Waiting for SC3 solo helper

In the meanwhile, here is my new friend for solos

SC3 send chords to the chords area of Melodic flow, and my keyboard sends notes to the solo area

Using this trick, I have the sync feature still lacking in SC3

The solo notes aren’t always perfect, but way better than SC3 keys-lock ones, and I don’t have to import anything in SC3: I just use it to get the scale to use in Melodic Flow

I really hope that the future SC3 keys-lock feature will work as well, or better

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Well, I am disappointed by the new Scaler path

This because I just like jamming on accompaniments, and EZKeys 2 is faster and easier to create accompaniments, possibly driving a rhythm guitar, EZBass follow easily, and Jamstix play automatically

So I keep using SC2, but in a different way from before: instead of using it first as a conductor of everything, I use it to guess the scale from an audio file, when needed

For example, tonight I created a funky tune
At the end I realized that the EZKeys Hammond output hit the Dump button in my funky guitar ruining the riff, so I used SC2 to acquire the Audio from EZKeys and then to drive that funky guitar

Maybe that I’ll use SC3 in the future, but only if I see improvements in the features I am interested about, notably in the keys-lock feature

@ClaudioPorcellana, you’re far more advanced than me, so this may not be what you’re looking for, but @davide solved my keys-lock problem today:

Scaler3 seems to effectively auto-sync itself when DAW Sync is on, as it is by default. So to use keys-lock to improvise, this worked for me:

  1. Open up two or more tracks in my DAW (I use Studio One). Drop a separate instance of Scaler 3 on each track.
  2. In the first SC3 instance on the first DAW track, choose chords, progressions, motions, etc. Add additional tracks on the Arrange Page, like for a bass. Don’t arm that track in your DAW.
  3. On the second instance of SC3 on the second DAW track, make sure you choose a scale that aligns to your chord progression (like, an A mixolydian scale for an A blues progression). Also inside this second instance of SC3, choose a solo instrument from internal sounds or external plugins. Hit the keys-lock button, and choose the mapping that you like (I like all white keys). Arm this track in your DAW.
  4. When you hit play in your DAW, you’ll get the accompaniment playing on Track 1, and your controller keys will be mapped to your jamming scale and solo instrument in Track 2.

Like I said, this may not be what you’re trying to solve for. But it solved my problem.

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Thanks for information
I’ll try that later to see if the trick works
A couple of doubts remain:
The pitch jump between series of playable solo notes is still there?
All the playable solo notes are in-tune, or many are out-of-tune, as found a few days ago?

It took me a bit of trial and error, but this is what I found: If I put my 3rd-party instrument plugin (such as NI Session Horns) on my DAW track, I got out-of-tune notes, because the plugin was reading the notes directly from my controller keyboard. But if I used a second instance of Scaler 3 on that DAW track, and use my instrument plugin in Scaler 3, it gave me the correct notes, because the controller keyboard now mapped to Scaler 3.

Here’s how you can see and hear this: Plugin Scaler 3 on your DAW’s first track, and put an instrument plugin on the DAW’s second track. Pin the plugins so they’re both visible. Create a chord progression in the key of Db, and on Scaler 3 in Track 1, key-map it to the white keys. Arm both tracks of the DAW, so you can hear them both. Then play a melody. It’ll be very dissonant, because your keys will be playing Db in Scaler, and C in the VST plugin.

You can see this visibly on the pinned plugin. On the Scaler 3 plugin, the keyboard will show you plunking a “C” note AND playing a “Db.” On the instrument plugin, you’ll both see and hear a “C.”

But if you change the setup so that Scaler 3 is plugged in to both DAW tracks as separate instances, and both instances are set to Db, and your instrument-plugin is INSIDE Scaler 3’s second instance, then both DAW tracks will play in the same key, because the controller is simultaneously controlling both instances of Scaler 3, and it’s Scaler 3 that’s controlling the 3rd-party instrument plugin.

Maybe that was the issue you’re experiencing?

Maybe
I’ll try that, and let you know

you’re far more advanced than me

Speaking about age maybe; not certainly in music making :grimacing: :sweat_smile:

OK, I followed your instructions, but they are partly useless for helping in solos because the Scaler instance (in SC2 there was no use for 2 instances, so I think it should be for SC3) sends also its chords to the solo plugins

To activate a solo, I have to select one of the bottom 3 options

Then I have to select the other option below

And then I have to activate the loop

Only now I can launch the DAW and the solo plugin, and the bug jump out

This is not a disaster if you select Chord Scales, but in the other 2 cases you’ll have many notes out of tune, notes you never hit, and ugly jumps between the end of a series of playable notes and the beginning of the following series

To better get issues, try the first chord only looped

Now, I am not a musician, but if you play this for some time, I think that you’ll hear notes that are not certainly in Db maj; something that doesn’t happen using e.g. Ableton Live Scale, Bitwig Key Filter, MelodicFlow, etc

I only hope this is not the result of AI (that talks utter nonsense)

First impressions of Scaler 3 are pretty good. It’s just a shame that there’s nothing revolutionary “new” that doesn’t already exist. I would have liked a revolutionary way to play with key locks, but there was no update. I think that would be one of the most important features of Scaler for those of us who can’t play the keyboard well.

