Does cubase or pro tools feature pattern based beatmaking like FL

FL Studio's pattern grid is pretty unique in terms of DAWs. There's some plugins that do it, like FXPansion's Geist and other drum-based sequencers.

If you're talking about simply a loop based arrangement style, then Pro Tools isn't really built for that, and I've never actually used Cubase so someone else would have to answer that.

If you mean the step sequencer window, and the fact that just dragging a sample to a slot makes it an instrument ready to be sequenced, no... not unless you use Renoise w/ a step-seq addon. But not anything really comparable to FL out there in this regard.

If you mean the ability to do pattern based 'Arranging', Cubase and Logic both have something vaguely similar, and in some ways superior, in Folder Tracks (I can't remember what it's called in Cubase, someone will have to help me with that.)

Protools, as mentioned, is not really 'for' that.

[EDIT]
It occurs to me that using a MIDI plugin such as... ERA by Sonicbytes (now sold by Sugarbytes) you could get FL-like patterns in Cubase. The sister machine to ERA is EST, which has a built-in sampler which is quite powerful, so that's another way. With that, you can get step-seq. patterns in any host program.

This is the Arranger Track, the closest to pattern based song making that you can find in Cubase.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0X9m3VL9Uc

You know in FL let's say you are making a bassline for bout four bars how would you change it's variation is by creating a new pattern for whatever Vsti your using my question is , is it pretty much the same way you'd do it in Cubase or Protools

Well, in a way you can just consider a copy and paste as "making a new variation" in Cubase. Make your 4 bar bassline. Then in the arranger you select it, copy it, and paste it after the first one, and then edit it to make the variations you are after. So there is extra step in there, but it's really similar.

Of course, in a true pattern-based setup, a change to one variation will be a change to all its iterations. I don't think it works like that in Cubase.

@standalone : thanks for that, I was trying to remember.

You can always make a 'shared copy' of your clip (both audio and midi) simply by clicking on the clip, pressing Alt/Option+Shift and dragging the clip to another location. To fill a whole track with shared copies you just click on the lower right corner while pressing Alt/Option+Shift and drag as far as you want. You will get a 'train' of shared copies.

Whenever you modify one of those clips all its 'brothers' are modified as well.

Are you saying for example your beat is 120 bars long and you want to change the notes of the bass after 70 bars and keep the notes which are were there you have to make a new track of th bass or something else

wow cool! I'm used to that in Podium, actually. I should have known Cubase would have that too.


hmmm... I am not certain we are talking about the same thing anymore...

I think that in a pattern based workflow, a 120 bar long 'beat' would most likely be made of, say, 15 repetitions of an 8 bar beat. Each of those would be an iteration of a 'pattern'. Then you could make the pattern iteration which encompasses bar 70 into a 'variation' by making a non-linked copy, and change the notes in that one....

I'm probably just confusing you more with this...
If you're making a beat 120 bars long, then patterns are not really the best way to think of it.

Yes, you only have to make a normal copy of one of the clips, edit it and replace the ones that you want to be different, maybe with shared copies of this new clip too. They don't make this type of programs to annoy you, they are always pretty flexible.

But as Z3R0T0N1N suggest, if you are going to make music based in patterns there are other Daws that would make it easier for you, like Ableton, FL Studio and Orion.

So you can make a bass clip and when you make a copy of it and alter it , nothing happens to the first

The only real difference between FL's patterns and other host's clips in terms of structuring songs is that in FL you can have several instruments in the same pattern. In practice, that's rarely a good idea (there are cases where it makes sense though).

So, just as you can make copies of patterns in FL and then edit these, you can copy clips in other hosts and edit those. The workflow is slightly different, but you can do pretty much the same thing either way.

The sequencer itself is a different kettle of fish, but I don't think that's what you're asking.

Yes, thats the normal way to do it. You are making things too complicated: when I mentioned shared copies I noted that you need to press Alt/Option+Shift and drag to get these. I you think for a moment you'll realize that having to use all those keys modifiers can only mean that this is not the most usual way of making copies.

You can make more or less everything in programs like this. The differences between Daws reside in more complex thinks than copying and pasting clips. At the end of the day they all do basically the same things.