I’m very interested in the workflows people are evolving for themselves with Scaler 3. Specifically, I’m wondering how, if at all, you break up the piece-parts of a song or orchestral work?
Take, for example, a 32-bar pop song with a verse, a chorus, a bridge, and an ending verse: Do you try to build the whole progression in one instance of Scaler? Or do you use multiple instances of Scaler on different tracks of your DAW for different parts of the arrangement?
And to what degree do you try to build full multi-track arrangements in Scaler (e.g., with 3rd-party plugins) vs. using Scaler mostly for developing the underlying harmony and doing the fine-tuning largely or entirely in your DAW?
I reallly miss the Scaler 2’s Pattern functionality, where you could create different song parts separately, thus being able to see and manipulate chord sets of the parts in a tidier way. In Scaler 3 it is difficult to keep track of parts of a long composition.
Yes, Pad mode in Scaler 2. I think you can use the Sketch Pad in Scaler 3 that way, although I haven’t tried it - I know Davide and the team have said Sketch Pad is designed for live performances, so it makes sense. But I think Sketch Pad is subject to the same limitations as Pad mode: 8 bars only, 7 progressions only. So I’m beginning to conclude that the DAW is the place to construct the composition.
Yes, the Sketch pad looks like a good place to create and test progressions. It is not limited to 8x7 bars because you can drag these progressions to the “Section C” at the bottom, empty the pad, test, drag to C, etc. All of this will finish as the Main Track in the Arrange tab and there you can add more tracks with an accompaniment or whatever you need.
Davide has mentioned that on the S3 roadmap is something called “scenes” which will go some way to allowing users to structure a song. Not sure when it will arrive or what it will do but it is encouraging that they are planning it.
Whatever they do I can’t see it being as flexible and powerful as using a host DAW for the job but I guess it might be useful for sketching out a whole song.
I will sometimes build the progression in Scaler, but I will then put it in the chord track in Logic or as another track with just the chords in the daw.
My rationale is that as much as I like the patterns and motions that Scaler has, keeping them inside Scaler doesn’t really make sense for me as I might just use straight chords or a different arpeggiator.
It also lets me work with things in blocks rather than just one single timeline. I can use one set of chords to do one section with one style and another section in the same track with a different style.
For me, it is more flexible for making changes. I can use one instance of Scaler and record that to a different track with midi routing, change settings and then record that to a different track with the same instance. Then with just the midi output, I can adjust the dynamics and articulations in the DAW where I have more access to them. I might also export the section to MuseScore and use that to render the sounds. I really prefer MuseScore for doing dynamics and articulations over doing it in the DAW. I also have other sounds available that I don’t have in the DAW.
I really don’t think that there is any perfect plugin or environment that allow you do do everything. Having the more universal midi output lets you pick and choose for individual tasks over trying to force everything into one tool.
Not sure if this is an answer to your question, but a few days ago, I posted this , which explains in detail how to compose an entire song in Scaler 3.
Just another idea.
Thanks, Miki! I love this guy’s videos! He’s not a “video natural,” but his enthusiasm is really infectious.
Also, I’m becoming convinced that our quest for “natural workflow” in Scaler 3 may be misguided. Scaler 3 is very flexible, so it’s really a question of exploring options - like this video - to see what works for each of us individually.
Good discussion. Just chiming in here. Like I’ve mentioned, given the options of how to create in Scaler 3 everyone is still experimenting. I use S3 just like I used S2 although I start in DAW Sync and either I loop a section (like I would NI Maschine in DAW Sync) or I turn off DAW sync and start using trigger notes like I would in S2.
Two things are going to give us better options:
Main Track DAW Sync coming in 3.1 (Syncing Scaler 3 Main Track across instances)
Scaler 3.2 will be heavily focussed on improving the Arrange Page for longer compositions and include things like ‘Scenes’. Q3, 25.
Finally we are getting a bunch of producers and composers to record some ‘Making an entire track in S3’ videos which will guide us further.