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I know some of you are confused about scale mode, because the manual is not very clear on how it works. Here's how you use it:

You start on C Ionian. If you have scale mode on for Part 1 and record something, and then change the scale to A Aeolian, you've just transposed it to a minor scale.

So lets say you record a bassline that you want to remain constant, but you want a synth line to transpose up and down. Record the bass on Part 1, and put scale mode off. Record the synth lead on part 2 with scale mode on. Now when you go to the scale settings and you change from C to D, only the synth will transpose, and the bassline will stay on C.

Or lets say you want 8 different lines going on all in different modes/scales. Put all 8 parts on scale mode off, and record with a different scale for each part.

You can come up with all sorts of weird pieces like this. Hope this clarifies Scale Mode.

thank you.

That all looks fun, will try some of that out. Nice one!!

This is pretty handy. The only thing I have not had time to test is if scale mode "ON" affects the pitch knob / setting. So If you want all your parts in a pattern to be Dorian at the key of G, turning the pitch up or down, it is only in that scale. For some of you die hard trouble shooters out there, have you noticed that being possible?

I admit, I only use the pitch setting on drums sounds.

Thank you. I'll try this soon. Opens up a lot of new melodic variations!

Great, thanks for the info, roblabs.

SMK wrote:This is pretty handy. The only thing I have not had time to test is if scale mode "ON" affects the pitch knob / setting. So If you want all your parts in a pattern to be Dorian at the key of G, turning the pitch up or down, it is only in that scale. For some of you die hard trouble shooters out there, have you noticed that being possible?

I admit, I only use the pitch setting on drums sounds.

Pitch +\- is smooth, regardless of scale mode. So sweeping the pitch will not keep the part in tune to the scale.

apapdop wrote:

SMK wrote:This is pretty handy. The only thing I have not had time to test is if scale mode "ON" affects the pitch knob / setting. So If you want all your parts in a pattern to be Dorian at the key of G, turning the pitch up or down, it is only in that scale. For some of you die hard trouble shooters out there, have you noticed that being possible?

I admit, I only use the pitch setting on drums sounds.

Pitch +\- is smooth, regardless of scale mode. So sweeping the pich will not keep the part in tune to the scale.

Yeah, thats what I thought. Was kinda hoping for an undiscovered feature here with scale mode but...oh well.

Might be a good feature request.

that's a great explanation...korg should let you do the manuals seeing as this is a lot more in depth then their offerings.

the thing that I did find though is that the playback from the machine is also governed by the scale mode - that is that if you have scale mode on and are either sequencing from an external source or recording notes - it seems to modify based on the scale, I had it in an aeolean and was playing and recording Major chords through and was absolutely confused as to what it was doing until I figured out that I needed to turn scale mode off or it would turn them into something that fit the key.

Sorry to bump a thread, but I would like to add a small (albeit) obvious thing about the Scale Mode which I thought was left out of the manual and left me a tad confused.

This is a great explanation of the Scale Mode function, one thing about it which is left unsaid (mostly in the Parameter Guide which just says, don't do this) is what happens when you enable Scale Mode on a part which already has notes recorded.

So I got my Electribe yesterday and I pretty much spent all night messing with it. Early this morning, I was fiddling with the options and turned on Scale Mode while one of the default patterns (Traveler 2) was playing. For some reason the selected parts note values all changed, so I turned it off.

With Traveler, it's key is A# Aeolian (A# Min). I noticed the bass note switching from A#1 to G#2 when I enabled Scale Mode, a 10 semitone increase, aka a dominant 7th. A light went off and I realized if you enable Scale Mode (after notes have been recorded) it will transpose everything to the Key and Scale you have set, from the default value of C Chromatic. (C to A# (Bb) is that dominant 7th). It seems a tad odd, as I thought it would just stay in the key it was in.

So it's important to set it first, as the parameter guide says, if not it will transpose everything up to the Key and Scale you have selected, instead of leaving it alone as I thought it would (the part is already in key, why would it change?! heh). Nothing really explained how this worked in the manual, so I thought I would shed some light on it. Though it seems common sense, like OP said, it's sort of a confusing feature. Sorry if this was redundant, as it really offers no help just a bit of insight into this oddly named feature.

Cheers
-4kb

SMK wrote:Yeah, thats what I thought. Was kinda hoping for an undiscovered feature here with scale mode but...oh well.

Might be a good feature request.

The sequencer on the drum parts is pitched, though, so you can set drum parts' scale mode setting to on and have them transpose along with the rest.

Related tip: Keyboard mode is great and economic for programming toms for example.

4kb wrote: ...if you enable Scale Mode (after notes have been recorded) it will transpose everything to the Key and Scale you have set, from the default value of C Chromatic. (C to A# (Bb) is that dominant 7th). It seems a tad odd, as I thought it would just stay in the key it was in.

So it's important to set it first, as the parameter guide says, if not it will transpose everything up to the Key and Scale you have selected, instead of leaving it alone...
-4kb

This feature has saved my ass a few times when a guest musician was added and had a tough time with the key and scale the band was in. Though I don't normally make my band fit the laziness or lack of creativity in a guest artist. It is nice to know that I can.