I decided to pull the trigger and get a hard synth (Korg etc…). I am a bass player. Not a key player. Scaler seems great and helping to create progressions / songs etc…
I am learning LIVE.
Question I have is when using scaler in Live… and having for example chords assigned per key… can it communicate to a hard synth via midi and play the chord / performance when a particular key is pressed etc?
If so (and I hope so)… is there a tutorial as to how to set that up and make that happen?
It is possible to have Scaler play notes on an external hardware synth. It’s not really a Scaler thing but depends on your DAW (in your case Ableton Live) doing the routing.
You basically put a device called “Ext. Instrument” on a separate track, which is only included in the Standard & Suite version of Ableton. And then route your Scaler track’s MIDI output into that other “Ext Instrument” track.
To concur with what Bernd just wrote, I was using a number of physical rack synths with Live (Roland JV1080, Korg Wavestation SR, Oberheim Matrix 1000, others) but also my Roland JD800 keyboard. Doing it via midi is is fairly straight forward, but the thing to watch is midi latency, which will depend on your interface. I used a 128 channel Edirol (Roland) UM880, but latency sucked, and that made playing awkward,
I changed this for an iConnectivity mioXM, which has no noticeable lag. (my MOTU M4 also has midi, but I use the mioXM.)
What I’m not sure about is that if you plan on a synth rather than a controller, then midi alone obviously won’t allow the use of the synth sounds as such. You’d either have to use audio input to Live and play, or send midi out to the synth from Live and then take in the audio (In which case the synth is essentially a rack synth). Latency is more complicated with audio, IMHO. If you have more than one external device, you could need to think about clock synchronisation, depending on the set up.
Finally, there is a best of both worlds situation see
I gave away all my hardware except the JD800, and went ‘in the box’. I bought an Atruria Keylab mkII to control Live, and the plugin virtual analogue instruments with the keyboard are very good. See http://www.alphabase.co.uk/music-gear-old-and-new/
That’s something to consider, as in theory it give you more flexibility of sounds than a hardware synth. Of course if you want to play live, get a Kronos
Coincidentally I JUST purchase the Korg Legacy collection and cannot wait to dig it.
That said… I really felt I needed a more tactile creative outlet… and love the modern moving atmospherics of the WAVESTATE. Thus purchasing it. I just look forward to being able to utilize Scaler2 with it. I will keep all posted.
Coincidentally I JUST purchase the Korg Legacy collection and cannot wait to dig it.
That said… I really felt I needed a more tactile creative outlet… and love the modern moving atmospherics of the WAVESTATE. Thus purchasing it. I just look forward to being able to utilize Scaler2 with it. I will keep all posted.
