Inspired by @TMacD post Exploring Scaler's Performance settings....an easier way the look beyond the chords I thought I’d post what I will call ‘observations’ about certain types of Scaler sequences.
Warning : they are pretty trivial, so experienced board dwellers should turn away now, but I thought they might be worth posting for fellow ‘noobies’ like me **.
I had been examining the midi patterns of sequences, and experimenting with inversion and retrograde, and also looking for possible combinations of these to create counterpoint. An example of one Arp sequence was as under
What struck me about this was that the arpeggiated notes in the upper register really needed a patch with fast attack and quick delay, as they were so short. In the lower register, the notes lasted for a whole bar, so it seemed to me that a different patch would be more appropriate (these were probably left hand and right hand input).
I could have edited them and produced two midi files, but that would have ‘detached’ them from scaler, and I wanted the midi to be the same in Scaler and Live (which I was using).
So I used a simple midi chain effect
By moving the split point, different parts of the register could be routed to different patches, which I did by trial and error (although in this case it was easy as I was trying to split at the 1 bar notes).
So the routings for the upper register were as shown below.
The whole setup with 3 Arp sequences driven by slightly different sequences and split points was as below
As a slightly different example, I picked a non-arpeggiated sequence where the split would be in time, rather than register. This generated a sort of ‘call’ and ‘response’ effect with only 8 notes, and had you played it with a just piano patch you might not have thought of doing this.
This time I threw in a simple string pad, a repeating I bar bass line, and a bit of a kick. it looked like this
As a reminder,
{a} these are otherwise out of the box , unchanged, vanilla Scaler sequences, with different split points to give the sort of effects this can produce
{b} I am crap at recording and mastering; so troll the idea and not the music prouction !
I might post some example of using the same ideas to generate a ‘polyrhythmic’ effect of combining a sequence with its inversion, and chopping out stuff with a chain.
You can listed to all the 3 clips at Observations on Scaler sequences – Galaxies and beyond …
PS ** I for many years played with hardware devices, but it was for my own consumption and I never paid much attention to the art of mixing or mastering (space, dynamic range, staging etc), but I did get into programming sound son my synths (digital, FM and analog). So I now count my experience from when I got rid of 20 U racks for gear and moved into the box, so I view myself as a Noobie from this perspective.
