When the chord changes using keys lock, any notes already playing are cut off. You often want melody notes to play across chord changes, but unless I’m missing something, that isn’t possible with Scaler 3.
They are not being cut off for me. Could you give us some steps to follow please?
It only happens when Chord Notes, Chord Extensions or Chord Scales are selected. Put some chords on the main track and bind section C to your keyboard. Turn on keys lock using one of the modes I mentioned. Play a chord from one of the chord trigger keys then play a note. While holding that note play the next chord. The note stops immediately. It’s easier to hear this happening if you mute the chords.
1 Like
I just checked Scaler 2, this does not happen. Notes are not cut off when the chord changes.
1 Like
Hi, i may confirm that happens to me also (Ableton VST).
I thought that it had to do with midi latency or my “crappy” playing but it does happen indeed…
Can you guys watch this video please? I have tried everything and I can’t reproduce. Please post a video and your specs and let me know if I am looking in the wrong place. Thanks.
I’m not having any success uploading a video, could you tell me how to do it please?
The steps that cause the problem are press and release a chord key (e.g. C#), and then hold down a note. Press another chord key (e.g. D#). The note is cut off, unfortunately not every time, and I haven’t been able to work out why it only happens around half of the time.
I’m using Studio One on Windows 11.
Davide
I put the video on OneDrive for you.
https://1drv.ms/f/c/0dbda4f03c8b1500/ElrZo6Cp-ddAtXOOARFiZfUBqSpgT2QQrHNXvbP5bLZWGQ?e=sKa62I
I cannot reproduce this. @Tristan Next time you are on Studio One on Windows can you try this?
It’s also happening to omonymos with Ableton.
I have worked out what causes this to occur. I tried using a different keyboard, an Akai MPKmini and it doesn’t happen. My main keyboard is a NI Kontrol MK3 with polyphonic aftertouch, which is causing the problem. This also explains why it is intermittent, it depends on how hard the note key is being held down when the chord key is pressed.
When I change the settings on the Kontrol to monophonic aftertouch, it doesn’t happen. It didn’t cause a problem with Scaler 2, so I assume there is something different in the way 3 is working in this regard.
Edit: Although the scenario I described is fixed by disabling polyphonic aftertouch, when using keys lock against a previously recorded Scaler 3 chord track, there are still some notes cut short, and some that don’t sound at all.
Hmm interesting, I do recall polyphonic aftertouch giving us issues with Scaler 2 so we may have ignored it. We certainly did have some other issues with AT in Scaler 3 and we fixed those. Will have a look. As mentioned, I have a K88 and don’t have any issues with notes cutting off no matter what I do.
I’ve done a bit more testing on the notes cutting off. It has happened using Scaler’s internal sounds, but I can’t reliably replicate it. It happens every time when I use Scaler as the input for an instrument on another track in Studio One. For this test I am using a basic MPKmini keyboard, so no aftertouch issues as before.
The note that cuts off is different for each chord that keys lock is playing the notes of and it only happens when it follows the preceding note in the chord, and only then when that note is released just as the cut off note is played. If it is held down as the following note is played, it doesn’t happen.
All note references are to the actual notes, not the keys lock keys on the keyboard. For a G major chord, the note that is cut off is D, when preceded by B. For a C major chord it is G when preceded by E, so it seems it is when the 3rd and 5th in a triad are played in succession.
It doesn’t happen in every octave. In the screen shot below, using the G chord, I played the same thing starting at G0, G1 and G2, holding down the D immediately after the B, releasing the B an instant after the D was played. In the first two cases, you can see the D is cut off, but in the third, it isn’t. There is another difference: although I played the same thing using three octaves on the keyboard, only the root goes up in the second and third cases. When I started at G1 and G2, the 3rd and fifth were in the same octave.
This does not happen when performing the same test using Scaler 2.
Thanks @NickC4555 Appreciate the persistence here. @Tristan Can you or @Steven investigate and add your finding to the canvas item I created so we can figure out what is going on here.
I think this is behaving normally and identically to Scaler 2 after our tests today. If you turn ‘Keys Lock Chord Mute’ ON then notes don’t get cut off. However if you are playing a note that is featured in an unmuted chord it is going to receive note ON and note OFF messages and cutoff a sustained note. That makes total sense to me.
Also if you mute the chord by shift >click and play in DAW sync it won’t cute off the note.
Does that all make sense to you?
The only strange thing is that you seem to be doing so with chord mute ON and it is cutting the sound off? We cannot reproduce that at all! How are you triggering that chord? Via UI or external MIDI? And are we correct in assuming you have ‘Keys Lock Chord Mute’ ON?
