What do you want in Scaler 3.0?

ed66 · June 16, 2023, 5:28am

I think you can already create these on the CHORD page (see Introduction to the CHORD Page, The Chord Page: Entering Custom Chords and The Chord Page: Inversions under Tutorials topic, and the Scaler 2 Course Module 3 - Exploring the Chord Window),

ADDENDUM: Another option would be to play the chords in and record them using the detect function. This works very well with block chords from a midi device, but the chord may not be given the name that you expect as Scaler assigns names based on its interpretation of the scale.

2KA · June 16, 2023, 10:03am

Thanks, I am aware of the workarounds. Think it would raise Scaler to the next level if user-defined voicings could be applied.

ed66 · June 16, 2023, 2:33pm

I wouldn’t call the CHORD page a

but just to clarify do you mean that you would like to be able to define and store a voicing scheme that could then be applied to any chord, rather than having to create a voicing for each chord in a pattern?

Again having created a voicing for one chord you could then simply “extract the voicing” and “apply the voicing” to each chord in a pattern.

I should say that I am not against the idea of user defined voicings, in fact I think it could be useful to create voicings and store them for future use. I just don’t find the

too onerous.

2KA · June 16, 2023, 3:10pm

Yes, I mean voicings that will be applied automatically to any chord. This could be achieved with a skin that lets you transpose any interval individually up or down. The triads inverted voicing changes in between different voicings. Which it shouldn´t do.

alan9990 · June 18, 2023, 3:17pm

Just joined up so that I can comment. Only had Scaler for a few days, loving it already despite only scratching the surface.

Like others, most or all suggestions I might have had you covered in your video. Two comments then:

Am absolutely in favour of Scaler 3 following the pattern of many other VSTs out there by coming in two versions; standalone and purely as a plugin (instrument). It would seem reasonable to then charge two prices, the full version for those who either don’t own a DAW and/or just want to use Scalar in their own way, and those who need it purely to drive their own instruments (think Kontakt etc.)

Other thing I’d really like to see comes from my use of Bitwig. Being very modular, one has access to just about every conceivable parameter. This means that when loading an instrument (e.g. synth) I have direct access to its sound be that the generation or audio file. Thus I can edit every aspect of each sound produced e.g. delay, attack, gain, etc. as well as apply FX.

I’d like Scalar to be accessible in this way as a plugin. If I’m driving an instrument with it, then of course I can edit the instrument, but even as someone very new to making music, I can see that there are many cases when being able to manipulate sound from the controller itself is an invaluable help.

ClaudioPorcellana · June 19, 2023, 10:25pm

A Cory Henry button possible?

jamieh · June 20, 2023, 12:29am

Ain’t no way you’re get THAT in a box!

xtremsounds · June 20, 2023, 11:59am

Use AI to improve audio detection. offer to split sounds into low mid high frequencies and isolate those for chord or note detection.

Drop in our our own chord progression midi file and scaler makes suggestions for improvement

random playback mode and ping pong playback mode reverse playback mode

how about negative chords suggestions? Is that there already?

Rib · June 20, 2023, 6:00pm

LOCRIAN AEOLIAN MIXED scale for radom metallica type riff generation, and/or the ability to click in your own custom scale by clicking on the keys.

panda · June 20, 2023, 6:10pm

I too would find that useful - Arturia, for example have standalone versions of Pigments, Analog V, and Piano 2, along with others.

One temporary work round (though you may already be aware of it, in which case sorry for the ‘sucking eggs’ post) is to use one of he several standalone hosts, e.g. Nanohost (it’s free). There have been several discussed in this forum.

I use Cantabile Solo which for working just with Scaler and sketching things out is quicker and less hassle than firing up Ableton Live. This has really good MIDI management, supports sync for multiple copies, can be driven by MTC from a DAW.

This gives you something you can’t do so easily with multiple stand alone copies.

See an example at Ableton Live 1 | Completely unofficial Scaler information site

The other pages under the ‘Cantabile’ menu should give you some idea of Management and other features.

