Keys Lock - can it work with real-time DETECT?

Hello folks.
I’m busy doing the scaler course, seen many YT videos, but have not yet heard of a way to do Improv with keys-lock mode, but instead of using an internal scaler chord progression, using the chord progression of one of your existing DAW tracks. This would be amazing for improvising to the full sounds you have made on your daw instead of doing it “remotely” within scaler only. I know you can play back your daw as you improv, but you cannot, AFAIK, have scaler base it’s keys-lock on a DAW track in real time… is there a way? I’m using Studio One Pro.

tx
Mark.

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Scaler does not currently have a feature that allows you to use the chord progression of an existing DAW track in real time.

Simply you can use third party plugin

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Well it kinda does, certainly Scale Lock mode does! Scaler 2 + reMIDI 2 = Insane Functionality & Endless Possibilities

Hi @davide, well, I think that only works AFTER you have created the melody… so you create it then have scaler alter it to scale. What I want to do is to create a chord progression, put it in the DAW, then go back to scaler and run the same chord progression in Scaler, but instead of playing chords, I just want the improv notes I am playing… and the notes I play are being altered if they do not fit in the chords being played in the chord progression. It should be very simple… not sure if I am missing something, but this seems like a basic thing for Scaler to be able to do!

@davide the other thing about scale lock is that you have to record the chords as well as the improv bit simultaneously, you cannot, I think, record only the improv bit! This makes it nigh on impossible to remove later… a bit like piecing together shredded office papers :slight_smile:

@warner thanks for the response. What third party plugin is that? I have tried REMidi but AFAICT it does not allow you to :- read the chords on the DAW while sending that to Scaler as a “Pattern” which can then be keys-locked for you to improvise to.
or is there another third party software out there? I just bought scaler and I did think this is something it would be able to do…

Not sure if it helps, but you can mute the chords in the settings so you are triggering them but not actually recording them or listening to them.

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Hi @davide I got all excited and dug through the settings in scaler, but don’t see a way to mute the chords… I tried setting “Play Chords On Change” to OFF, but that didn’t work. Also if I make the playback sound “none” then I can’t hear what I’m doing when improvising… Am I looking in the wrong place? Thanks for your care mate.

…also, If the chords are still being triggered, but are silent, won’t they still be recorded as events in the DAW? I really simply want to use Scaler as a way to play in the key of each of the the chords in the chord sequence without recording the chords (I would do that separately by drag drop).

@davide a kind of work around that works is to make the chord progression play back at -2 octaves… so it’s very easy to delete later, and also not too annoying to hear, some instruments don’t go that low anyway.

Hi @Fredphoesh you can mute chords only using the 2 bottom items in Keys Lock menu, not the first 3

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@ClaudioPorcellana hi, how do you mute the chords? I don’t see a way to do that, no matter which Keys Lock option I use.

a minute that I make a screenshot
here it is

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Thanks Claudio! Yes that works well. I need to fiddle with it a bit more to see how it works with the Keys Lock modes, but so far it looks good, thanks again.

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Glad to have helped

Note that you can even use for embellishment/solos the top 3 menu items in the Keys-Lock menu

In this case, you cannot mute chords, but if you de-sync Scaler from your DAW, when you hit Play (in your DAW) Scaler activates the chords sound once, but then no more sound is emitted

This trick will let you play tons of embellishment/solo notes, not just the barely 2 octaves allowed by the 2 bottom items in the Keys-Lock menu

And you can also use Keys-Lock White Keys for solos that is a similar trick

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