i currently use reaper which i like, but i also own fl studio and its going on version 11. reaper is great in the customization department. but fl studio gets on my nerves because you cant get any real organization to your songs. you have automation clips all over the place, your tracks are always out of order because of the pattern based workflow, it does seem that fl studio is going towards multitrack (thats what my friend thinks) am curious what others think?
Last edited by AstralExistence on Sat May 12, 2012 6:45 pm; edited 1 time in total

agreed. this is the sole reason i can't use FL Studio as my main, one-and-only DAW. it's frustrating

yeah because even though reaper is affordable, and clean to use. fl studio has it beat in most places. fl studio is a joy to use while reaper, is sorta, well, awkward to use. though im thankful that it is so incredibly affordable. the day fl studio goes the way of multitrack, is the day ill never even think about other daws and the day that it might be taken more seriously.

loop based daws in general are pretty much a dying breed. what is not is clip based workflow like ableton live. even though ejay and then fl studio is my background, i got used to reason which i used for 4 years and now just cant work in a loop based workflow anymore. while clip based is the king of concept. multitrack is the king of the final product.

agree 100%

[quote="AstralExistence"]i currently use reaper which i like, but i also own fl studio and its going on version 11. reaper is great in the customization department. but fl studio gets on my nerves because you cant get any real organization to your songs. you have automation clips all over the place, your tracks are always out of order because of the pattern based workflow, it does seem that fl studio is going towards multitrack (thats what my friend thinks) am curious what others think?[/quote]

I struggle to understand comments like this.

The way I use it, FLStudio has two distinct roles. The first is as a multitrack recorder. My base project is setup to do several channels of audio recording all driven from the mixer view, and I use it to record mic'd instruments. The notion of "pattern based workflow" does not even occur to me.

The second role is as musical instrument, where I use it as a VSTi sub-host so that I have a simple way of selecting instruments from my controller while playing live. Here, the "step sequencer" is really just a placeholder for mapping an instrument to each channel I want to make available. The only complaint I have is that in order to use it that way, I have to use rewire and load FLS under another host. It's still the only really good solution to that basic problem that I've found with the resources I have available.

Just use FL like any other multitrack and turn off the pattern playlist which will be phased out anyway.

The new playlist is nigh on identical to tracks in Reaper except that you can have more than one instrument per track if you so desire (or split up an instrument over several tracks, but I fail to see why you'd do that).

There are issues with changing the order of patterns to be sure, but that is a different kettle of fish. I've always used FL as a multitrack and with FL 10 it's actually been designed so as to make this much MUCH easier.

others agree

seriously, why do i need a channel for every automation clip i make, why cant i keep the automation in just the track, why do i need to create a pattern for every clip i make, lastly, why cant i just use clips as a clip instead of a pattern. this program has so much to offer but is just tacking on new crap with every update without changing the core functions to a more modern way of working.
reaper is no better though.

i really need to invest in a decent multitrack daw. but there not cheap.

i think im ranting, sorry

FL Studio just has way too many extremely simple audio editing things missing. First of all, you can't zoom down to the sample level on audio clips. This is absolutely vital for precise editing without clicks. Actually, you can't even zoom in very far at all. You can barely make accurate cuts with the current maximum zoom-in level.

Second, even if you COULD zoom all the way in, there is no friggin cross fade so you are screwed anyways. In fact, there aren't even basic fade in and fade out handles for the audio clips.

Finally, the mixer is just way too frustrating to be mixing anything else than rather small pieces of music, at least in my opinion.

I just use it for composing stuff. That's what it's brilliant for. Then I bounce each track separately and do the final editing, mixing and mastering in Reaper.

FL Studio would have to change quite a lot in order to be taken seriously as a mixing environment. It was clearly never meant to be good at that. I'm quite happy with the FL Studio + Reaper combo so it doesn't bother me much.

Cheers!
bManic

what you said here is nearly identical to the way i feel about it. however, personally, i'd like to cut out that exporting separate wavs into another DAW completely. to me, having to do the exporting of wavs into another DAW is time-consuming and really kills work flow for me. this is what makes FL the "so close but not quite there" DAW for me. it's disheartening that with some tweaks and advances, it COULD be the one-and-only-DAW for me; but the developer is so dead-set on not listening to customers' wishes and requests, i am quite sure that at this point (after over 10 years of using the program) i will never see those simple tweaks to make it the most streamlined and usable DAW for electronic music ever...

My only complain about FL is its high CPU use. I feel very comfortable with its workflow and it's a really fantastic composition tool.

haven't touched the program in YEARS, but if what you just said is accurate (i.e if you haven't humanly missed some feature somewhere),

then,
this is exactly why at version 11, fruit is still nothing but a TOY.

despite the negatives i listed in my above post, i still find that this DAW has the BEST pianoroll of any other DAW on the market. that feature alone leads me to conclude that FL is not simply a "TOY". i can load up FL and mock up quick track ideas in mere minutes that i just cannot do so quickly and efficiently in any other software. sure, these are by no means complete tracks, but (in my experience), starting a song is one of the most difficult aspects of the song-writing process. in this respect, FL Studio is ESSENTIAL for me. sure, it does have its downsides, as i mentioned above, but i would still be completely lost without it.

one man's toy is another man's ultimate creative outlet.

well, the whole loop based way of working is extremely dated. and extremely annoying too. another thing that i just don't understand is, not only is the workflow dated but so is the interface. image line have been releasing some amazing looking plugins, but fl still has the same boring, mundane look. its a huge disappointment. like, if your a fl studio user your think, "this is THE update!" "THIS is where there going to give us the modern interface that matches all there plugs!" and like clockwork, more crap gets tacked on, more feature creep, the interface stays the same, and everybody's disappointed. i really wonder what imageline have in store for version 11, but tbh, seems more feature creep.
Last edited by AstralExistence on Mon May 14, 2012 7:47 pm; edited 2 times in total