I have just recently seen forums and heard people speaking of how they think FL Studio has poor quality effects when bought. I personally didn't think they were bad. I particularly enjoy some of the features.

But I guess the point I'm trying to ask if you think that FL Studio has bad effects.

Please reply a lot so I can get good feedback. Thanks.

Do they work for you, do they sound good for you? If yes, then yes, they are good. If not, then no, they're not good, for you.

It's personal opinion really, and people hear things quite often because of price... "this $500 EQ must be better than XXX costing $xx".

My advice, and trust me, you'll be better off if you apply it, is to make your own critical assessment of the quality of your tools. Very soon you'll realize you have all you need to make good quality music with, you just need to apply it correctly.

...that's a very round about way of saying, there's nothing wrong with FL plugs. They have their own flavor, and naturally some people like em, and some don't.

Happy music making

GeorgeZ

Agree with GeorgeZ.



There's the tricky bit. Seems easier to discover all the ways to apply it incorrectly at first.

From the famous Apple campaign: "FL Studio doesn't have bad effects, only bad users"

The phaser and chorus are fantastic and very unique. I haven't found many I like as much,let alone more.

Peak and Envelope***** controllers have no competition.

The formula controller is the most powerful, and the most difficult to master.

The only FX I'm not very impressed by are the EQs, but only since getting my first top notch EQ from Duende. EQ flavour is completely subjective anyway.

Others are to taste, but they're not horrible or even bad by any stretch.

...and DO NOT forget the Buzzmachines.

I don't think they are bad, but if I try to use the Compressor and put it on a setting and tweak it, I notice when I re-open the project, the compressor is back to the default for that setting. It's very frustrating, so I just end up using something else. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
Nothing can touch the Love Philter, though.....

I try other hosts but I keep coming back to FLstudio for the Edison integration and the Peak Controller.

I used to like parametric EQ2 for it's ease of use, but I was shocked at it's muddiness when I compared to to the free Melda EQ.

Nevertheless I do like some of the FX, such as the delay bank, EQUO and Flangus, as well as the more utilitarian soft clipper, Blood Overdrive.

The Fruity send plugin is also very handy.

Pick-up some of the great free FX packs out there and you'll be golden.

Most aren't that good IMO so I don't use them.
OTOH, some are pretty cool and few are awesome or very useful.

I think the best way to break it down is this:

The 'bread n butter' fx in FL are not the top of the line, nor would you expect them to be. They are also far from sub-standard.
I would not be content forever with only FL EQ/Reverb/Delay. They are passable "quality" wise, but it comes down to just features eventually. I still use the simple EQ for simple jobs. The verb/delay, basically never.

What makes the FL bundle really amazing, and for me a must-have, are the other ones-
The 'utility' plugins they have developed that are really special;

The Envelope Generator (add keytracking, lfo, velocity to any parameter in daw)
Peak Controller (ride audio for midi cc to any parameter in daw)
FL Limiter (instant real sidechain)
Edison (goddam amazing editor)
EQUO (completely untapped depths, imo)
Maximus (one of the most useful comps out at any price)
WaveShaper (useful distortion shaper)
Patcher (plugin chainer)
Pitcher..
Scratcher..
Formula Controller..
MIDI Send..
Layers..
Oh yeah they added all this shit for free too.

Maximus is not free, neither is Pitcher.

FL has some decent effects, one thing that gives it a bad name is that beneath those good effects there's still a ton of worse effects that are redundant and outdated. Probably over a dozen bundled effects in FL that should be put in a legacy zip or something and offered for download separate from the main installer, purely for backwards compatibility. The only area I feel the default effects fall extremely short is distortion, I use way more third party distortion effects than anything else(this may change when Harmor's distortion is released as a separate effect...)

I'll have to check out Melda EQ now though, I tend not to make extreme EQ changes except to roll off the low end but if PEQ2 isn't that good maybe that has something to do with it, like one of the recent topics on the instruments forum has brought up the discussion that high resonance settings aren't as common in the VST era

highkoo I'm curious what other delays do much better than Delay Bank? I know some have kind of a tape quality where the delay is modulated but other than that I think Delay Bank can do a lot of complicated echo effects...

Yeah it is not bad. It kind of dips its toe into the modulated stuff. I mean, for a bundled effect it is pretty sweet.

There are two delays that are way beyond almost everything else I have tried:
Timeless 2 - Does shit that your sequencer doesnt do, ffs. Its unreal.
Obelisk - Its a 'spectral delay' that can actually make new sounds that I have never heard before.

Theres also Ohmboyz. Which I spose I put in the same boat as Timeless. Just bonkers sound mangling ability. Not surgery like Timeless though.

Also, that new XILS delay might be some pretty hot shit. I havent really heard much about it just yet.



Neever is yer muvva.
I spose thats right, but I do recall a 'demo' or 'beta' Pitcher coming down from IL at some point. And you have 'Soundgoodizer' which is a handy lil piece of Maximus...
Anyway, the rest of it was free as in no fee to update the daw.

Those look interesting, true that it could be more complex, I just look at host plugins as being more for bread and butter stuff, if you want the most complex mad scientist stuff it makes sense to look into VSTs

I'd also say Love Philter is one I'm not extremely impressed by. Didn't say it before because I tend not to use post filtering anyway, just some light EQ, but I was comparing a lot of different synths today and I have to say the stock IL filters are worse than I thought they were. Harmor/Harmless' filters are much better but those don't operate on audio to begin with so they can't be made into an effect or used in other plugins

OMG (I can't believe I actually used that stupid OMG thingee) HOW THE f**k COULD I LEAVE OUT!


WAVE TRAVELLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They vary, depending on the era they were introduced. I think I got bored with the old ones, moreso than thought they weren't upto standard. Then again, I have used FL for more than a decade. I still can't replace some though, like flangus and waveshaper. They just do what they do nicely.

I suppose when you compare the bundled (and ancient) bread 'n butter effects with commercial stuff that has been considered and thoroughly developed, they can seem weak. However, I reckon the paid-for stuff (technically some of them are 'bought', since they are inc. with signature edition) are very competitive, some are the best in their class.

The integrated stuff (stuff that controls FL Studio) cannot really be compared. That stuff is indispensible and opens up creative possibilities.

So I do think the older stuff could be improved to be more competitive and forward-thinking. On the other hand, I have so many brilliant third party plugs that it doesn't bother me one iota.

One thing I wish IL would do is make character effects (read: NOT MODELS OF GEAR). They went all "mastering utility" with maximus. Despite all it's features, I think it lacks soul when attempting to use it (or fruity limiter) for any kind of character compression. That's just my opinion though. No sidechain input either

Delay bank, love philter, Fruity limiter (which can be used as a compressor), Parametric EQ2, Vocodex vocoder, fruity convolver reverb... these are all very nice.