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BTW, if you realize that the scale you selected doesn’t work, what can you do?
Nothing
you are stuck on that scale forever, and you can only leave it alone and create another track, or delete that track and remade it, so the auditing option is killed

Quite interesting. I was thinking about something similar, but I missed some details that you mentioned. Thanks to you and Davide :slight_smile:

Interesting but doesn’t work as expected
Read my comments…

I’ve been changing the scale by going back to the Browse Page, to the A section on the top (labeled “Chord Set), and using the keyboard to select a root note for my new scale, and then selecting the new scale/mode in the B section (labeled “Current Scale”).

On the Create Page, “Current Scale” shows up at the top. If you tap that current scale, it bring you back to the Browse Page to change it. Same thing on the Arrange Page - “Current Scale” is at the top, and if you tap it to change it, it brings you back to the Browse Page to make your changes.

So where you’ve written “Stuck,” just go back to that top of that Browse Page and hit “All Scales,” and you can make your changes.

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Thanks
totally counterintuitive to me
And cumbersome for auditing compared to SC2 where clicking on the left/right arrow in the Patterns field was enough

This confirms my opinion about SC3: it doubled (or quadruplicated, or even worse) the number of clicks/processes needed for everything, even the simplest things

That, added to the several GUI items that are difficult or impossible to spot/read, makes the upgrade not very inspiring to me

Okay, I just tried it again, and it’s working for me. I’m in Studio One, and I don’t know Bitwig, but hopefully it will be clear and work for you.

You’ll see I have a DAW screen open, with two tracks open. The top track, labeled “Scaler 3,” is for my rhythm accompaniment. The bottom track, labeled “Track 2,” is for my solo.

I have two instances of Scaler 3 loaded, one on each track. (You said you didn’t need multiple instances in Scaler 2, but I used them all the time in Scaler 2 for just this purpose - to Live Sync different tracks with different instruments, different expressions, etc.)

On the left instance of Scaler 3, I’ve set up a chord progression (the first eight bars of “I’ve Got Rhythm”). The arrow is pointing from the Main Track in the mixer to the track setup in my DAW. It shows that I’ve loaded Scaler 3’s internal Electric Piano for my accompaniment. It also shows I have not armed this DAW track. What that means is, when I press play in my DAW, Scaler 3’s piano chord progression is what will play on this track. But if I play my keyboard, I will not get any sounds on this track. (You’ll see I’ve bound the keys on this instance of Scaler 3. I’ll return to that below.)

On the right instance of Scaler, I have set up a Main Track and loaded an external instrument, a Spitfire Labs trumpet. You’ll see I have selected Bb mixolydian as my scale - a good blues scale - and I have key-locked that scale to the white keys. The arrow shows that this instance of Scaler is loaded on my DAW’s second track, and that track is armed. This means that when I play my white keys, they are giving me trumpet notes in Bb flat mixolydian, and I can hear them.

So with this setup, when I press play in my DAW, I hear Scaler 3’s piano accompaniment (which I’ve set up to repeat) and I can solo with the trumpet on my keyboard. My keyboard does not trigger chords, because the DAW’s chord track, Track One, is not armed. If I arm that track, then my keyboard will trigger both chords (on the bound keys) and notes.

This allows me to record my solo, simply by pressing “record” in my DAW.

Notice I did not have to go into settings at all to set this up.

Also worth noting: Locking keys in this way is not great for jazz or blues improv, because you can’t go outside your scale - for example, to get both flat-3rd and major-3rd. But if you turn off keys-lock, you have all your keys to play with.

I hope this helps clarify! Best wishes to you!

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OK, maybe I can rid of chords changing the routing
But jumps and out-of-tune notes remain :roll_eyes:

I wonder why? Could it be some of your instrument plugins? The reason I ask is Spitfire’s trumpet that I was using has a waver in it that spins up and down almost a semitone. But aside from that, I haven’t experienced anything wandering out of scale. Anyway, just a thought.

I don’t know
But the many issues I had recently, not always with Scaler, are driving me to abandon music making at all

A hobby must be a lot of fun, not a lot of problems

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I have the opposite. I’ve been away from music for a long time and now that the new Scaler3 came out, I’ve started to get interested in music again, at least for a while. Of course I’ve played guitar and bass, but I miss that something else.

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