"many cases when being able to manipulate sound from the controller itself "
I’m not technical, but I can see some issues with that. The norm these days is to use MIDI learn to create macros, but to do that from a standalone Scaler would require some form of two way interchange. So if you clicked on some element in the instrument, that would somehow need to get back to Scaler and this would need to provide an interface to manage it. I think it’s non trivial.

Fyi, you can do this simply in Cantabile, Here is Scaler driving DUNE2; Cantabile allows you to directly access the available instrument parameters, and to build ‘racks’ which can be saved.

panda · June 20, 2023, 6:24pm

Elements of it are, I think. many of the negative chords / harmony stuff (think Jacob Collier ?) were derived from the work of Ernst Levy, who extended the ideas of Hugo Riemann (dualism, undertones).

Scaler has a facility for exploring neo-Riemannian modulation, and those transformations may help with some of the negative stuff. Also, the Chord Page gives visual help to matching up mirrored chords over the C > Gb axis

I did start reading a paper on the evolution of these ideas
See https://btcloud.bt.com/web/app/share/invite/GqUZP1x4jB

but gave up and went into the garden for a beer.

alan9990 · June 21, 2023, 7:05am

This is great, thank you! Being new to this, I wasn’t aware of Cantabile. This is actually exactly what I meant by “manipulate sound from the controller itself” - clearly my language was imprecise. By ‘controller’ I’d meant Scaler!

What I would then say instead is…

Could Scaler 3 give access to its settings that something like Cantabile provides i.e. direct access to its modulation, and things like attack, decay, spread, velocity (per sample), gain per key (when replaying a chord from a single key, for those of us non-keyboard players) etc. If I’m using Scaler VST to drive an instrument, that’s alreay using two plugins. I’d really prefer there not to need to be a third “front end” for Scaler, despite I can see why being able to sync multiple copies could be so useful. That said, there’s no reason one couldn’t simply define that in Scaler itself e.g. “master instance” or something? My thinking behind this is that even as a non-player and using Scaler to play the chords for me, I really like messing with the velocity spreads and “chaos” in my DAW in an attempt to remove the roboticism. I realise Scaler already has Humanising Q settings.

The more accurate answer you provided above actually describes a really neat idea (despite I wouldn’t currently use one) of there existing a physical Scaler keyboard/piano - much like Native Instruments who, I think I’m correct in saying, offer a midi keyboard controller and of which some part of the Kontakt software then mimics, providing direct correlation between the two? I don’t own any of their controllers, but I did download their Kontakt player in order to use their instruments.

Forgive me if I’m muddling terms here and feel free to clarify and correct.

While I currently run my DAW on a fairly low spec PC (9th Gen i3 with Iris, plus a ton of RAM) and I’ll no doubt need to upgrade once I start creating anything even remotely complex (many layers, plugins), I see it as a good thing to have as little running per session as possible. Avoiding having to load Cantabile, and then Scaler, and then an instrument, FX etc. would be nice

panda · June 21, 2023, 10:56am

The problem here is that Scaler is neither a VST host nor a synth; it is a MIDI FX / generator, It does have sounds, which are certainly OK, but it’s synthesis capabilities do not allow parameter manipulation by a user. The limited synthesis and sounds palette it has are there, IMHO, to allow you sketch out the basis of a piece.

As Scaler as an instrument is mono-timbral, unless you never want to build a piece with more than one sound, you are going to have to have a mechanism for hosting multiple VST instruments and effects.

There are multi-timbral synths (e.g. many old GM synths) such as Omnisphere - which can run stand alone or as a VST3 - which allows you to have 8 voices at once and has dozens of effects which can be applied, and which allows extensive editing of synth parameters on the fly. [It has no percussion sounds to speak of, so you would still need something else to provide a drum track].

There are some pretty good programmable MIDI controllers out there which interface with DAWS, hosts or standalone synths. I use Arturia’s Keylab

So, in summary, I fear you are going to have to tie the various elements together in some hosting environment rather than having everything in one widow. It may seem like a pain, but it gives you unlimited capabilities to organise things how you want.

{1} If you want to use one or more VSTs, you need a host., which can be a DAW or a standalone host like Cantabile. (Kontact (a host and sample player) is a special case, supporting only the NI range of instruments.)

