Bindmode - Workflow Scaler 3.2

Scaler 3 General Discussion
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Hello Scaler Team,

I’ve recently installed Scaler 3.2 and I’m absolutely thrilled with it. Congratulations on creating such a fantastic product!

However, I do have a question. In my workflow, I’d like to trigger chords in Bind mode using MIDI notes from a MIDI track in my DAW. (DAW- Sync off) This gives me maximum freedom for arranging. It works perfectly with the Main track, but unfortunately, in this setup the Performance tracks (Bass Follow, Chord Follow, etc.) don’t seem to output any MIDI.

Is this feature not implemented yet, or am I missing a setting somewhere? Will it perhaps be added in a future update?

The advantage of this workflow is that I only need to focus on one arrangement system (the DAW, Cubase), without having to make sure two systems stay identical. That way, I can dive deeper into learning just one environment.

Best regards,
Keybert

1 Like
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Hi @keybert Appreciate the great feedback thank you.

Yes I use Scaler in the way you are suggesting.

To do what you want to do you need to use it more like Scaler 2 was setup. In that you record trigger notes in your DAW using multiple instances of Scaler 3 all in sync with each other (using Live Sync mode) each with a different Global performance if required. Does that make sense?

Here’s a live sync tutorial:

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Hello Davide, yes, that works well. However, the connection is interrupted when I change the voicing of an instance. That’s a pity, because especially when working with guitar VSTs (e.g., Ujam Sparkle), the voicings make up a large part of the sound. But I think I’ll find a solution for that. If necessary, I’ll transfer the chords into the DAW and adjust the voicings there.
Still, working with Scaler is very helpful and brings a lot of joy.

Best regards,
Keybert

1 Like
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I’d like to second this as something that would be a hugely impactful feature. I believe this has also been proposed in this earlier post.

The inability to bind the Arrange page is a shame, because the Arrange page is a seriously killer piece of UX and could be transformative to many live, collaborative, and improvisational setups if it wasn’t held back by the lack of a bind mode.

Yes, you can run multiple instances of Scaler with Live Sync, but this is a miserable process in many DAWs (particularly Ableton and it’s baffling double-track MIDI workflow). Managing and switching between VST/AU windows in every host is a slow, cumbersome, and often stutter-inducing process.

The sheer brilliance of the Arrange page has the opportunity to completely wipe away most need for Live sync and this multi-instance madness. The multi-midi output would allow a single Scaler instance to be a one-stop shop to interactively play a whole orchestra of instruments. This is a far, far better workflow than managing as many as dozens of individual Scaler instances.

If that a not a good enough argument, then the untapped potential of Scenes should make it one. Scenes (if we could properly bind them or switch them with midi input) could allow many instruments at once to modulate their motions / performances at the touch of a button. You can’t do that with Live Sync, you’ll have to open your many, many individual instances and change their motions in a tedious way that’s impossible to automate.

(As long as I’m on this, please don’t hide Arrange track midi channel assignment behind a menu. It’s a crucial piece of state and should be visible and modifiable on the track header.)

With all the sincerity in my heart, thank you for making Scaler. It is one of the most transformative, beautiful pieces of software I have ever come across. It excites me how invested the team is in building it out, and that I can be along for the ride.

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Hi @neilyio Thanks for the positivity and good feedback always appreciated on our end.

Can I clarify - are you suggesting a Bind mode the triggers all of the tracks simultaneously (Triggers the Chord and accompanying motions so you hear the multiple instruments performing a chord/motions). Or are you suggesting Bind to switch ‘Scenes’ (with keyswtiches for example) or both?

Can you elaborate so we are clear? Thanks in advance.

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Happy to elaborate, thanks for the quick reply! I am suggesting both.

1 Triggers the Chord and accompanying motions so you hear the multiple instruments performing a chord/motions.

2 Bind to switch ‘Scenes’ (with keyswtiches for example)

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Yes, ideally with fine-grained control for latch modes and chord bind on each track. Here’s a real-life situation… My brother and I have an improvisational style to songwriting. He’ll call out chord changes in real-time for us to try out, change tempo on our DAWs with Ableton Link.

I like to “design a soundscape” on-the-fly for these jams. We might play for a minute or two at a time with an ephemeral “stack” of instruments. I often have four or five instruments with Live Sync on at a time following a Scaler Lead. I’ll respond to chord changes with a Scaler bind on one hand, and mix in/out instruments at different times with the other.

While powerful, this is very tedious when it comes time to coordinate instrument changes. The four or five instruments have bind, latch, voicing, motions all configured individually in their own windows. It gets confusing to leave a whole bunch of scaler windows open around the DAW, and it’s very slow to open and close them individually. I like to experiment with new motions rapidly and want to quickly be able to change what one of these instruments is playing or how they respond to my midi controller.

Yes, good midi parameters will be a huge step in the right direction, but I think this would be even more intuitively done by letting the user stay in a single Arrange window. This way you have one place where you coordinate your instrument behaviors and it becomes a natural workflow to just show / hide one Scaler.

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In the same example of jamming interactively, scenes are a wonderful tool when rehearsing a song. A bandmate might call out “let’s run that verse again”, and scenes are a perfectly good way to navigate to sections like that on the fly. This kind of thing is also doable with midi parameter mapping, of course… but the whole brilliance of the Bind system is that it makes something that had to be programmed (chord changes) into something interactive and immediate.

Maybe the Bind-bound keys could be played in pairs or chords to trigger auxiliary actions like changing scenes or other kinds of triggers.

Thanks for letting me explain my use case. I know that all this will eventually become possible with deeper midi parameter mapping, but I’m blown away by the elegance of Scaler’s UI and I genuinely would rather spend as much time as I can in there rather than my DAW.