Hello!
I thought I’d take a moment to share some of the workflow moves I’ve been using lately to get the best out of Scaler 3. Some of these may be obvious and already implemented by a lot of you, but hopefully this helps someone out there!
First off, I’d start taking advantages of changing the “default” load state to however you want. You can create a template that you load to each time you open (I don’t think there’s a way within Scaler 3 to choose your default but I’m likely missing this), but in Logic, you can set any instance as the default instance in it’s own plugin menu.
A way I like to use this (and any other templates) is to have scaler open with my most common piano instrument. For me, that’s Noire by Native Instruments. So I load Kontakt into the scaler 3 instance and save my most used preset in Kontakt, and save that as my default.
Of course, you can go further with this. In my default, I have Kontakt loaded up with Noire, and then I have the humanize of the chords set to just the timing of the notes, and I have “strum” preloaded in the articulations window so that I get nice and realistic chords right off the bat.
I also have some templates loaded with bass patches that I’ve already made and use frequently. You can obviously do this with anything and I think this is an easy thing to overlook (in this and in many other VSTs).
Another tip would be to try experimenting with other midi effects while using scaler. Scaler is really great at making things flow really well together harmonically, but I think some of the best music can happen with unpredictable elements. So, for instance, instead of using the the arpeggiator in scaler, I may use the logic arpeggiator in tandem with an external sequencer (like Seqund) to trigger chords (this is like in house music or dub techno etc). using the latch mode in arpeggiator can trigger more unpredictable things, and if you record it all to midi you can get some interesting stuff (write to midi probably works best with scaler as a midi fx instead of a VST?)?
Basically, when I use scaler for improvising and creating, I want to be ready for it to operate like I want it to, rather than having to set it up each time. So, hopefully these tips help someone else out there!
Love Scaler 3, thanks for making an awesome product and for continuing to improve on it!
-Sean