ORION PRO or FL STUDIO ?

[BONES]

Orion, while more like hardware in its workflow (which can be a good thing), makes it extremely difficult to keep data separate from the instrument.

Yes, CTRL+C followed by CTRL+V is so taxing. Anyway, after you've done it a couple fo times hoe can you be sure the new one is better? At least in ORION it is easy to try out as many instruments as you like and compare them side by side, an infinitely better idea than an endless parade of swap-outs with no chance of comparison.
Then there's "Receive MIDI data from..." which allows you to wire the MIDI from any instrument to any number of others. Used in conjunction with channel Mute/Solo it is an even better way to decide which sound to use. The ability to overwrite one instrument with another is a complete non-feature for anyone with the slightest idea what they are doing.

As of FLS's instruments, Sytrus (FM synth) is the best of the bunch. The rest (DX10, Wasp, Simsynth, etc.) are average.

None of these instruments, even the average ones, are included in the price, they all cost extra. The included instruments are complete shit, complete and utter shit. They either have apalling interfaces or make dreadful sounds.

Not all of their updates are free. So if you buy Orion at v5.8, only the updates from the v5 series are free. But you will get a discount for the upcoming v6.

The update to v5 is the first update any ORION user has ever had to pay for. Who knows when the next will be, if ever. Whereas half the new things ImageLine present in the demo as part of Fruity are add-ons at extra cost. I don't have a problem with this except that its misleading marketing. they have to make their money somehow. If you just relied on bare-bones Fruity you would be pushing shit up hill to do anything decent with it. OTOH, ORION's generators are my top-shelf instruments and make it impossible for me to see any value in high-priced plugins.

[ceenda]

Cut & pasted from something I wrote on another forum. Can't be assed writing it again...

Hey man.

Yeah, Computer Music seem to be a little confused about their rating for Orion. I read somewhere it got 7/10, but if you look at their Buyer's Guide, it gives Orion 9/10.

I don't want to get into a war about FL and Orion (I love and own both of them ), but I'll just give a little list of things I like about both (which, imo, the other might be lacking, or more likely, simply has a different workflow).

ORION

Good points (imo):

+ Playlist:- I love seeing all my tracks represented as MIDI previews. It lets me see exactly where certain notes are going to come in etc. FLS gives you previews on the channel list, but it's not really the same. I like an overview where I can see exactly what is happenening with regard to notes on the pattern playlist.
+ Sampler:- Whilst I've had some problems with polyphony on large soundfonts, Orion's own sampler is very nice. It has some great in-built reverb and chorus effects. FLStudio's default sampler is excellent also, but Soundfont support would be nice. Hopefully they can do something about LiveSynth's demise (who licenced their soundfont player and then dissapeared).
+ Drum machine:- It lacks some of the features of FPC. But I'm not particularly keen on FPC. The Orion drummachine looks more compact and functional. But I guess most of us just use the piano roll for drums anyway.
+ Mixer:- Well, this purely aesthetic and varies from one person to the other. I like Orion's mixer. It lacks the many inserts that the FLS mixer gives you. But you can use a multi-effect thingy which allows you to link up to 8 insert effects in either parallel or serial.
+ Skinnable:- I like FL's default look. But some days I just want it to look bright and breezy.
Bad points (imo):

- Playlist:- Where FL Studio doesn't let you see everything in MIDI preview, it does allow you to stack many different patterns for the same instruments repeatedly. This is _extremely_ powerful. In ORION you'll have to just load another generator.
- Piano Roll:- I'm not alone in finding FL Studio's Piano Roll the finest out there. ImageLine has made the Piano Roll SO intuitive, that I find myself trying to slice notes etc. in Orion and being unable to.
- Stability:- Whilst I haven't had the problems with Orion that other people have had, there's no doubt that sometimes it will crash on my machine for seemingly no reason. EVEN WITH IT'S OWN GENERATORS AND NO VSTs. I'm fed up of hearing that it's "badly coded 3rd party VSTs" causing crashes when this blatantly isn't the case. FL Studio has hardly ever crashed out on me, even when I've pushed the CPU to the limits.
- Multi-timbral support:- FL Studio makes multi-timbral support so easy and so enjoyable. In Orion, you have to use different channels INSIDE the piano roll. You can't have seperate tracks (except for output). It is mind-bogglingly hard to keep track of.
- Minimised Windows:- This is another thing you'll either love or loathe. I loathe it. Basically, every generator, every effect appears inside a wrapper. No problem with that. However, the only way to get rid of an effect or generator temporarily is to minimise it. Think about how many generators or effects you have in your average FLStudio project. If I minimised every single one I would have very little real-estate to work on. I find the workflow very cluttered. But it seems to be one of these usability wars that divides opinion.
- Cost:- $298??? Even with lots of extra plugins, FL Studio has set an incredible standard for Value For Money. Either FL Studio is very cheap, or Orion is over-priced. My lips are sealed.

To sum up. I like Orion a lot, I think it's a great app. The best advice I can give you is to use the demo FOR AT LEAST A MONTH. It is the ONLY way to be sure that you won't be dissapointed if you decide to buy it. There are many things I found out only after I bought it.

There's some amazing music written in Orion. There's some amazing music written in FLStudio.

"You pays your money and takes your choice."

[braj]

glad it works for you...wish it did for me because other than that Live is very cool.

I should clarify that with percussion loops the stretch was fine but things got freaky real quick when trying to warp instrument loops, always this "chorusy" kind of sound.

anyways, more power to ya

Yeah, that's that 10% of the time I personally don't use many instrument loops, so I guess if I did I'd have more issues.

