ScaleMaster for Mac OS X Released

in Music and Recording

[] Rochester, New York - Scales are one of the most important ingredients in music today. Nevertheless musicians sometimes have a more than ambivalent relationship with them. That may be partially due to the rather stringent practice methods involving scales as known from classical music. There is, however, much more to scales and with ScaleMaster for Mac OS X improvising musicians and song-writers now have a valuable tool to start exploring and to incorporate into their music the many different flavors scales can provide.

The master list in ScaleMaster is the base catalog of available scales. Over 200 types are listed and can be sorted alphabetically, by number of scale tones (i.e. pentatonic, hexatonic, etc.) or by rating. The rating system is provided to help remembering favorites and rank usability with up to five stars. ScaleMaster covers all church modes as derived from major and minor in the classical model but also includes an abundance of other material like pentatonic scales from many styles of world music, a fairly complete set of Indian Ragas, many blues and bebop flavored structures and much more.

Notation is essential whenever treating theoretical concepts in music and the notation view is the centerpiece in ScaleMaster. It displays a scale's name, classification, rating and notational representation. Scales can be shown in ascending and descending fashion or any combination thereof. Clef choices include bass, treble, alto and bass. Half-tone steps are indicated below the staff and additional display detail includes note names as well as interval to root for all scale tones.

For visualization as well as fingering purposes ScaleMaster features virtual instruments for bass, piano, guitar and mandolin. All instruments allow position shifts and can be played with the mouse. Stringed instruments (bass, guitar and mandolin) can be custom tuned as is common for open tunings for example. Another provision allows for left-handed. Additional display detail includes note names for all scale tones and scale degree or index.

For improvising musicians the relationship between chords and scales is of major importance. This is an area where ScaleMaster can be of great assistance to freshen up one's vocabulary and maybe introduce more colorful and less common choices. The main tool for this is chord matching. ScaleMaster lists over 40 of the most common chord forms that can be selected to filter out scales that don't match all chord tones. The resulting list of available scales for a particular chord can then be compared, played to get an idea of their overall flavor and rated.


* 211 scale types
* 4 different scale views (up, down or 2 combinations)
* Virtual bass, guitar, mandolin and piano instruments
* Alto, bass, tenor and treble clefs
* Adjustable positions for all instruments
* Adjustable tuning for all string instruments
* Semitone indicators
* Scale rating
* Scale type indicator
* Support for left-handed players
* Chord/scale matching
* Displays note names, scale index or degree
* Adjustable playback directions
* Localized help
* High quality bass, guitar, mandolin and piano samples
* Academic discounts available

Supported Languages

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac OS 10.6.6 or later
* 64-bit processor
* 28.9 MB RAM

Pricing and Availability:



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