{2} Scaler is a MIDI app, not a synth, Other than using its internal sounds as is, you need to feed its output to a synth.

{3} Scaler is (essentially) mono-timbral - it generates a single musical line. [I’m leaving out the more complex scenario of using a tool like Divisimate which can take Scaler output and send parts of it to multiple synths, but perhaps that’s a step too far right now, if you are still starting out]

{4} By default, even if you have a standalone synth, it needs driving with MIDI, so you now have two things to work together.

{5} If want a single stand alone synth it would need to be multi-timbral to play several voices. This cuts your choice of products (and musical scope) down considerably. The problem now, as you can see, is that you need to feed it with multi-channel MIDI to create the sound somehow.

[6} The only application I know of which will generate MIDI and create multi-timbral parts is Band in a Box. https://www.pgmusic.com/ . This can create some passable pieces, but it is very much template based and you would have little creative scope.

alan9990 · June 21, 2023, 1:18pm

This is once again wonderful learning. Thanks!

I would just like to say here that although very new to this, I find this a very nice community already. One gets slightly used to overdoses of cynicism or sarcasm (tnanks Reddit!) so it’s a very pleasant and engaging change to find myself being given careful and thoughtful explanations.

Your reply has completely cleared up any confusion I may have had left regarding Scaler, despite of course it had been my intention simply to try to contribute to the “what would you like to see…” discussion

From what I now understand, it would be fair then to consider a DAW a host, just as any standalone app that runs a midi instrument is also a host? Fine, I’m busy learning.

I use Bitwig - I believe I’m right in saying the team behind it came over in large part from Ableton? That would explain a lot of the visual similarity. But the reason I mention this is because I can load the Kontakt player as a VST, and then run NI inside my DAW - this having been a specific development they focused on. The reason I see this as so helpful is because I now have at least one good source of very high quality instruments.

And thereby if Scaler remains simply what it is and was designed to be i.e. a composition assistant and endlessly knowledgeable music theorist, again I have no issue at all with that, because clearly I’m already using it at its full potential, it never having been conceived as a synth of any real power, but simply as something to produce enough sound to guide our ears.

I have an Akai MPK mini. I am indeed guilty of having learned almost nothing about it, despite it’s not only programmable but that there’s an app included that provides a visual guide to programming, and which allows that program to be stored on the keyboard. I don’t love it as such - despite not yet being able to play piano, the keys are way too sprung for there to be much nuance in playing. However, one has to start somewhere, and I feel I have everything I need to learn. If things go well, of course I can always pick up something like the Arturia - which looked great on paper!

panda · June 21, 2023, 2:50pm

Some quick comments

{1} Akai MPK mini
Perfect. This will take you a long way. Akai are a top supplier.
Note that Bitwig supports your controller out of the box - saves endless hours of fiddling.

{2} way too sprung for there to be much nuance in playing
Don’t forget the MPK is a controller, not an instrument. What it sounds like is determined only by the MIDI messages, so although it doesn’t have nice piano weighted keys, that’s irrelevant to what’s produced.
The keys are velocity sensitive and that will reflect in how a note sounds, depending how the synth patch is set up. However, you should be able to assign a couple of knobs to pitch bend and modulation, so you can twiddle them whilst playing.
You can define other parameters to knobs, but they will be synth specific.

{3} an app included that provides a visual guide to programming
Essential learning; an editor is key to efficient working.

{4} team behind it came over in large part from Ableton
Correct. There are several Bitwig aficionados on the board.

{5} just as any standalone app that runs a midi instrument is also a host?
Think of it this way

VST - synth , effect or other function which runs inside a DAW
‘standalone’ VST - VST with a thin layer round it to provide GUI interfacing
Generic host - Cantabile etc framework to manage VST’s (including multiple VSTs) but they don’t manage the time domain i.e. you can save a set up but not record. Must be driven by MIDI.
DAW - managing VSTs driven by MIDI BUT also can be audio only, or any mix thereof. Critical difference is it they manage a complete composition over time.

