It occured to me tonight that patterns do not have to contain any notes at all - they can contain just automation data. I gave it a try and sure enough, Fruity is quite happy with it.

Why is this useful? I'll explain with an example. You might also want to download http://www.elderwyn.com/public/fxdemo.flp (19k) which shows it in action.

Say you've got a particular riff that gets repeated through your song, but you'd like to do different things with it along the way. For example, gradually reduce a filter cutoff through the riff, or gradually increase the resonance, or somesuch.

One way to approach it would be to record your automation for every instance of the riff. So you'd need one pattern for each variation, and the pattern would contain both the notes and the automation.

What I'm suggesting instead is to record the notes on one pattern, but then start a new pattern and record (or draw) the automation into that. Be sure to name your patterns so you know what is what.

This way, you only use one pattern for the main riff, rather than having to use a seperate pattern for each variation of the riff, and you can then drop in bars of the automation where you need them.

Still doesn't sound that useful? Consider this. Say you've recorded the riff (and controllers) six times, for six different variations of filter levels or whatever the automations happen to be. Now you decide that you want to change the notes in the riff. Well, you have to do it six times, whereas using this method you only have to do it once.

Or, consider this: You have three or four riffs, but would like to use the same automation effect (eg, filter sweep) on all of them at various times. All you need to do is drop in the automation pattern(s) at the appropriate place(s).

Final example: You change the tone the riff plays and now the filter sweeps you recorded are too severe. If you have use a seperate 'filter sweep' automation pattern, you only have to edit it once!

Have fun FL'ers!

G.

You could do the same by adding a midi out channel and aligning ports couldn't you?

And, I may be rusty, but can't you just do song-type automation rather than just pattern automation?

Caleb wrote:

You could do the same by adding a midi out channel and aligning ports couldn't you? And, I may be rusty, but can't you just do song-type automation rather than just pattern automation?

You can do both. What the thread originator discovered was a feature that's been present and documented since Fruity Loops 3.0.

Caleb wrote:

And, I may be rusty, but can't you just do song-type automation rather than just pattern automation?

Yes you can, you only have to set the initial point where the automation will act and record automation either manually or using the editor.

Automation data can be as long as you like, and you can manipulate position and how many repeats you want using the playlist, also you can store automation.

Thats one of the most useful features on Floops, you can use patterns to store several kind of data, not only notes.