I can open the set,
place the cursor at bar 20,
play for a few beats,
place the cursor at bar 1,
play through the set.

The third pattern consistently does not start playing until after bar 20 even though pattern 2 ends.

Thanks for following up on this.

4

Hi @kkatzer. I think I see where the confusion is occurring but apologies if I’m misunderstanding. When you say you place the curser at bar 1 or bar 20, do you mean in Ableton Live’s Arrangement View timeline?

If so, this does not change where Scaler will start playback from in Pad view. If you have pattern 1 selected in Scaler, pattern 1 will always play from the start regardless of where your curser if set to in Ableton Live. Same with patter 2 or pattern 3.

If you’d like to control Scaler’s playback position using Ableton Live, you will need to drag the patterns from Scaler into Live’s Arrangement view. You can drag them one by one, or if you click and drag across all three patten names in Pad view so they are all selected and linked, then dragging one pattern will drag the all of your patterns as one long sequence.

After this you will need to exit Pad view to another page e.g. Main page and unbind all sections (in Pad view at least one Pattern is always bound) and disable your articulation/expression e.g. Phrase, as binding and expressions will interfere with the MIDI data being played back from Ableton Live.

Let me know if that does not solve your issue and we can dig deeper if need be.

5

Thanks for the reply. My turn for misunderstandings.

Are you saying if there is an “E1” key switch in an Ableton MIDI clip at bar 20 that if you place the cursor there, Scaler will still play whatever the currently selected pattern is that is in Pad view?

If that is so, I don’t think I understand key switches.

In my functioning sets, if I place the cursor at a point in Ableton where there is an embedded key switch it will play the associated pattern. I actually just tested that.

Could you possibly be talking about a situation where key switches are not embedded in Ableton MIDI clips?

6

OK, I think I understand the issue now. To clarify, no, your understanding of key switches is correct. I just did not realise you had them programmed into Ableton Live’s timeline. I have been able to recreate your issue by adding key switches to the bars you mentioned.

I believe the problem is that with Scaler, key switches like to be triggered before the pattern starts, as opposed to at the start of the bar which is technically after the pattern has started playing. This is a problem when you start your song from bar 1, triggering the C1 key switch, when a different pattern was selected e.g. playing from bar 20 beforehand. What you hear is the first chord from the previously selected pattern e.g. pattern 3 playing for its allocated duration as it started before the key switch was received, then pattern 1 starts from its beginning. In this case, given both pattern 1 and pattern 3 start with the same chord, it sounds like the first chord of pattern 1 is playing for longer than it should.

One solution here is just to manually select Pattern 1 before you start playing your song from bar 1. This means it will ignore the key switch (which is no longer needed) and play for the correct duration.

Alternatively, I would suggest moving the entire song forward a bar, and moving the first key switch back a bar, however this won’t work as you have DAW sync enabled so Scaler will simply start playing a bar earlier.

I was able to avoid your issue by disabling the key switches in Ableton Live and instead linking the patterns in Scaler’s Pad view so they play through sequentially. This does however mean Scaler will always start playing from the beginning of bar 1 regardless of your curser position in Live.

The other solution is to drag all your patterns into Ableton Live as I described in my previous post.

Hope this makes sense. Let me know if I’m still misunderstanding your issue.

7

There are times I do not want to drag the actual MIDI notes over into Ableton. I would like Scaler to just go on its way and I will control how it interacts with other instruments using automation.

I just do not understand why the key switching behavior varies from set to set. I have one complex set with multiple Scaler instances that all have key switches set at the start of the measure I want a particular pattern to play and it consistently plays back fine. Now I cannot get the simplest of Scaler patterns to behave properly using key switches.

In my latest test I have the C1 key switch at the start of measure 1. Since it is at the start I have to initiate the set twice sometimes because it will start playing the last pattern that was active (as you stated in your response). That is fine. It is just a known behavior.

But if, as you say about key switches, I put the second and third key switch just before the measure in which I want them to fire I get some odd behaviors.

In the test Scaler (see link below), the second pattern (D1) fires and plays correctly. The third pattern, however, fires but starts on its third chord and immediately moves to the fourth chord.

Does this have something to do with the difference in pattern lengths? I have looked at the playback timings and it seems like my positioning of the third key switch is correct.

It feels to me that most people must drag their Scaler MIDI values into their DAWs otherwise someone must have ran into this type of problem.

If you determine that my setup (Scaler/DAW embedded key switches) is valid, is there a possibility I have a corrupted VST? If so, and I reloaded it, would it affect any of my existing sets?

Thanks for hanging in there on this. It is important to me.

The link to the current test Scaler state I am using is: WeTransfer - Send Large Files & Share Photos Online - Up to 2GB Free

My DAW setup:

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image1123×223 8.9 KB

8

Hi @kkatzer I think I see where the problem is occurring. I’m not sure there is perfect solution for you here however. Some of Scaler’s behaviour can seem a bit idiosyncratic as certain functions were designed with particular use cases in mind.

Suffice to say, I’m pretty sure there is nothing wrong with your VST installation. Like you say it is likely due to different pattern lengths. The way Pad mode works is that if a new pattern is triggered with key switches, the new patten will continue from where the previous one left off. This isn’t a problem for your first pattern as it uses all 8 chord slots so when a new pattern is triggered during chord #8, the new pattern begins at chord #1.

With your second pattern however, the next pattern is being triggered during chord #3 (rest), so the next pattern begins with chord #4. Even though that is the last populated chord slot, is is still chord #3.

The way you’re using Pad view, this behaviour doesn’t make much sense. So the only solution I can think of is to select/link all of your patterns to play through sequentially. In this mode, pattern 3 will start from the beginning after pattern 2 has finished. This way you don’t need key switches, however there is no connection between Ableton Live’s timeline and Scaler, so Scaler will always start from the start of pattern 1.

I think most people will drag their patterns into their DAW when they reach this point which is the most robust solution. Regardless, I will mention that much of this behaviour is being completely revamped for a future product release we will talk about later this year.

Hope this helps, but let me know if that still doesn’t answer your question.

9

Thanks Tristen,

I needed to understand what Scaler’s actual behaviors are. Knowing how the Pad patterns function converting patterns of varying lengths will allow me to move forward without confusion.

I appreciate your thorough answers.

When you talk about the future release, will one of the enhancements be that the Pad with embedded key switches will be able to handle patterns of varied lengths?

I hope that if the case because I would find it extremely useful.

Thanks again. Now I can move forward knowing the rules of the road.

10

No problem @kkatzer, glad we could help. Whilst we cannot comment on specific features of future products, rest assured there are some substantial changes in the works rendering many concerns like this irrelevant. So stay tuned!