Wishlist for Scaler 3.x for MIDI control

This first iteration of MIDI control in Scaler 2.4 is awesome! It allows dynamic selection of performance expressions in real-time from the DAW.

And I do hope that on the Scaler 3 roadmap we may experience some growth of this concept, especially applied to selecting chord progressions from the menus “Songs” and “Artists”.

My hope is that we eventually can get general CC assignments to each chord progression selection menu folder, so that twisting knobs/sliding faders can be applied to selecting chord progressions within a list, like e.g. so…
image
The actual CC numbers would be configurable, I am just using CC 1, 2, and 3 for illustration.

Since most menus of chord progressions seem 3 levels deep, three CCs should cover the selection. Then the actual parameter value (0…127max) would pick the actual chord progression.

We would need 6 CCs alltogether, one set of 3 for SONGs menu, and another set of 3 for the ARTISTSs menu. And I wouldn’t mind if the PERFORMANCE menu could also be selected via this method, instead of on/off assignment for each custom chosen preset, which uses up too many CCs. It would be more flexible to assign the various performances within one menu level to one CC, but different parameter values between 0…127.

This method seems pretty common with other plugins, and is the typical pattern for host (DAW) automation of plugins. You may alternatively consider using the established MIDI Bank Select and Program Change messages instead, although that method managing only 2 levels, it would not map as straight forward to the existing 4 level hierarchy of chord progression menus (choosing Song/Artist/Performance + 1st menu level + 2nd menu level + 3rd menu level)

I fully understand that if this is considered as a feature it would take a few iterations to implement, just putting it out there, and hopefully other users might find this useful as well.

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I’d like to be able to bind the DAW Sync to switch it on/off remotely.

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A remote DJ?
:thinking: :astonished: :grinning:

Yes, people do DJ with “DAWs” :slight_smile: That lady with “Vines” in the name did it.
And “remote” refers to using a controller instead of poking around in the software.

I was thinking to another thing…

In case the public doesn’t like your music, playing remotely can be a huge advantage
:rofl:

Oh, you’re thinking in terms of avoiding the tomatoes and other rotten vegetables :slight_smile:

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Well, you know, for all those times when merely wearing a helmet is not really enough …

Deadmou5

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Is that why Daft Punk gave up? :laughing:

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You guys crack me up! :laughing:

All humor aside, I find myself much in agreement with Bernd’s suggestion here.

I suggest that the goal be control over all the defined choice aspects of a Performance, from either or both of the UI and/or MIDI, with the changes quantized to measure boundaries (extra flexibility on that is fine, but that’s the needed minimum IMO) so the playback is seamless while remaining subject to the user’s control and guiding influence.

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The existing need to bring a running Performance to a stop before starting a different Performance is literally a “show stopper”.

I hear what you’re saying, and I’ve found workarounds to this challenge in using other tools, some DAWs have it, and external MIDI plugins exist, which can sustain notes on their own time/envelope, once triggered, regardless of how long the original note source provided the MIDI signal. I first ran into this with my Synthimuse, which never holds notes long enough (for lack of an ADSR envelope).

Just a thought…wouldn’t it be a bit less fiddly if they allowed those changes to be made within Scaler itself rather than the DAW using CC numbers to change those parameters? Maybe assign the changes to a specific range on the keyboard or some type of sequencer in Scaler that works specifically with those changes. I’m just spit balling here…the CC method is great but doing things right in Scaler might be just a touch more intuitive.

It seems to me that the keyboard triggers and note playing are pretty well used up. it would mean everyone would need an 88 note keyboard to get a range out of the way and still have some place to put them.

I can’t see that three separate octaves to be used for switching (e.g. 1 each for: Scale, Row, Pad) is a problem.

Some user would assign all 3 octaves to their 88 note keyboard, others would use two keyboards, others would combine keyboard notes with rows on grid/pad controllers (e.g. Launchpad, Beatstep), others would put all 3 octaves on one or more grid/pad controllers.

Some people need CC assignment (or would prefer it), others need Note assignment (or would prefer it).

Scaler is just slightly short of being fully flexible in these regards. “Fully flexible” is definitely achievable, and would lay all these issues to rest permanently, IMO.

I can switch performances without interruption it will just update on next press. Is yours stopping when you switch?

“Neon” . at some point she’ll be a lot more famous IMHO … but then again, maybe talent, skill, creativity and originality isn’t correlated with mammoth success in the music business ? dunno. Cliff Richard was in the chart in my formative teen years, but it’s likely that few on the board know who he is.

I once played in a pub in Sheffield, England with a band called the ‘Senators’ dressed in a Roman toga (no trousers). The place was full of drunken miners with tattoos and muscles in their spit looking for a target for a fight. Since I’m only 1.7m tall and at that time weighed 57 kg (that’s 5 foot 6 and 126 pounds for Americans) I thought grovelling acceptance of their taunts to be be far the best strategy for survival.

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Unless I misunderstand what you are trying to do, there is pretty much no need to stop anything when changing performance related settings.

I do almost 100% of my recordings while tweaking settings and Scaler seamlessly transitions on the next key press or chord change. It is probably my favorite feature. Pretty much the only setting you can’t change seamlessly is the instrument…and you can do that with a little creativity.

Any of these settings image can be changed while Scaler is looping a chord/pattern, playing chained patterns from the Pad view or while you are playing the keyboard latched or unlatched. It can also play an external midi piece while you tweak to your heart’s content. I mainly use the mouse or arrow keys but now I’m starting to record perform settings to a alphanumeric key and change that way. You can even turn binding on and off while playing to add even more texture.

The midi control is certainly limited but lets be clear that you can change all kinds if settings without stopping a performance. At least as I understand things.

EDIT: I did stumble onto something new while playing with this topic. If you have Settings/Perform mode set to FOLLOW, changes you make to perform settings while Scaler is playing will not take effect until the current pattern is finished playing. If you have it set to RETRIGGER, the change takes place on the next chord or key press

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This is actually a really important feature that we haven’t really covered, being able to keep the phrase position whilst changing chords rather than re-triggering to the start of the phrase makes for some amazing flexibility

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It is really cool! I’ve started to use the pad in smaller chunks (less than 8 chords) so I can trigger changes between patterns. Combined with the Humanize settings, the possibilities are
even more endless. :slight_smile: