im sorry you feel like that , maybe focus on learning music theory , scaler will help but its also liberating.
I find relying on one piece of software stifling , good luck
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Stick with 2 then. The upgrade (especially now 3.1) is incredibly inexpensive and works significantly better for the other tools I use. The point is, 3 is not for you but 2 is. If you let what does not work for you ruin your focus, that is up to you. This not a $1000 vst orchestra that sounds like noise, for its cost just let it go. I do classical stuff and it’s worth much more than I paid, but if it didn’t work I just find something else.
I get it, but no need to start another post. You don’t like Scaler 3 - totally acceptable. Your post has been merged here.
Guys from a business and ambitious perspective I get it… I promise I do… but the Arrange page/trying to be DAW-like thing is dragging Scaler 3 down a tad. Again, I see the play for sure, and respect it, but that just isn’t what most people use Scaler for in the first place from what I can see. I’m not saying abandon it because who am I to say that, but I think it’s ultimately just bogging down Scaler 3. I would have still purchased it without those elements and been satisfied. Luckily for me, it’s inclusion doesn’t bother me as bad as others, but I can’t help thinking the plugin would run a lot smoother without all that stuff.
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This echoes my thoughts on Scaler quite accurately too. I have basic musical theory knowledge, am self taught on guitar/keyboards and have been composing music for decades now. I always used my ear to create music without ever really encountering any limiting barriers and was hoping to use scaler as more of an inspirational tool but it appears to me that some advanced theory knowledge is actually required? I have played around with Scaler 3 only for a few hours recently since upgrading from Scaler 2 (Which i never really used) a few months ago and i feel like i am struggling a little in my experience. Given people’s brains work differently there has to be a workflow that could work laterally in a creative way if that makes sense? I really like the explore section of Scaler 3 which in my mind is the part that could be fleshed out and expanded as a great way to somewhat intuitively chance upon ideas and progressions that appeal to my ear that i can then sketch out and develop further. Personally, i don’t have any use or want to use Scaler for anything other than chord progs, my daw does all of that perfectly well and it does feel a little like it’s trying to be too much here. Not trying to be negative here either and for those who love being able to multi part arrange all in Scaler i am very happy for you! Perhaps some more in depth tutorials that focus solely on method/workflow and the actual creative process (i know this varies) around using Scaler for inspiration would be a good idea too because of all of the videos i have watched thus far nothing has really clicked, and a lot the progressions that are being demonstrated from scratch are sounding quite random. I am looking forward to spending more time with Scaler to see how i can make it work for me as someone who considers themselves to be very creative but can get bogged down with the math. Perhaps i should just try out Scaler 2 to see if that might suit me better?
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Yeah maybe more videos showing different Scaler 3 workflows with a focus on the Arrange page would be nice
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Browse Page:
- Key Switching Would Be Nice So You Can Switch Between Section A / B And C
- Extracting Voice From User Presets And Applying Them In Section B & C
Section A:
- Adjustment Area Of The Semitones Is Very Small, Making It Very Hard To See Without Having Making The Plugin Window Bigger
- Scrolling Up And Down Semitones Scrolls In Increments Of 2 Making It Sticky For Laptop Users.
Section C:
- Exploring Scale Families (With Key Switching Without Losing Current Voicing)
- Apply Voicing After Extracting (Like In Scaler 2)
- Midi Capture (Like In Scaler 2)
- Virtual Piano Keyboard & Semitone Buttons Are Too Small For Efficient Editing.
Create Page:
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Circle Of Fifths: Loses The Current Voicing While Using The Circle Of Fifths
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Modulation: Loses The Current Voicing While Using Modulation
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Colors: Key Switching Would Be Great
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Sketch: Key Switching Would Be Great
Arrange Page:
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Main Track: Adjust Chord Length Moves In Increments Of Beats Making It Difficult For Precision Editing
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Midi Editor: Can’t Adjust Chord / Note Length At All In PIano Roll
SUMMARY
- Extract Voicing Exists, But There’s No Apply Voicing Like Scaler 2, Limiting Fluid Workflow.
- Exploring Scale Families Remains Clunky (Also True In Scaler 2) And Needs Better Fluidity.
- Capture Midi Is Absent, Which Was Highly Useful In Scaler 2.
- Editing Midi In Scaler 3’s Piano Roll Is Impractical (Difficult Note Manipulation, Poor Visibility, Can’t Drag Lengths Precisely, No Fine Control In 1/6ths In Section C).
- Scale Highlighting On The Virtual Keyboard Is Insufficient When Editing Clusters And Intervals, Making Scale Context Unclear.
- Midi Editor Lacks Flexibility: Cannot Drag Individual Note Lengths Easily, Can Only Resize Chords In Fixed Beat Chunks.
CORE ISSUE: NAVIGATING SCALE FAMILY & CHORD FUNCTION
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My Ear-First Workflow Means I Often Find A Chord I Like, But Don’t Know Which Scale Family It Belongs To.
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Scaler 3’s Current System Makes Scale Exploration Slow And Disjointed, Requiring Manual Browsing And Trial/Error That Breaks Creative Momentum.
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This Is Especially Hard When Working With Extended And Colored Chords, Which Often Don’t Appear In Suggested Scales.
FURTHERMORE:
Thank You Scaler Music Team, Scaler Has Been Central To My Workflow For Building Advanced And Sophisticated Progressions In Hip-Hop, R&B, Lo-Fi, And Soul For A While Now. We Appreciate You All.
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I have to say that even when I’m grateful for the team listening to feedback and the latest update, I still find Scaler 3 has become extremely unintuitive and a lot of easy functionalities that were there already in Scaler 2 are not working anymore.
For example, every time you want to modify a chord the whole UI forces you into the circle of fifths view, I don’t quite understand why such a move is necessary. There is also no easy way to create chords from zero without having a midi keyboard attached like we used to have in Scaler 2.
In many of the views once I choose a pattern in the motions section it seems to be impossible to replace the chosen motion for a different one, even selecting the chord and with the motions tab being activated there is often no way to select a different motion and the arrow keys on the right of the selected motion have no effect. There is no point on having that option if it doesn’t work in most views and situations.
Someone has mentioned above that people who liked Scaler 2 and are unhappy with Scaler 3 changes should go back to 2, or that this is meant for people with more music theory knowledge, but I strongly disagree, we have paid the same amount as anyone else and the tool has never been marketed as a tool meant only for people with a certain level of music theory knowledge.
It is also to expect that a software with 2 major iterations is not going to remove basic functions in the third one but improve on what’s already working, even when the UI might move things here and there, the problem is that a lot of functionalities that were available before seem to be not there anymore or so limitied and hidden that the user experience has worsened significantly.
I really don’t know what is the point of locking chord editing to a single view when the new version has so many different views and nothing really speaks against being able to edit chords in any of the given tabs and views, unless what speaks against it is an internal bad decision from the software developer, which isn’t the end user’s fault.
I like the tool but the experience is becoming really frustrating for no visible reason for many users of previous versions and loyal customers of this tool. So if the devs are really listening I hope they take a look into the points I and other people have mentioned here then the latest update didn’t really seem to address them.
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Same here. I tried for a couple of months to adapt but unfortunately the decision to use this type of interface engine made the new version less functional for me. A lot of clicks and menus and popups. The interface takes more space for no apparent reason. So i switched to the good old version and workflow since i couln’t adapt to the new. Maybe i am old and cant adapt easily but thats how it works for me… hope in a future version (maybe 4) things will change again for the better. TBH the new version look like what windows 8 was for the windows series…
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I like the concept of the Arrange page. Scaler 3 allows me to try things in ways Scaler 2 cannot.
That said, it needs refinement and that will take some time. The current version of Scaler 2 didn’t just materialize as is. It had a lot of iterations/updates.
By the time a few more updates of Scaler 3 happen, it will be a tool I will use more than I did Scaler 2. So this user sees V3 as a happy step forward from V2.
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It’s not uncommon for a complete re-write of an existing plugin to diverge and at times drop functionality. For example, Zebra 3 will be released towards the end of this year and at the time of release it will not have all the tools that Zebra 2 has.
removing some tools is one thing, removing basic functions a completely different story, specially when there aren’t any real reasons to do so, that’s where an experienced team should be aware of their decisions regarding user experience
That’s fair. I mean like I said, I personally can’t see the use for it right now, but I’m open to being shown different be it through other workflow vids or future updates. Perhaps, as is, it’s more for people that don’t really have a DAW or something.
I never want to come off like I’m downing Scaler 3. For the most part I like it.
what functionality of Zyklus Improvisor does Scaler has already?
i am looking for sth like Zyklus 
As a (now happily retired) software developer with just about 50 years of experience, I’d like to point out a couple of things that need attention in Scaler 3. Not bugs, really - just unexpected inconsistencies.
