Sorry to hear about your issues with S3. I am getting the latest updates from the Scaler Music Forum. I linked the update thread above where they dished on release notes and roadmap.
According to a few users over there, you may want to completely delete Scaler 3 and do a clean install of the latest version to solve crashing issues.
FYI: Scaler 3 (current v1.0.5) has had a few updates and hot fixes since launch to address crashing and other issues reported by users. Also appears to have a bigger feature update already cooking to be released any day now.
Follow more support topics here.
AD x Arranger/Host features are magically delicious together. Especially if you play a rhythm section instrument or are really into melodies, basslines, ambient sounds, movement, vibey or otherwise āletān the rhythm hit emā.
Iām genuinely shocked by how much Scaler 3 has regressed. What was once a powerful, flexible tool for building and experimenting with chord progressions has been replaced with something that feels like an inflexible, half-baked DAW.
The new Arranger view is a major step backward. I can no longer create multiple chord progression patterns, switch between them, or easily drag them into Ableton clips. Now I have to write the entire song linearly.
Instead of supporting creative exploration, the workflow is now rigid: lay out your entire song in their linear arrangement view and let Scaler āperformā it. This completely undermines the modular, improvisational use case that made Scaler so valuable in the first place.
I knew there was trouble brewing when they announced they were becoming a VST host.
Itās frustrating to see years of thoughtful feature development and workflow design discarded forā¦ whatever Scaler 3 is. A half baked DAW.
As someone who works in tech, I donāt say this lightly: this is a textbook case of poor product management. There needs to be a serious internal review of how Scaler 3 was scoped, developed, and released. I question if they even used user feedback to develop scaler 3.
why implement features people frequently request when you can spend years making a bad DAW nobody asked for
( haha I am very salty about the Scaler 3 release )
New to scaler, but is there a way of seeing all chords avaliable for a certain key?. Like chordpolypad
agree scaler 3 is ass
i donāt need to host VSTs inside this wtf?
the arranger is horrible, imposing some weird UI/UX that feels unnatural to me
i went back to using scaler 2 and regret paying for the upgrade
Gonna have to agree, itās crashing a lot on me. Plus stuff that should be simple like manually selecting a scale just doesnāt seem to be simple to do. Melodyne does a much better job of suggesting scales from audio, which is probably more so what I need. Never really got on with Scaler 2 either, but I guess I might just give it a few more months development before checking back in.
Iāve had Scaler 2 for years and could never get into the workflow. It seemed really clunky to me. I upgraded to 3 as soon as it came out thinking it must be better and give it another shot. I still do not like the workflow at all. It just seems overly complicated to me for what it is and not enjoyable to work with.
Exactly this. I actually thought it was just me not taking the time to get the interface and a new UI would solve that, but nope. Also, really not into presets and āgenreā progressions, just something to make it easy to play around with harmony and provide a little bit of theory assistance. Probably will still use it a little if/when they fix the bugs, but itās fundamentally not the tool Iām looking for I donāt think.
Glad to see Iām not the only one. I found Scaler 2 useful in limited ways, but the UI always seemed too convoluted to use beyond some basic picking and rearranging of chords. The fact that they rethought so much of the interface for v3 had me thinking it would have to be an improvementā¦ but after owning it for a few weeks now, Iād be hard pressed to call it that.
I too work in tech (Iām actually a UX/UI designer) and Iāve seen this all before: this is what happens when you have a founder who overestimates how much his vision actually applies to how others think and work. They like to say āSteve Jobs never did market research!ā while failing to realize: 1) they are not Steve Jobs, and 2) market research is not usability testing, which can tell you meaningfully different things about how your product should be designed.
Iām not sure what to make of this when, judging by the fact that we all bought the upgrade, Scaler 3 is probably selling decently and will be considered a success. Thereās probably still a market opportunity for someone to get this right, though.
I have both Scalers 2 and 3 and both are way too fiddly.
I prefer Chordable, which is a great way to get chords going with a little help. Itās what I expected Scaler to be
Thanks, might give that a shot. Basically I just want something to get the sound of the chords in my ears while Iām trying to figure it out, but I donāt have the keyboard chops to do that without a lot of head scratching.
To be fair probably there is a lot there for someone who wants to sit down and start with a scale and progression to write an actual song, vs. coming with a sample or bassline to write a track from. Always liked the idea of having a shortcut to secondary dominants and substitutions that always take me a minute to work out otherwise. But itās always seemed like that was somewhere in there but there were a bunch of roadblocks in the way idk. Also really not sure why everything has to try to be a DAW these days.
Iād never heard of that one. It looks nice, although itās probably on the other end of what Iād ideally want; too simple rather than too complex.
What I do like about Scaler (2 and 3) is its emphasis on chord progression.
I like having a library of inspiration to draw from, and I like the workflow of āhey, this chord sounds nice; what are some other chords that typically sound nice in sequence with this one?ā Scaler 2 did at least a halfway decent job with this, and from the previews, it looked like 3 was going to untangle a bit of the way 2 tangled this up with other workflows.
Unfortunately, 3 re-tangled it with the whole multi-track DAW aspiration, and in the process made it even more convoluted to simply explore harmony within the context of a single chord progression.
Has anybody reached out to the dev about all of this cause heās super responsive, and this update is unusually polarizing I bet he didnāt see it comingā¦. Would really like to know if he plans to address the user base
I find on 3 thereās a tab with a few different sub tabs for just that and Iāve enjoyed using that aspect. I got no complaints about this version cause it does that, and the extra stuff doesnāt bother me. Furthermore I can see how it could be helpful for others so not gonna bash.
The explore tab I think is what they call it. The sketch one I like.
The way I used Scaler 2 was very simplistic and I havenāt sussed out if itās still possible on 3 (which keeps crashing on meā¦). I used to load up a scale, have it offer me the chords, may those to keys and then record me playing the keyboard in Ableton to trigger the chord progression the way I liked it. After that Iād play the Midi output of Scaler into a new Midi track in Ableton to capture it. Boom. Done.
Is that workflow still possible?
I couldnāt find it so I tried to play with their arranger to replicate it and when I attempted to alter the timing of the chords in a piano roll window it just kept crashing Ableton. I lost a lot of work the first time it happened (totally my fault for not savingā¦grrrrrr), but I only have so much time for apps that arenāt stable.
If anyone knows a simple way to work like this, Iād love to hear it. I may just go back to Scaler 2 until they figure out how to make their product function well. Very disappointing. I really thought this was going to be a great release.
Iām going to disagree with the recent sentiment here - I like Scaler 3ās workflow and the mini-DAW aspect of it all, and find it easier to use than 2. But Iām not a music theory guy at all, maybe itās different if you are.
I think if they address stability probably it will even out a bit. Like I say, really not sure I am the user base for this version, but either way I havenāt had a chance to figure that out because it kept crashing when I was trying to dig in. Annoyingly, it also didnāt auto recover what Iād done that far so on the third time in about an hour I just gave up on it.
Yeah I think thereās a way to record the midi out of your playing somehow and then exporting that (saw a video recently about it but didnāt pay attention) but what I do is I just create my progression however I want it, then drag and drop into live (one bar clips per chord) then arrange the rhythm manually.