Now that it’s released, many of us are discovering new ways of working. I thought it might be valuable to share how we’re using Scaler 3 so far - how we’re composing, arranging, producing, using the standalone, using with our DAWs, etc.
I’ll start, and it’s very simple - I’ve barely scratched the surface. Mostly, I’m doing songwriting, so:
Launch my DAW (Studio One Six)
Create a track with Scaler 3 loaded
Use S3’s Browse page to find a starting progression, drop it into the Main Track, and then modify it on the Create page, using mostly the Circle of Fifths for chord subs
On Arrange page, change instrument on the Main Track, usually to EZKeys2, then find a groove in EZK I like. Make sure to set S3’s Voice Grouping to on and dynamic. (For some reason I don’t yet understand, when Voice Grouping is set this way, S3’s embedded sounds interfere less with the EZK groove, although I can’t yet get a clean midi groove only from EZK - it’s always a mix of the EZK groove and the S3 motion.)
Once I’ve got the song’s basic groove, go back to S3’s Create page to experiment with chord subs, extensions, and inversions.
Go back to the Arrange page and add a bass track.
On Arrange page, add additional tracks, 3rd-party instruments, and motions.
When happy, export audio to DAW.
I should add that in 6-8, I’ve encountered a lot of instability in my DAW (Studio One 6.6.4). Lots of crashes, and I don’t know why. I’m going to start a separate thread for Studio One users to trade insights.
That aside, I’d love to know how others are working with Scaler 3 so far!
Difference: I only use Scaler’s built-in sounds in the concept phase while working in my DAW. Once I’m happy with the result of one or all tracks in the SC3-arrangement, I set the respective track(s) to midi out and do the rest within the DAW (set instrument & FX, record midi, etc).
Reason: I’m not a big fan of using VSTs inside VSTs because I’ve seen too much trouble across various plugins that offer this. Plus I want to collect the MIDI-data for further usage elsewhere.
But I’m glad to have this opportunity when working with SC3-standalone.
Much the same here. I will use SC3 as a sketch tool, get a basic arrangement and then pull that MIDI into Studio One and refine it all in there.
And a big lesson learned about using VST instruments inside SC3 - in standalone mode. Tried this for a short spell with Spectrasonics Keyscape on Tuesday - created an awesome little preset - saved it and now SC3 wants to open that preset everytime in standalone. And now crashes hard when trying to load Keyscape at startup.
It is so bad at the moment - that I cannot open standalone at all. The only solution now is a complete reinstall.
no problem pal
categories are not too much strict
so you can leave it here, if you like
many users keep putting anything in the wrong category now
time will fix everything
In my DAW (Studio One, but it’s similar in all DAWs), I close a project and create a new project by going to the “File” dripdown on the top left of the app’s toolbar.
If I want to keep the project I’m working on my DAW but start fresh in the Scaler 3 plugin, I just delete all the chords in S3’s main track, and/or delete any tracks in S3’s Arrange page.
In Scaler 3 standalone, go up to the very top left, Options, and drop down to “reset to default state.” Options also allows you to save and load projects.
