This is probably an edge case, but it a huge issue for me.
I often want to preview a chord progression in time with the current Playhead position (say halfway through a section) S2 worked perfectly, the “Quantizing” of the DAW Sync would start the playback from the position of the playhead.
S3 however has a hard lock to the Timeline. So if you start playback from Bar 2 on the Timeline the Chord progression starts from the 2nd Bar in S3. This is a useful option but takes the control away from me.
This is compounded by the fact that I set a short pre-roll in Bitwig (essentially a negative beat at the beginning) and this completely confuses S3 and it end up skipping the first Chord in the synced sequence.
My ask: can you add the option to replicate the S2 Sync/Quantize with the DAW where it adheres to the playhead position irregardless of the Timeline position?
If I set the Loop Markers the same behaviour occurs - eg if I start the DAW playback on Bar 2 of the timeline S3 starts on the 2nd Chord (if 4 Beats/Bar is set)
S2 would just start the playback at the beginning of the Chord Sequence on Play.
This image might help explain - In the first Screenshot I started the DAW playback at the start of the 3rd Bar, and S3 Synced the playback to start on the 2nd Chord (G maj). This is one way of syncing,
Yes I see now, I think the way Scaler 3 works is more standardised and much more flexible in writing entire tracks. DAW sync in Scaler 2 was position ignorant which I found not very useful.
It would be apprecaited if the original behaviour could be reinstated as an option… making fundamental changes like this genuinely affects us ‘heavy’ users - it’s really not more flexible though is it? Flexibility is adding more options or alternate ways of working, this is just a unilateral change.
So to be clear, Sync now no longer works if you have a pre-roll on your DAW - and it’s now also impossible to test a progression at a start point of my choosing?
No, if you want to preview the S3 chords in context, and syncronised with the DAW playback the new S3 Sync starts the chord progression at the same point as the playhead bar and loops… so if you start the DAW timeline at the start of bar 3 (as per my screenshot) S3 will start the chord progression at the start of Chord 3 (assuming you’ve left the default bar length)
S2 used to always start the chord progression at Chord 1, so you could choose when on the DAW timeline where you would preview the chords from.
Ahh… got it. Yeah, something of an edge case, but (imo) it is already easy enough to do in Scaler 3.
Select all the chords of the progression, drag them to the right to create 1, 2, 3, etc bars of empty space before the progression starts playing.
Or, select all the chords of the progression and drag them onto a track in the DAW and then it’s easy to set that clip to start at any point in the composition.
Thanks, it’s not really an edge case unless your progressions are always lined wup with the existing grid…
You’re right I can add empty slots to mimic the timeline, but since this was standard functionality in S2 it seems odd that not only is the implementation in S3 different, but that the functionality has been removed entirely. Also makes on the fly ‘auditioning’ of progressions much more cumbersome.
And, yes I could drag the MIDI out, but that’s a) an extra step, and b) means I can’t edit the progression without redoing those steps again…
I was responding to your statement that it is impossible to do in Scaler 3. So I pointed out a way to do it. And yeah, it’s a bit more cumbersome to drag the progression to the right.
Scaler 3 is a new app. Some stuff from Scaler 2 may be left behind permanently. I always found Scaler 2 somewhat clumsy and V3 fits my approach better. But keep advocating for what you want. Maybe the devs will add an option back in, though I’m not sure that fits the new paradigm.
I think that you’re right - hopefully S3 is an amazing tool for most people.. personally I’ll be looking for a replacement - but I’m pretty sure I’m in a minority.
