Switching between scales

georgechopp

28 May 2021, 06:56 BST

I have updated the new version 2.4. I was so excited to see that they have scale mapping which is what I have been waiting for. The plug-in is just amazing. I watched the video yesterday several times where Davide mapped the two different scales and was able to switch between them with his controller. I use a Launchpad x as a controller and when I open scaler… select scale… then select a particular scale, and control click to map it, scaler asked me to Press a key or Midi. However when I press a key on my Launchpad X save remains grayed out. No matter which key I push. Would someone please be kind enough to just list the simple steps I need to do to be able to map multiple scales so I can easily switch between them… Obviously I am missing something that was have shown on the video… thank you

At the moment scaler ignores key note on/off to discourage mapping to keys on a keyboard. I presume your launchpad needs to be in midi mode, I assume it’s a custom mode (like midi mode where it sends standard midi CC):
https://novationmusic.com/en/news/launchpad-custom-modes
Let me know how you get on please as it’s important for us that a Launchpad should be able to utilise the midi mapping,

As a user of all of MIDI keyboards, Grid controllers (Launchpad Pro MK3 and Linnstrument 200), and auxilliary MIDI controllers (Arturia Beatstep, Korg nanoKontrol 2), I offer the following comments.

  1. I would quite like to be able to remotely control any aspect of Scaler that can be remotely controlled (e.g. Section selection, Section C row selection, Scale selection, etc.) easily and effectively from any of these devices. They all have utility for me, and in various situations for various reasons one device or another is the only truly effective choice.

  2. For Scaler to accomplish #1 above as an enabler rather than a bottleneck, either CCs or notes need to be acceptable to Scaler as remote triggers - at the user’s sole discretion.

  3. For Launchpads in particular:

a) LPs are ready-to-go with sending notes. Allowing Scaler to do switching on notes is definitely to be desired.

b) The user may wish to put 8 switches (e.g. for 8 Scales, or for 8 chord rows) either on an LP column or on an LP row. Clearly supporting an LP for with switches across a row is the easier case. Rows and key-octaves (as now) are sequentially the same ( with choice of All | White-Only ), whereas allowing columns would require the ability to define the entire map in Scaler in a new and different way, which is much more work.

Ultimately, Scaler may punt on supporting columns. If you don’t punt, then it may be far in the future before you get to that (in the face of other priorities). Mostly, I suggest just to be aware of the possibility of columns and try ton to do anything that would make it effectively impossible to support columns at a later time.

c) It is probably possible to write a custom driver to mediate between the LP and Scaler. This would allow you to use all the buttons on the LP device (not just the 64 play pads) in very creative ways. For example, see ‘Driven-by-Moss’ which is amazingly control of Bitwig Studio via custom driver. This approach. again, is much more complicated, but being able to use for example the Scene buttons in addition to the 8x8 play buttons would be super!

Short summary: allowing notes to act as switches, and keeping the current octave-zone/row correspondence, is the shortest path to Scaler supporting grid controllers in a good usable way. I suggest this as the next step, after which other steps might or might not someday pass the effort-to-reward comparison test!

One thought on how to address the MIDI notes for music versus control mess… how about using different MIDI channels for musical notes, versus MIDI notes for selection of chord progressions + performance styles?

Certainly much is currently possible if you are using a controller of sufficient programmability. I have just created a couple of LP Mk3 Custom Mode layouts which I will post in a dedicated topic.

See: Launchpad Pro Mk3 Custom Modes

Is there anyway to alter an existing scale…such as taking the dorian minor and adding a flat 5th or mixolydian and add a flat third…