Here’s the use-case: I’m trying to get great banjo-picking that I can experiment with inside Scaler. I really like East West’s banjo, but I can’t find an arp inside it, so I’ve got to go 3rd party, because I don’t much like Scaler’s arp motions.
But every VST I’m finding is recognized by Scaler as an instrument, not as an effect, so I can’t load both the banjo and the arpeggiator onto the same track in Scaler’s mixer on the Arrange page.
So far, my workaround is to take this out of Scaler and into the DAW, which of course limits the creative experimentation I can do inside Scaler. Do id welcome any recommendations for effects or better workarounds. Thanks!
I don’t think Scaler can handle MIDI VSTS at present. It would be excellent if it would do so in future. There are many arpeggiators and “riffers” that could usefully sit between Scaler 3 and an instrument but I don’t know how hard it would be to implement.
In the meantime you can send Scaler’s output to a MIDI VST in your DAW and then on to an instrument of your choice. It’s just not as neat and tidy.
You may have some interest in this, I have used it before but not with Scaler 3 yet. It has produced some interesting arpeggios in other compositions I have done. And you can try it as a demo as well before buying - Midi Madness - Midi Madness 3
The only problem with it is that it is a VST 2 plugin but it still is showing up in Scaler 3 (if you a VST 2 scan). And I don’t think they have been doing any updates on it either.
Yes, thanks. That’s what I ended up doing. It’s not perfect, as you say, but it does preserve Scaler’s flexibility.
The shame of it is, I like Presonus’s own arpeggiator much more than Bluearp, but it’s indigenous to Studio One so not really useable in this situation.
In Bitwig I can put Scaler 3 on a track and follow it with any midi plugin arp to arpeggiate the chords from Scaler.
At the worst, in any DAW, you should be able to put Scaler 3 on a Track and then add a new track to receive the midi from the Scaler track and put your 3rd party Arp on the second track.
I think the problem you’re facing comes from the lack of support for MIDI effects.
MIDI FX used to be more popular when DAWs lacked sophistication when it came to MIDI.
There was even a programming language that was meant for Midi. It was called “CAL,” and it was built into Cakewalk products, i.e. Sonar, but I think they’ve discontinued support for it.
Search the Cakewalk/Sonar forum and I’m sure you’ll find some oldtimers who are still using it
Not sure if you have ever checked out Unify but it allows you to wrap all sorts of midi effects in with whatever plugins you want to use and is much more lightweight than having to call up your DAW. It comes with BlueArp but you can also run the later versions of it inside if you want.