Something is not lining up somewhere.
I am playing with Keys Lock Chord Mute’ ON. It happens when neither Scaler 3 or the DAW are playing (as well as when they are), so I don’t think DAW sync is relevant. The chord can be triggered from the UI or an external keyboard. In this test, I am not holding the chord down, just pressing and releasing it before playing the notes, although it also happens when the chord is held down. It is quite tricky to replicate in a test, but it’s a sequence of notes that is often played in recording/improvising. It’s a run of notes, with the preceding note being released as the one that is cut off is played (see the screenshot in my previous post).
If you are trying to replicate this, remember that it only happens on a specific two notes in an octave. For a G chord, that is B to D, which in keys lock would be keys D2 and E2 or D3 and E3 on a midi keyboard.
I can’t upload an audio file here, so I’ve put one on my OneDrive for you to hear. 3 octaves, the first two the last note is cut off, the last one it isn’t. In each case I am holding down the last note, but only in the final three does it keep playing.
With the same workflow, this doesn’t happen in Scaler 2.
Thanks Nick @Tristan Can try and follow Nick’s instructions.
Hi @NickC4555. Thanks for your feedback. Would you mind sharing your Studio One project here, if it contains a MIDI sequence which produces this error? We followed your actions in the video you uploaded where triggering a bound chord containing the single note being held, cuts that note off, and were able to reproduce this is Scaler 3 and Scaler 2. But as Davide mentions it was not happening with Keys Lock Chord Mute on. Only when Keys Lock Chord Mute is off.
But given you are getting this with chord mute on, and it is not happening in Scaler 2, there must be something we’re not following here. So hopefully if you don’t mind sharing your Studio One project we can figure out what is going on.
Firstly, I have to say thank you for the attention you are giving to this; your support is beyond anything I have experienced with any software company. Even if we don’t get to the bottom of it. I hope we do, though, because the alternative might just be having to learn how to play the keyboard!
I have posted the Studio One project on my OneDrive (it would be useful to be allowed to post video and audio files on here, as admins can).
You can trigger the chord from the Scaler track, a midi keyboard or by clicking it in section C, in each case pressing and releasing it or keeping it held before the keys lock melody track begins. As I mentioned before, it only happens when the preceding note is being released as the one that cuts off is played, and only then if it is the 3rd and 5th in a triad. You can see in step 9 of the workflow below the problem is caused by both notes simultaneously receiving a MIDI off, not just the first one.
I’ve included a Scaler 2 example to show it doesn’t happen with this version. You’ll need to mute the first two tracks or the last two to test Scaler 3 and 2 independently or they will both play at the same time.
Workflow:
- Create a new Studio One project.
- Add a Scaler 3 track.
- Add an instrument track and set its input to Scaler 3.
- Select the C Major scale in Scaler 3.
- Add a G major chord to section C (any chord will do, but the cut off keys will be different).
- Set Keys Lock Chord Mute to on.
- Arm both tracks.
- Trigger the chord either by pressing C# 2 or clicking it in section C.
- Play B1 (D2 on the keyboard) followed by D2 (E2 on the keyboard), releasing B1 as D2 is played. This also works an octave higher, but not the octave after that, as can be seen in the three examples on track 2. The same thing happens if you also play and record on the 2 DAW tracks, as shown in my project. In the first of the three examples on track two B1 was played at 2.01.03.13 for a duration of 0.00.02.60, ending at 2.02.01.73. D2 was played at 2.02.01.39, held down and cut off at 2.02.01.73, the same time as B1. Both notes are getting a MIDI off at the same time, not just the first one.
Thanks for sending all this info through. Do you mind please confirming first whether or not this issue is occuring when using just one instance of Scaler 3, with no additional instruments or tracks involved? So either Scaler 3 running standalone, or just using one instrument track in Studio One, controlling internal sounds using Keys Lock, without sending MIDI from Scaler another Studio One track?
It appeared from your first video that you were running just a single instance of Scaler 3, with no additional tracks and this is what we were initially attempting to replicate. But this Studio One project you have uploaded involves Scaler sending MIDI to a 3rd party instrument on another track.
Regardless, if notes are being cut off this is something we’d like to investigate and resolve, however we want to make sure we’re not talking about two separate issues here.
The standalone behaviour we were able to replicate (at least with keys lock chord mute off) is consistent with the behaviour of Scaler 2. But if what you are describing is only occurring when sending MIDI to another track in Studio One we are possibly talking about a MIDI routing issue, not necessarily a Keys Lock issue.