KVR Audio

Shane Sanders · Post by **Shane Sanders** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 3:51 pm

I played around with Fruity Loops as a demo even more last night. There are so many smart features in the program, and I'm tempted to buy it. However, I really do not like the way songs are constructed in it in comparison to another program that I use. Am I understanding things correctly that I have to put each pattern on it's own timeline slot in order to chain them together AND retain the ability to rearrange them? This seems to create an enormous number of staggered patterns. For a person like me who rarely has two measures that are precisely identical, this is not very good. I did figure out that I could collapse patterns into a larger pattern, but this just leaves a pattern with no markings on it to help me remember what's in it (I don't want to have to look all the way back to the head of the timeline for a label). Collapsing the smaller patterns also removes my ability to arrange freely. Am I missing something? Forgive me, I've really only spent about 4 hours in this program so far, but that's the one thing that's bugging me about it.

Any insight is appreciated.

-Shane

chagzuki · Post by **chagzuki** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 3:59 pm

Don't forget you can use it as a VST. Actually I had forgotten about that.

bluedad · Post by **bluedad** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 4:10 pm

It took me a long time to get the hang of fruity, compared to the way you're used to working in Orion.
But it seems you're on the right track.
I like fruity in that when you start recording, it goes till you hit stop, whether that's four bars or eight. Versus having to predetermine in Orion..
I like the look of the playlist better in fruity, but the construction does seem to overwhelm me at times. Maybe it's something you get used to. I know normal uses fruity, and he does some pretty long stuff. I'd like to see one his flp files maybe
I could learn something. (no doubt about that)

TeeLangSun · Post by **TeeLangSun** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 4:11 pm

Sh@ne S@nders wrote:I played around with Fruity Loops as a demo even more last night. There are so many smart features in the program, and I'm tempted to buy it. However, I really do not like the way songs are constructed in it in comparison to another program that I use. Am I understanding things correctly that I have to put each pattern on it's own timeline slot in order to chain them together AND retain the ability to rearrange them?

Yeah, that's how the Playlist works. You build patterns then lay them out in the playlist essentially.

This seems to create an enormous number of staggered patterns.

Another way you could work in FL is to just record directly into the "timeline" in the playlist. In this way, you can make variations directly in the same pattern, rather than have a different pattern for each variation.

I did figure out that I could collapse patterns into a larger pattern, but this just leaves a pattern with no markings on it to help me remember what's in it

Speaking of markings, FL Studio is capable of creating nameable markers, like larger sequencers do. So you can indeed use markers to identify what's where.

Collapsing the smaller patterns also removes my ability to arrange freely.

I don't know if it's possible to have it both ways, but if you had a long pattern, you could always cut and past portions into a separate pattern in order to be able arrange it freely.

Am I missing something? Forgive me, I've really only spent about 4 hours in this program so far, but that's the one thing that's bugging me about it.

Any insight is appreciated.

-Shane[/quote]

If you've only used it for a few hours, then of course you missing a lot. It's probably gonna take time to extract all of FL's secrets particularly since many of them are not documented anywhere. FL is not a linear sequencing environment like Cubase and Sonar. But if you can get into the pattern based sequencing method, then you will probably be suprised at all the features and options they've put into it.

rok · Post by **rok** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 4:15 pm

Using the pianoroll you can create any size of pattern and change its length.
You can have a pattern the length of the song.
I hope I understood your question.

krumelur · Post by **krumelur** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 4:21 pm

but this just leaves a pattern with no markings on it to help me remember what's in it (I don't want to have to look all the way back to the head of the timeline for a label).

Actually the left bar with all the patterns named stays visible all the time no matter where you are in your song.. right?

which version are u using? FL Studio 4.52?

experimental.crow · Post by **experimental.crow** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 4:37 pm

i'll weigh in here ...
( thanks gary ) ...

i don't use patterns , or the playlist ...
this is not a shortcomming of the program , it's just the way i work ...

the strength of FLS , imo , is the piano roll ... easy to use , record to , and edit ...

to reiterate what rok said , in the piano roll , you can create an entire song , in 'pattern' mode ... no need to build up
'patterns' , or keep track of them for that matter ...

my pieces generally run eight to twelve tracks , depending on cpu load of what i'm using ...
when finished , you can render to .mid ,.wav , or .mp3 ...

all very flexible for me , but that's just
my take ... your mileage may vary ...

i also use Tracktion , and Audition ...

thockin · Post by **thockin** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 11:13 pm

A few things are missing for me to make songs in one pattern:

1. I really use time markers. They don't show up in the piano roll.

2. I need to see more than 1 piano-roll at a time. The view in the step sequencer shows them all, but they are so tiny as to be useless.

3. The dropdown box at the top of the piano-roll view does not respect channel groups. I really don't want to see all 25 FX samples when I am looking for a particular synth. I want to see the channel groups listed as sub-lists with the channels inside those.

With a bit of work, FLS *could* be used like a normal track-based sequencer. It's kind of hard right now.

