How to use the “24 Scale Presets”

In March I released “24 Scale Presets” that aim to help you stay in key. I’ve gotten some emails from people asking how they differ from the included Scale presets in Live and how to use them. So here’s a little tutorial to clarify things.

These days a lot of people start making music with computers without learning an instrument first and thus not learning music theory and harmonics.

The most simple and also most often used key in electronic music is C major. It doesn’t have any bs or #s and only makes use of the white keys of the keyboard. If you use the computer keyboard to play, the middle row of letters played from A to K makes up the C major scale, that’s C to C.

Its parallel minor scale is A minor, also employing only the white keys, but starting with A (and of course ending with A).

Those keys are your safest bet, but can become a little boring after a while, so you might want to try a Scale preset to change things up a bit. Let’s say you want to change the key to F major. If you add the F major preset coming with Live, then, yes, all keys will be scaled to be part of F major, but if you have a melody in C major which means it usually starts with C, it’ll still start with C even with the preset in place.

This is where my “24 Scale Presets” are useful. They transpose the notes so that the C becomes an F, making your melody or chords sound more musical, because not only all notes adhere to the F major scale, but the melody also begins with F.

If you actually have a melody that is supposed to be in F major (or another key), but you’re unsure if all notes are right for the scale, then use the F Major Scale preset instead that is part of the Core Library of Live.