FL Studio makes synthetic music?

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woh... I wasn't trying to start a debate here...

I love FLstudio. I like it better than any other sequencer thus far and believe it can make professional music just like any other host. I was just wondering if some of you had some tips and tricks that you do to give it that quality.

You're all right about the same samples and vst's being used and not enough tweeking being done. This is probably one of the main things that causes people to think FL is synthetic or low in quality.

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I think the samples that come with FLS do more harm than good...

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depends what you do with them. sometimes ( not often ) i will use them. mainly for a raw waveform or something, take a chunk out of one of them for an oscillator, or run one of the pad sounds through a battery of distortions and delay/filter/pattern fx like prodyon modulator. There is some good raw material in there, but if you are going to use them as-is, well of course your song is going to sounnd like a dozen others. It's not the samples doing the harm though, they are very useful for someone who is just trying to get into computer music. When i first made the leap from hardware to computer, Fruity loops was among the kit that got me hooked, and it was largely due to the included samples that i was able to easily figure out the program.
resistors are futile you will be simulated
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I used FL studio, and I can honestly say that it's "composing paradigm" or whatever you wish to call it limited me from a songwriting standpoint. It's all about patterns and loops, and that's all I used. I piled them on until it sounded like the song was done, played around with the mixer for a bit, and then finished.

With Cubase, I tend to think of the song as a whole, and can easily visualize and organize sections of a song. I like being able to name everything in the project view, color it all and put all the related sections of the song into folders. I like having EQ on every channel by default.

Sometimes it's not a question of "what can FL do?". For me, the issue was "How do you do it in FL?". I myself, speaking only for me and absolutely no one else in the world unless they circumstantially happen by pure coincidence to share my views on this subject, am of the (subjective) opinion that Cubase is, for me, a much more musical and intuitive program.

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This thread is a little goofy, but I'll throw in my two cents anyway. I didn't bother to read through the whole thing, so maybe I'm repeating other people. - I think FL Studio is one of the best deals as far as bang for the buck. It was fun and easy to start making music in. I have always composed pattern based anyway, even before I touched a groovebox, sampler, workstation or DAW. I can't tell the difference in outcome unless it has to do with the mastering engineer or content creation. I bet an experienced sound technician/mastering guru could pull the same results from what FL packs to Cubase, given the included tools only with each program. Better with FL, because FL has more built in synth goodies. Just an opinion though. I use Ableton now because it also had an easy learning curve and comes with some great stuff. The live factor is awesome, but if it weren't available and I could only choose between FL or Cubase, I'd pick FL in a heart beat. I believe that someone new to computer music could learn and whip out a decent song in FL way before doing it in cubase. I don't think it has ever claimed to be the "Pro" DAW, but you can sound pro if you want with it. :D
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the_nihilist wrote:I used FL studio, and I can honestly say that it's "composing paradigm" or whatever you wish to call it limited me from a songwriting standpoint. It's all about patterns and loops, and that's all I used. I piled them on until it sounded like the song was done, played around with the mixer for a bit, and then finished.
This is a little strange, as FL does not force you to work this way, you can make song-length patterns and use Audio-Clips that are also song length.

Carb.

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FL STUDIO is the $hit! :D Making music should be fun and easy to do and FL provides exactly that! It only gets put down because of it's name, "Fruity" and because of the Carrot logo, simple as that. If Fruity Loops (FL Studio) had a more professional name to begin with and perhaps a more "Windows style" looking GUI, it wouldn't get put down so much.

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the_nihilist wrote:I used FL studio, and I can honestly say that it's "composing paradigm" or whatever you wish to call it limited me from a songwriting standpoint. It's all about patterns and loops, and that's all I used.
Well, perhaps the default configuration is like that, but you certainly aren't required to work in that idiom.
My work in FLS pretty much consists of audio tracks of acoustic piano and flute, for instance. Couldn't get much further from the folks who use FLS as a drum machine and making dance music tracks.

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Left Headphone wrote:I think the samples that come with FLS do more harm than good...
well said, i have no idea why the flavourless sample preset templates still haunt new fruit versions.
come on you ..... lets have some aphex acid.

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So... how is sidechaining done in FL?

Regards,

JMH
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Yeah, still waiting for that answer too. Show us how sidechaining is done. :roll:

- bManic

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I guess the answer is either "ask at LoopTalk" or "fake it with Peak Controller", or... could it be... currently not possible?

And I don't mean disrespect towards FL with this, as sidechaining for me isn't important, so far along the years I've only used sidechaining a couple of times. But the curiosity still remains whether it can be done as claimed or if there's a handy workaround for it...

(What really bakes my noodle is though why plugin developers don't do it TC style - a separate sidechain instance that feeds the signal to the first one's sidechain input, surely it's possible since there are plugins around that communicate and pass data to other instances...)

Regards,

JMH
Now available with added Inherently Suspect Justification!

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Sequencers don't make music, people do. If what comes out sounds synthetic (in the pejorative), its because the operator/composer doesn't know what he/she is doing yet. The traditional models of composer/performer/conductor (not to mention recording engineer) must be employed in order to achieve anything even remotely musical. Owning the appliances doesn't make one a chef.

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I think no matter what host you use, the trick is to make VST's sound less tech or synthetic. That is ridiculously difficult to achieve, but there are some folks who can get this exceptional sound from shitty synths.
may be the trick is in the effects, and, of course, the way you play notes and your musical/synth/editing skills are big influences in the final song/loop.

Of course, this applies in my experience with synths, samples are a different world from my point of view.

cheers.

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bugs wrote:Sequencers don't make music, people do. If what comes out sounds synthetic (in the pejorative), its because the operator/composer doesn't know what he/she is doing yet. The traditional models of composer/performer/conductor (not to mention recording engineer) must be employed in order to achieve anything even remotely musical. Owning the appliances doesn't make one a chef.
:?: :?: :?:

i suppose it depends on how narrow one's definition of music is.
resistors are futile you will be simulated
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T4M

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