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Absent a prominently placed and always expected “About” dialog box, the title bar of the stand-alone executable and the VST plugin should clearly display the software version number. I have the software in front of me, right now, and I cannot easily determine its version. Of course, I could always locate the stand-alone executable file and retrieve the version number from there. Not the most user-friendly way.
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I jump into my account (here: My account - Scaler Music) to check for a possible update … and am presented with the same problem. The web site allows me to download an installer version 3.1 - without any other information. How do I determine if that is a possible update I may be interested in? Even better: is there a minor update I may be interested in? I just cannot tell. (Yes, I know that 3.1 is technically the latest build - according to information found in the Forum - but that is not the point … and not everybody scans the Forum in the first place…) – Again, not the most user-friendly approach.
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The proportional resizing of the user interface (stand-alone exe and VST plugin) is somewhat nonstandard and requires a bit of a mental adjustment from the user. For example, I cannot come to terms with the absence of a Maximize button next to Minimize button. Then again, my background makes me want to scream at the forced proportional resizing. If I only wanted to resize the window’s width or height, the mouse cursor changes and tricks me into an action that results once again … in proportional resizing. Not what the user wanted or expected.
I stop here: these are not critical or supremely important issues and should probably be assigned a lower priority in your backlog (assuming they should even be placed in the backlog).
There are other more important issues that affect actual musicians and composers - and I have encountered some of those myself … but I am really only an amateur and Scaler 3 is already a great product for my own use.
Thank you, guys.
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Click on the Scaler logo for the about box - it’s pretty standard to do this in plugins so I guess that’s why they kept the same method in the standalone.
I agree about the lack of a maximise button and the inability to expand one dimension of the window independently of the other. I’d tend to go for more width to see more chords.
My two cents - I liked the sand box section that is apparently “no more” in Scaler 3 . Now we have the arrangement section, which can do MORE than the sandbox area, I’m happy that there are many cool features - such as bass follow and changing the lengths of chords down to micro (8th and smaller) segments. But, here me out, dragging changes from one arrange track to another feels a bit more haphazard with the increased capabilities, and rather than being able to go to a row and hit play to audition one idea and then another, now one can solo the track, which is fine. But what I used to do in that sandbox is play sections and drag them to new rows - that sort of thing. It was difficult to slip up and “crop” the part of the chord progression that you didn’t want to “crop”. Fortunately there’s an undo. But I really see arrangement as more of a “finishing area” and the old area in Scaler 2 more as an idea catalogue. Without the ability to change the length of chords, they could be copied very quickly with no possibility for error. It was a good “history” of finding and building on ideas - and not an area that had a lot of complexity and occasional quirkiness. It was completely straightforward. In contrast, with the arrangement page today I somehow managed to transpose one of my tracks, but the ‘octaves’ is not showing that I changed it. Section 3 of the main page has a +/- and if I were on that page when this happened I would assume I’d hit it accidentally. But no. So if it were up to me I’d like to see a new tab where one can work as before, with simple chord blocks that one can export and import, because there’s a lot of confidence with that blocky-ness that I don’t necessarily feel all the time in the Arrangement page. (I also 2nd the comment above desiring to be able to see a version # on the Scaler 3 logo area or Settings - or somewhere.
Thanks for the feedback @spingle That is what the Sketch Page is intended for. Mimics that Pad view in S2 and allows for multiple patterns of 8 chords with no ability to resize.
We are going to enhance this page in the future to offer some more flexibility and functionality.
Hi,
i’m logging on here specifically to vent and express my very deep frustration with the new interface. I was a scaler 2 user and even purchased and completed the tutorial course. It was a very powerful tool and I used it virtually everyday in my work flow.
The new Scaler 3 interface is so different that I am unable to do the things that I previously did fluently and with very little effort. I now have to go an look up every other little thing that I want to do. For example, just to create a progression in a key other than CMajor was stupidly difficult to figure out how to do.
I will make the effort to learn this new tool, because what it offers is is spectacular, but geez! What a frickin hassle!!! Why???
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I hadn’t used it for a little while, in part because I’d been frustrated with the working of the interface, but yesterday tried again and ultimately just used Scaler 2 to easily do what I wanted. I won’t go into details here in a reply, and will look to see if others experienced the same problem. So far I’m not particularly impressed with the interface, but from the videos I’ve seen it’s a damn powerful program; sad at this point.
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