{6} can load the Kontakt player as a VST, and then run NI inside my DAW
Yes. Kontact player is a host for the NI synths or effects (adding another layer of resource though). It passes MIDI through to a relevant NI synth.
Obviously Bitwig can host any other VSTs as well.

{7} I feel I have everything I need to learn
You have everything required to produce great sounding music. Just need to get your heads round the tools. Rather than think just yet about a more upmarket controller, you may well find as you get more ambitious the thing that will creak is that i3; that will limit how many tracks / instruments and effects you can handle. {BTW, make sure you have an ASIO audio driver if you are on a PC]

{8} composition assistant and endlessly knowledgeable music theorist
It is that, but that’s just one (albeit key) part. Having aided you in building various parts of some composition, it is then the MIDI driver for the DAW. You can either drag/drop MIDI to a DAW track, or you can drive it in real time.
Be sure to read up on Scaler Sync; this allows you to run multiple instances of Scaler in Bitwig to create backings, solos, base lines etc and keep any individual changes in line in the other copies. Then the various instances will be synced to the DAW when you actually run the piece.

The sun is shining but I’m sitting here waiting for a phone call, and typing tis whilst doing so …

alan9990 · September 2, 2023, 11:41am

For some reason I’ve only just become aware of your excellent and, again, helpful response to my remarks.

Apologies for lack of formatting… I’ve yet to delve into how to partially quote you and reply in context as you did mine (I’m aware of what markup is, but different forums seem to implement it differently or not at all).

Your points 1 and 2 above…

I replaced my Akai with a (now legacy) Novation Impulse 61. I did so because as soon as I did finally kick my own backside and look into understanding the programming side of my Akai, I suddenly had an urge to learn to play a keyboard.

The course I thereby ended up purchasing (on Udemy. I find it outstanding value) brought me directly to realising that to even want to play a two octave scale would involve multiple button presses on the Akai. Not only this, but even the first stirrings of triads with their inversions made 25 keys way too prohibitive.

The Novation was very cheap on a local secondhand site (less than £150), and the author of the github script for it was kind enough to update it to remove a last bug. So, I now have many more keys to play on, and it’s fully supported as a controller. It’s also an instrument plus controller, so I have way nicer feeling keys. Nice!

Since then I’ve been focusing on finding my way around a keyboard. Since tihis is all a learning process, I haven’t even really opened my DAW in over a month! However, what I am noticing is that by now learning the keyboard and accompanying music theory, Scaler not only makes even more sense, but is going to become MORE rather than LESS useful! I thought I was purchasing a plugin that would help me avoid “all that darn theory and practice”. In truth the opposite has happened.

As I’m learning the keyboard I’m having so many “aha!” moments as it finally becomes clear (learning guitar is nothing llike the same experience!) how and why all the notes, their placement, and the very structure of Western music exists as it does. Wow, I never imagined I’d find it all so fascinating.

Not only fascinating but in starting to gain an ability to move beyond the single finger “plinking” and actually start playing a keyboard (coughs), Scaler will come back to be a companion and assistant rather than some single hinge on which my entire use of chords would rely.

Okay so not really about “what do you want in Scaler 3”, but always happy to chat with the nice people on this forum

p.s, your point 8: can’t wait! I’m sort of dying to get back to playing inside my DAW, but in fact want to stick with some regular keyboard practice before I return to any production related activity. Unfortunately there are only so many hours in a day. One can dream of making music full time eh?

[EDIT] also wanted to just add, in case anyone finds it useful: as yet I’ve had no issues at all running Bitwig with a 9th gen i3 even downloading one of the more complex project files included with Bitwig. Okay so it does now have 24gB of RAM (due to my inability to calculate 2 x 8!) but since memory was always going to be an issue, it wasn’t an expensive error Further, I gave up completely with ASIO4ALL. I found it incredibly poorly implemented, it drove me nuts in terms of trying to configure the sound inside Bitwig, and in truth I’ve just gone back to the WASAPI driver native to Windows 10 and again, have zero issues at all, everything works perfectly out of the box, including automatic switching headphones, midi controller etc.