[Germ777]

I make Prog-Rock and Electronica styled songs and found FL to be a breeze to use and I had never tried making music on a PC.
I downloaded all demoes I could find and tried them all. I personally didn´t like Orion and FL was like love at first sight.
I`d recommend you do the same during a week or so and see who comes out as the winner. I`d bet it is FL, but that is up to you.
The Germinator
EDIT; I don´t use loops or samples (except for the drumsets)Only VSTis so whoever was saying that FL is mainly for loops and such has not checked FL in a long time.

[bluedad]

I picked up on Orion very quickly it was so intuitive. I have had FL for over two years, and it's still a struggle to remember how to do what. Also, I've had FL crash on me just many times as Orion has.
But I DO love threads like these, to pick up tips and tricks!

[donkey tugger]

FL Studio is like..



wheras orion is....

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[CypherOne]

cubase

[7zark7]

I really liked FL when I tried it, but then I found Orion.

-7zark7

[TVD]

Orion, while more like hardware in its workflow (which can be a good thing), makes it extremely difficult to keep data separate from the instrument.

Yes, CTRL+C followed by CTRL+V is so taxing. Anyway, after you've done it a couple fo times hoe can you be sure the new one is better? At least in ORION it is easy to try out as many instruments as you like and compare them side by side, an infinitely better idea than an endless parade of swap-outs with no chance of comparison.
Then there's "Receive MIDI data from..." which allows you to wire the MIDI from any instrument to any number of others. Used in conjunction with channel Mute/Solo it is an even better way to decide which sound to use. The ability to overwrite one instrument with another is a complete non-feature for anyone with the slightest idea what they are doing.

As of FLS's instruments, Sytrus (FM synth) is the best of the bunch. The rest (DX10, Wasp, Simsynth, etc.) are average.

None of these instruments, even the average ones, are included in the price, they all cost extra. The included instruments are complete shit, complete and utter shit. They either have apalling interfaces or make dreadful sounds.

Not all of their updates are free. So if you buy Orion at v5.8, only the updates from the v5 series are free. But you will get a discount for the upcoming v6.

The update to v5 is the first update any ORION user has ever had to pay for. Who knows when the next will be, if ever. Whereas half the new things ImageLine present in the demo as part of Fruity are add-ons at extra cost. I don't have a problem with this except that its misleading marketing. they have to make their money somehow. If you just relied on bare-bones Fruity you would be pushing shit up hill to do anything decent with it. OTOH, ORION's generators are my top-shelf instruments and make it impossible for me to see any value in high-priced plugins.

FLS XXL has everything included. That's what I have right now.

BTW Bones, you don't think there will be a Orion 6?

[TVD]

I'm just answering the original topic without reading any posts:

NEITHER.

Acid Pro users needs a drum machine (FLS or Orion)!!!

[Jaeson Merrill]

Ableton Live 4

IMO Live4 is the easiest host by far. I can get more done in it more quickly than anything else.

now, i have totally disregarded live 4 cause i hear so many bad things about stability and whatnot...

could be just rumours tho.

then again, im not planning on ever playing "live" from my laptop or anything, im not a d.j. or something, so again, it prolly wouldnt be my workflow.

[Jaeson Merrill]

Then there's "Receive MIDI data from..." which allows you to wire the MIDI from any instrument to any number of others. Used in conjunction with channel Mute/Solo it is an even better way to decide which sound to use.

this can also be done in FL studio.

load a generator into an mixer slot, and open a midi out generator to switch midi out channels; you can test different generators, different patches, whatever.

As of FLS's instruments, Sytrus (FM synth) is the best of the bunch. The rest (DX10, Wasp, Simsynth, etc.) are average.

None of these instruments, even the average ones, are included in the price, they all cost extra. The included instruments are complete shit, complete and utter shit. They either have apalling interfaces or make dreadful sounds.

well, i like that most are not free, it gives the user the chance to decide if they want them. A modular approach is much better, and there are free vstis out there (you should know) that probably sound just as good as either hosts' included for free synths.

Not all of their updates are free. So if you buy Orion at v5.8, only the updates from the v5 series are free. But you will get a discount for the upcoming v6.

The update to v5 is the first update any ORION user has ever had to pay for. Who knows when the next will be, if ever. Whereas half the new things ImageLine present in the demo as part of Fruity are add-ons at extra cost. I don't have a problem with this except that its misleading marketing. they have to make their money somehow. If you just relied on bare-bones Fruity you would be pushing shit up hill to do anything decent with it. OTOH, ORION's generators are my top-shelf instruments and make it impossible for me to see any value in high-priced plugins.

well, i dont think its misleading marketing, and i usually rely on bare-bones Fruity for my music. then again, im not a synth-head so there, different workflow

[Jaeson Merrill]

Whereas half the new things ImageLine present in the demo as part of Fruity are add-ons at extra cost.

this is not accurate.

half the new "things" ???

take a look at this list, and of the major features added, tell me what percentage would be addons that had to be paid for :

first go here for a general overview:

http://www.e-officedirect.com/FLStudio/ ... s/138.html

then here for a more detailed one

http://www.e-officedirect.com/FLStudio/ ... s/103.html

then here for a comparison of the different versions (express, fruityloops, producer and XXL)
http://www.e-officedirect.com/FLStudio/ ... ts/75.html

half???

tap...tap... is this thing on?

[Jaeson Merrill]

pasted from http://www.e-officedirect.com/FLStudio/ ... B_102.html

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