FL Studio 5 vs SX3 workflow

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Now i have FL Studio 5 and i can get SX 3 for decent price but i dont know what is better?
To stay on FL and spend that money on something else or to buy SX3.

What about workflow in SX3. Can somone write some pros or some cons?

:help: :help: :help:

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10% of all files rendered in cubase are 20% better than 13% of files rendered in sonar. Luckily , you can normalize this ratio when you take in to account that 70% of all sonar users eat fish, and that 33% of the fish is tuna. Compare that to Cubase, where only 55% of the users eat fish, and that fish mostly comprises of flounder, cat fish and alligator gars. If you are lucky about 18.9 % of the protools users out there are clinicly insane and cannot even use a protools system. Also take into account that you can usually only understand about 37% of what xoxos rants about, with meffys propensity for playing with baby snakes, you can only draw one conclusion from it all-

Download the demo and give it a go..

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S_A_P® wrote:If you are lucky about 18.9 % of the protools users out there are clinicly insane and cannot even use a protools system...
Thats the only part I can back up with hard evidence... (it would be 18.8% without me) :hihi:

FL Studio is lacking some audio editing and recording power. Yet I think it is one of the best hosts out there (for VSTi/VST, building "MIDI" parts in a pattern-based way appeals to me).

Cubase would be a worthy investment if you plan to work with other musicians and record them.

If you plan to do all the music yourself, FL Studio could be plenty, in fact I prefer it to anything else for sequencing tasks.
-Steve
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i agree. unless your working with hardware, other "real" instruments, etc. dont worry about it.

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I second that. If you're planning to stay "virtual" using only VSTi/DXi instruments and VST/DX effects - stay with FLS. But, if you are planning to expand to hardware synth which will require all that sysex/midi interaction and audio recording - SX3 would suite you better.

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S_A_P® wrote: Download the demo and give it a go..
where can you get a cubase demo ??

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kmonkey wrote:Now i have FL Studio 5 and i can get SX 3 for decent price but i dont know what is better?
To stay on FL and spend that money on something else or to buy SX3.

What about workflow in SX3. Can somone write some pros or some cons?

:help: :help: :help:
here's the deal: fl studio 5 boots up so much faster than sx3 (and live 4.1.1) that when i want to just try something quick, i go straight to fls 5 rather than wait...once in, i find the sound acceptable, the soft synth handling acceptable, and the pattern sequencing quite handy...

problem solving: i can't figure out how to automate stylus rmx in sx3...don't have a midi cc list...in fls 5 i run a pattern and record moves and clicks in rmx then look in current project->automation and there they are...all nice and ready for event editing...or i look in current project->generators->fruity wrapper (stylusrmx)...and there are all of the rmx automatable controls...don't seem to be able to find such a list in sx3...maybe i'm doing something wrong...well, back to 'cubase sx/sl 3 power'...the answer must be in there somewhere...
overthrow KRAPITALISM ! you have nothing to lose but your claims.

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I was in exactly the same position - using FL5 and I just got fed up with it. On a whim I purchased SX 3 and i've no regrets what so ever.

Things that have improved my work flow:-

Freeze/Unfreeze - This saves so much CPU and allows you to experiment with more VSTi's

Arrange Tracks - These let you try out different arrangements without having to change the structure of your track in the project window.

Automation is much easier. None of this "create automation clip" etc.

Score editor - I find this really useful as my girlfriend is classically trained and I can give her a print out of a vocal melody or piano line and she has a much better idea of the melody when we come to record vocals/piano.

You can name all your events and give them pretty colours :) Laying out songs is much easier than the pattern sequencer in FL.

Searching for samples is as easy as FLstudio - just use the search function in the audio pool and up and down on the arrow keys - it will even loop in the preview so you can get a feel for the loop without constant clicking on the sample name. Audio is imported into a project folder as standard so no worries about loosing your Song's samples if you move or delete your sample collection.

Cubase just sounds much more accurate - no really it does! Especially down the low end of the spectrum you can really hear whats going on - wheras FL seemed a little "muddy".

Searching for patches is much quicker - just key in "bass" and it will find all the patches with "bass" in the title.

In general I have found that SX handles processing so much better on my system. On transfering songs from FL that used to really strain the processor to SX I found that they ran fine and I could even add more plugins before having to freeze any tracks.

One thing you do have to get used to is the fact that you dont have any "pre-loaded" channels for samples - but a drumplayer like Linplugs RMIII (quite cheap) or something like Kontakt will sort you out in that respect.

Whilst using FL I had plenty of songs in progress but nothing ever came close to being finished. After a month of using SX, I have 3 very close to being finished (just a couple of tweaks and recording vocals to do) so my experience speaks for itself.

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but you are forgetting the fact that 15% of all aliasing sounds worse in 2% of all FL studio users PCs when they use 85% accurate 303 emulsions and 25% virus emulators. Not to mention how 65% of the poeple on this forum think that they can hear the difference between 24 and 32 bit float wavs....

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kmonkey wrote:Now i have FL Studio 5 and i can get SX 3 for decent price but i dont know what is better?
To stay on FL and spend that money on something else or to buy SX3.
What about workflow in SX3. Can somone write some pros or some cons?
Use both.

Just run FL Studio inside Cubase as a VSTi.

Best of both worlds.

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--JT-- wrote:
S_A_P® wrote: Download the demo and give it a go..
where can you get a cubase demo ??
You can't.. there is no Cubase SX 3 demo AFAIK. All demos seem to be old versions. Luckily our department in school seems to have a copy so I'll borrow that home for a while and see how the program works. I'm also a FL Studio user that is considering switching to cubase for the added audio/mixing power.

However, there is one major gripe I have with cubase and it's that it doesn't have a "smart plugin disable" feature. That is, all plugins in a project are in use, all the time ALWAYS, constantly, using CPU power even on tracks that have no audio playing trough them. This is very annoying IMO. Even age old Logic 4 had a smart plugin on/off management and samplitude is by far the best with the totally object oriented way of working.

Anyways, looks like SX might be a good package finally except this one little niggle.. but then again, it's steinberg software so maybe it's better to avoid? :scared:

- bManic

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About the smart plugin disable thing - yeah thats true. You can "freeze" Midi tracks (which disables and VSTi's and VST effects for that channel. One of the other downsides is that there doesn't seem to be any way to "freeze" audio tracks in the same way. I guess you could bounce an audio track to another with all the effects you require and then disable the original audio track rather than just muting it.

As for audio recording and editing - the benefits shine again - bigger wave editor, bigger mixer, parametric on each eq channel.

Definately get a demo or working copy though as you don't want to spend out and find it just doesnt feel right for you!

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you can freeze audio tracks in exactly the same way - you press the freeze button and its done
I believe every thread should devolve into character attacks and witch-burning. It really helps the discussion.

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Wow - ive been hunting for the audio freeze buttons in the month Ive been using SX. Where are they?

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have the channel selceted

in the inspector at the left of the screen - the main tab - the one with the ins and outs

top right hand corner of tab beneath the auto fade settings

PS this is sx 3
I believe every thread should devolve into character attacks and witch-burning. It really helps the discussion.

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