>v^<^^ · Post by **>v^<^^** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 12:36 am

thockin wrote:1. I really use time markers. They don't show up in the piano roll.

You could just use one pattern for each section of the song you would normally mark with a "time marker". You could then use the Numpad +/- keys to jump from one section to another. One handy feature of the Step Sequencer view... when you're looking at the miniature view of a long bit of paino roll data within a pattern, left-clicking on the mini-view opens the piano roll at the start of the sequence. Right-clicking on the mini-view opens the paino roll to wherever you right-clicked.

thockin wrote:2. I need to see more than 1 piano-roll at a time. The view in the step sequencer shows them all, but they are so tiny as to be useless.

You can view "ghost channels" in the Piano Roll by pressing ALT-V. You see the Piano Roll data of other channels within the same pattern in the background. Maybe not exactly what you want but it makes things easier for me.

Sh@ne S@nders wrote:I really do not like the way songs are constructed in it in comparison to another program that I use. Am I understanding things correctly that I have to put each pattern on it's own timeline slot in order to chain them together AND retain the ability to rearrange them? This seems to create an enormous number of staggered patterns.

You don't need to keep your patterns one measure long. Using the paino roll, they can be as long as you like. Use one pattern for your entire song if you want. A lot of people have a hard time with FL's pattern concept at first, but really it's just an extra tool that you can use to your advantage if you wish. It's extremely flexible, enabling you to do things more traditional sequencers can't.

thockin · Post by **thockin** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 1:58 am

duncan wrote:Right-clicking on the mini-view opens the paino roll to wherever you right-clicked.

everything else was old news, but I didn't know this one! Thanks!

Shane Sanders · Post by **Shane Sanders** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 2:14 am

Thanks for all the good insight. I'm only using the latest demo, so I can't save anything, so each time I start playing around, I have to start from scratch.

I was just having trouble figuring out how to arrange and most importantly differentiate patterns visually from a big-picture standpoint. I don't really like that the place where I create patterns is the same for all the instruments. I much prefer clicking on an instrument and having it contain all it's own patterns which I can then arrange in the Playlist in a single line on the grid.

I was already seeing that I could make any length of pattern, but what was odd to me was that I couldn't put PTN 1, PTN 2, PTN 3 back to back in the Playlist without them being on different lines. I'm very used to Orion's Playlist where you can plunk your patterns down and do a quick arrangement and then collapse a group of duplicated patterns named A1 into a longer pattern named B1 for fine tuning. Collapsing patterns on the Playlist in Fruity seems to destroy the original pattern and you have to collapse everything that's on the entire group of lines you select, leaving me with one big pattern that I may need to cut apart again later. I'm not crazy about that but there are other advantages in Fruity that I do like so far. I suppose it's give and take and I'll have to weigh all the issues.

I did discover that I can copy and paste within the pattern to reuse some part of a performance, but it drops whatever I've copied onto the 1 of the measure. So then I have to switch tools and drag it into place. In Orion, I can highlight a group of notes and control-drag them over into a new position. It automatically dupes them when you cntrl-rightclick-drag. I like that a lot, but I see that Fruity has a similar way but it takes longer.

-Shane

dto · Post by **dto** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 2:51 am

In Orion, I can highlight a group of notes and control-drag them over into a new position. It automatically dupes them when you cntrl-rightclick-drag.

Hold the CTRL key and drag the mouse to select multiple notes. Once selected, hold the Shift key and drag to make a copy of the notes and place them where you want.

Shane Sanders · Post by **Shane Sanders** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 2:54 am

dto wrote:
In Orion, I can highlight a group of notes and control-drag them over into a new position. It automatically dupes them when you cntrl-rightclick-drag.
Hold the CTRL key and drag the mouse to select multiple notes. Once selected, hold the Shift key and drag to make a copy of the notes and place them where you want.

Thank you!

dto · Post by **dto** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 3:05 am

Thank you!

No problem!

I also meant to mention that when you use the copy-and-paste method, the new notes will get pasted to the left-most bar in the piano roll view. So, if you wanted to paste the new notes into Bar 4 instead of Bar 1, scroll the piano roll window to the right so that Bar 4 is the first bar you see on the left and the notes will get dropped there instead.

Shane Sanders · Post by **Shane Sanders** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 3:15 am

dto wrote:
Thank you!
No problem!

I also meant to mention that when you use the copy-and-paste method, the new notes will get pasted to the left-most bar in the piano roll view. So, if you wanted to paste the new notes into Bar 4 instead of Bar 1, scroll the piano roll window to the right so that Bar 4 is the first bar you see on the left and the notes will get dropped there instead.

Cool. I can see why people like to rewire Fruity as a dedicated drum sequencer. If the arrangement window worked like Orion, I'd buy it tonight and not look back. I may still buy it, but I find the pattern thing odd even though I also use a pattern based sequencer all the time.

-Shane

Help me understand Fruity Loops