As I have already written, I am quite satisfied with S3.
My suggestions are more about the composition workflow and not about the technical shortcomings, although a functioning MIDI out for Ableton should also be offered. Because this is part of a functioning workflow. On the technical side, everything worked perfectly on my system.
Basically, S3 is very logically designed.
And when it comes to improvements, it helps to look at the product from the end in terms of what it should be able to do. S3 does.
In my case, it should be a product with which I can compose a song from start to finish. For me, only the chords are important in a main track, the grand piano (for the first), a workflow that follows the logic and standalone. The rest is an encore for me, and it’s good that this is behind the focus in Scaler 3 so that the programme is not overloaded. I don’t know of anything better in terms of price-performance ratio. S3 is definitely a purchase recommendation on my part.
In S3, however, I still see a need for development in the design of the workflow, especially in the fact that you have to fiddle around a lot with the mouse where you would otherwise use standard keyboard commands. And there is one big point missing that I would like to start with. But everyone works differently, so I can only describe my view, which may be shared by some other users.
When I start a project, I immediately come to the first big wish: The ‘Browse Page’ should be preceded by a fourth page in which you can take over or play in an audio or midi file, a melody for which the expected scale is already suggested. The chords can then be added in a second track. These can then be found in the ‘Main Track’. In most of my projects, this would be the starting point. S3 then follows the logical progression as usual.
This means that the current ‘Browse Page’ would actually be the second step if step 1 is omitted.
Without step 1, you only need ‘Section A’ for the first time. The new design really is an improvement here. You can already find everything in the database here. However, it is currently not clear why the ‘All Scales’ database is ‘hidden’ in ‘Section B’. The following would be logical, for example: You want to compose in C, for example (you click key C or chord on the virtual keyboard) and it should be ‘dreamy’. Now a button would appear under ‘Search’: ‘2 Scales found’. If you click on this button, section B, which was stuck at the bottom, pops up and you select. Depending on how you search, you may get none or many suggestions. After the selection, ‘Section B’ could actually remain closed again at the bottom above ‘Section C’. For the sake of simplicity, simply double-click or use a button similar to the one in Guitar Rig to close the rack.
After this step, ‘Section A’ is also finished for you. You have your scale and are building an idea. And now ‘Section B’ becomes important. The ‘V9’ button in ‘Section B’ should actually redirect you to the ‘Create Page’, to the ‘V9 Colours’, where you can now refine or even start planning the track. Why a menu pops up in ‘Section B’ in V9 is not clear to me. Because on the V9 ‘Create Page’ you need much less mouse work, have an overview and make faster progress.
And the mouse work in S3 could be improved. We could reduce it at the beginning in the ‘Browse Page’ because we don’t have to move the ‘Section B’ up and down, but now we also see that it would be easier if you could delete a chord with the ‘Return key’, the ‘Mouse Lasso’ for grabbing several chords would be more accurate, or you could also use copypaste commands. Or when dragging chords with the keyboard, a copy/add or something else could also be visually indicated. Because chords are often replaced by new, more interesting ones. In short: the right mouse button should be reduced to a minimum overall.
You are now in the middle of the creative process, which is what the ‘Create Page’ is made for. Now comes another ingenious thing in S3: In my workflow, for example, I have a certain idea of the song structure. So I would activate the corresponding chords in the ‘Main Track’ and right-click to ‘Add to Sketch’. Here I have seven progressions that I can rename accordingly. As it is now possible to write an entire track in ‘Main Track’, this is an ingenious solution and simplifies the work. You can now try out a lot of things. It is also completely non-binding, because at the end of the day only the chords have to be in the ‘Main Track’. On the ‘Arrange Page’ you can do the fine-tuning anyway. If necessary. For me, for example, that’s not so important.
In my case, I would now have stored various sketches in the ‘Create Page’, whereby 7x8 chords are more than enough, but the option for a longer chord row could still be retained. In my case, the sketches would already represent the song. From here I can now fill the ‘Main Track’.
This is where the second big wish arises: On the ‘Create Page’, it would be a particular improvement if you could try out and work with a ‘Second Scale’ in a different colour coding. This is often needed. So the ‘Section B’ ‘Current Scale’ could simply be doubled in height with a ‘Second Scale’. This could be included in the design right from the start, but only become visible when it is activated in the ‘Create Page’. This would avoid any confusion at the beginning when you start working with the ‘Browse Page’. This would also be an enormous simplification. If this ‘Second Scale’ was activated in the ‘Create Page’, you could then work with this and edit and refine other song sections with the V9 in exactly the same way. The result would be a main track that has two differently coloured sections according to scale.
Last but not least, we find ourselves in the ‘Arrange Page’. What is important here is to set the length of the individual chords and that you can insert transitions and also set the song structure with markers similar to the playhead etc. This would lead to further orientation. Also back in the ‘Create Page’. If, for example, a transition chord is set at the end of a bar, this could be added to the sketches in the ‘Create Page’ for the sake of order. It would therefore be practical to extend the Chords 8+ in the sketches. Just to find everything again in the archive. In the ‘Arrangement Page’ we realise that it would be good if we could increase the track width. Because it’s quite tricky to grab 1/8 chords with the mouse.
What comes next is a luxury and not a disadvantage for creative processes. The song is ready and you can now assign different tracks in different motions. This is another brilliant feature of S3. S3 helps to present the song idea to the outside world. I could imagine my niece sending me her finished song idea and then getting down to business in the outside world.
Here, in the ‘Arrange Page’, the real weak point of Scaler comes to light in my opinion, which is not really a significant weak point, but is a feature of the whole programme. The ill-conceived ‘mouse work’. In MIDI editing, the arrow keys and the return key for deleting work, but when moving with the arrow key and touching a chord, you can’t hear the sound. It would be ideal if the very important global functions on the left-hand side of the window could be carried out with shortcuts. Octave up/down, inversion 1-2 etc. Then you would only have to touch the chord and the job would be done quickly. As very short staccatos can also be quite narrow, it would also be desirable to widen the window here.
These are my suggestions. If I have misrepresented or misunderstood anything, I apologise. After many years, I know that pretty much all roads lead to Rome.