This discussion thread is to ideate and coordinate on the ambition to put together a music project based on using Scaler as the core tool. Part of the aspiration is to create Scaler showcases, the other to hone our Scaler skills and learn a thing or two by experimentation or from fellow “band members”. Anybody can join, of course 
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Sign me in!
Can I safely assume that, to start, we should gather couple progression-melody combos?
I don’t know how the process works, I have never done anything like it But starting with putting together some chord progression sounds Scaler-appropriate 
Well then. Without further ado, here comes melody number 01.
16 bars full of cheesy stuff 
. Last bar is definitely to be reworked but I had no better idea at this time.
The melody line is kind of for vocal so it’s simple and kept in one octave.
Attached midi file is Scaler’s own track so the lowest notes are chords.
Scaler settings:
- Eb Major scale
- Keyboard binding to section B
- Voice Grouping: Dynamic
- Instrument: Grand Piano
Scaler Forum Band - attempt 01.mid (531 Bytes)
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I sign up, with my old metronome under my arm
I download the file and I will do experiments
Rather than dropping another of my test I’ll try to explain a workflow and a possible request to DEVs for an improvement
I composed a song yesterday: guitar and hammond, each with its Scaler (same series of chords, different patterns)
After having configured the guitar, I noticed that Hammond chords were sometimes dissonant compared to the guitar chords, so I used for the 1st time the Circle of fifths
here is the picture with routings
The first chord sounded fine, so I started to edit the second one
to do that I put in loop the first 2 chords
I clicked the space-bar to start the loop, then I used my ear and Scaler suggestions (amazing feature WOW) to find a proper 2nd chord
Then I repeated the same for the other dissonant chords, each time increasing the loop by one bar
Using my ear and Scaler’s suggestions I was able to fix all dissonant chords
The workflow can be improved anyway, as explained here
Are witnessing a thread hijack in real time?
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Great! I’m so curious to see (well, hear) how various people will approach the tune. Keeping fingers crossed. Currently I’m trying to feed triads from Scaler into UJAM Sparkle for some pop-rock rhythm guitar.
Beautiful melody! I feel like an idiot, because I just copied the raw midi over into my DAW, and played it, and thought “wow, super avantgarde!” (my positive spin on dissonance 
And then I reread your “Scaler Settings” information and configured Scaler accordingly, and voila, beautiful! Here’s my first take on building on this…
https://soundcloud.com/user-938271334/scaler-forum-band-take-1
I added a Scaler bass line (Funk 1)
The drums are NI Maschine’s “909 Fat Bloke Kit”. And then used the same notes & settings from your original piano piece to feed a vox pad with more sustain one octave up (used Falcon 2 for that, but you could substitute with Scaler’s internal “Choir” sound)
For the sake of @LivingEdge_Studios sanity, I moved the alien part of my workflow in the proper section of the forum
Darn it, you’re fast! I’m still in the woods
I love how dreamy you’ve made the tune. Are you planning to change the piano into a synth?
I wasn’t planning to swap out the piano, I actually quite like it. Originally I did play with a bunch of different synth leads for the melody, but in the end it seemed to sound best with piano. Meanwhile I have also added a Scaler guitar (sound + expressions), but it doesn’t quite sound right. It’s starting to get too busy. And even now listening to it again on another PC, the sound mixing is horrible, bass way too dominant :-o
Here’s the alternative part with guitar (faded piano into background).
https://soundcloud.com/user-938271334/scaler-forum-band-take-2
And here’s how it looks in the DAW (Bitwig)…
The Scaler guitar part looks like this:
You can play around and vary the expressions.
Meant to add that I like the original melody very much, in fact in the DAW I kept listening to it on loop for a couple of repetitions. But it sounds like it would be the chorus to the longer story. So we might need to weave some narrative around this central theme?
For what it’s worth, I’ve added a workspace on kompoz.com, that might make it easier to share files/stems etc. The Scaler Forum Band Dashboard
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I was thinking how we probably should keep the instruments to the Scaler internal ones, a) to make the project as portable across the Scaler community as possible, and b) to identify any missing sounds that the Scaler Dev team might want to add, like some percussive sounds?
It’s soooo great - I love how chill it is. And yes, it does need some EQ-ing but let’s not be perfectionist right from the start. Mastering engineer will fix everything
Definitely - a verse is a must . I will try to draft something - Sunday evening I should be out Easter-foods-induced-coma and ready for new challenges.
Signed up and uploaded my version
Thanks Bernd, just registered. As we progress through different songs and albums , it might be interesting to define some song types that target (and then are then constrained by) very specific feature sets of Scaler. That way, if and when people listen, they can get a feel of what it is they are listening to and how it relates to producing it with Scaler. As we know, cool sounding chords are but one of Scaler’s many talents.
Good point about focusing on the different Scaler features, as I can think of them being…
- The library of chord progressions
- The expressions (phrases etc)
- The transition/modulation feature
- The patterns matrix & key binding that allows recalling chords
Along those lines I was wondering if we best keep the compositional exchanges in Scaler format, e.g. the pattern matrix instead of MIDI files, or would that be too constraining? We wouldn’t expect to compose a whole song solely in Scaler, right?