KVR Audio

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 6:46 am

Shane,

I went through the same thing you're going through, and eventually just gave up and went back to Orion. Fruity's sequencing strategy is essentially the inverse of the one used in Orion. I fully understand the concept, but it simply does not fit with my working methods. Fruity beats Orion hands down as far as features and stability, but I just couldn't stand the pattern sequencing. Eventually, I settled on Orion and Acid for loop-based sequencing, and more recently Nuendo for linear compositions and for scoring to video.

I really wish I could like Fruity, but I guess it just wasn't meant to be...

Orion tip: your patterns can actually be longer than 999 beats. If you double click on the number of beats, a window will pop up, and I believe you can set the duration to a maximum of somewhere around 4000 beats.

krumelur · Post by **krumelur** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 3:05 am

muting/unmuting/solo is most easily made in the step-sequencer. Click the little green dot to the left (i think) of the panning knob. Next try clicking it with right mousebutton. Oh and the solo-button in the mixer section can come handy many a time.

All this stuff has really been moved from my memory banks down to my instincts in the spine or something.. cant recall how to do it but when Im working its all automatic and light speed.

One annoyance could be, unless youve got a big screen or dual screens, is moving around windows.. Im a bit less disciplined when it comes to this so I allways end up with three or four windows "in the way" of what I want to do next. Gotta get me a setup like JMC with two nice flatscreens.. one dedicated for the playlist. proper shit!

Another flaw of the program is 24-bit audio support.(forget about recording or rendering 24-bit, current situation is constantly down-sampling from 32 in wavelab) and possibly even more annoying only stereo recording.
Otherwise recording is pretty slick.
There are no really reliable meters in the mixer, no numbers to give you a hint on where u are. So keeping good levels can be tricky if you are the picky type.

The slicer is probably the funkiest musical device since the discovery of hearing, I use it all the time for everything.. some of my tracks consists only of a bunch of slicers.. man, they're awesome.

MacQ · Post by **MacQ** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 2:20 am

I'm an avid FL user, and I recommend it to just about everyone. The only little niggles I have with it are:

1. When using it as a VSTi (as I do invariably), sometimes the marker denoting playlist position in FL will get out of sync with the actual playlist position. This strange behavior seems to be saved in the file, as well. This is in Cubase SX, anyway, and I admit I've not tried other hosts or the ReWire version to see if this is still a problem. Also v4.52 was just released, and I haven't tested to see if this bug is still occuring.

2. FL currently contains NO MISSING FILE options. If a sample file is missing when you load a song, FL doesn't bother to ask you about replacing it, and it doesn't bother to look for it, either. It just loads a red channel to tell you that your file is missing. Even more problematic is when you've renamed the channel and you don't know what the original filename was! A major problem if you're ever transfering projects and you forget to save all of the samples with the file.

Other than these 2 things, though, I can't think of anything that I'd add or change. It works very well, and is very stable. I've only ever had it crash a few times on me, and only then under HEAVY CPU load. It works as advertised 99.9% of the time.

I hope you get the hang of it!

(stu.macQ)

xander · Post by **xander** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 2:50 am

With version 4.5.2, I'm set. FLS is awesome and it does everything I could want except the dishes. I also like the quick setup and go capability and creative expression. I can go from idea to finished product in about half the time it used to take me with Sonar. You just have to get used to doing patterns in a different way than by counting beats - but it's easy to do and the product is the same. I used to bitch about it back in version 3.2 and wouldn't buy it, but now I am glad I did. It rocks - and now I notice a lot of other companies are copying parts of FLS user interface (I won't mention any specific names)..

Shane Sanders · Post by **Shane Sanders** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 3:56 am

Thanks to all for your advice and insight. I made the plunge and the registration was simple enough. The FL forum looks awful compared to the product, but I can live with that.

I don't plan to stop using Orion for some things because it has some great synths and a very nifty approach to arrangement, etc. But I just got tired of the crashes and the inability to easily substitute one VSTi for another while trying out various orchestration ideas.

The things that really sold me on FL were:
1. free updates - I need to jump off the upgrade treadmill for my host
2. being able to use the "select a plug-in" button
3. the onion-skinning thing where you can see the other note data underneath the one you are working on. This is great for counterpoint and helping me visualize as well as hear cool syncopations
4. having 8 FX per mixer strips. Though Orion will allow for this now, it's more cumbersome. I still have EnergyXT if I need to go beyond 8 (a rare thing for me)
5. superior EQ and superior FX generally
6. preset browsing with drag and drop
7. layer groups
8. all the automation controllers, particularly the X-Y controller. I plan to get one of the dual USB joystick things for $20

I'll just have to get used to working with larger patterns.

The things I will miss about Orion are:
1. the arrangement concept
2. Ultran, the Drum module, and Wavefusion (maybe Rich will make these standalone VSTi at some point)
3. the grooveslicer
4. the cool little X-Y multiFX thing
5. the subBussing approach (I'm sure there's a way to do this in FL, but I haven't seen it yet)
6. the way the Pluck template thing worked - it was dead easy and gave visual feedback on your strum

I won't miss the way Orion sometimes crashes while you are moving notes around in loop mode. I've lost a lot of cool riffs that way because I would get so involved in the creative process and forget to save for 15 minutes

-Shane

experimental.crow · Post by **experimental.crow** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:25 am

welcome aboard ...
hope all works well for you ...

Beardedone · Post by **Beardedone** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:31 am

Excellent Shane. Use it in good health.

Cheers,
Gordon

digitalstasis · Post by **digitalstasis** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:05 am

3. the onion-skinning thing where you can see the other note data underneath the one you are working on. This is great for counterpoint and helping me visualize as well as hear cool syncopations

you may like this file a lot (that is not from me but i don't remember the name of the "originator")
http://singletown.free.fr/FLP%20files/ModesScales.rar
That are modes, scales, "scaled" chords, just extract the folder in FL\data\patches\scores to have it amongst other score files (btw you can save your own score files)

4. having 8 FX per mixer strips. Though Orion will allow for this now, it's more cumbersome. I still have EnergyXT if I need to go beyond 8 (a rare thing for me)

...and routing FX tracks to other FX tracks - wich means you have quasi unlimited effect slots for 1 sound, and other things like live recording/editing generator FX track(mixer track) change !

5. superior EQ and superior FX generally

indeed ! i don't know how superior they are, but they are very good and close to be cpu transparent even when using [many] x [a lot]!

The things I will miss about Orion are:
1. the arrangement concept

In my sense there is a great freedom offered by the playlist/pattern FL architecture. I can't extend on that without being very long, so i hope you will find your pleasure with it anyway.
Quicly I would say FL is so pattern based that you can absolutely forget about them. be free, the app always will arrange easily the strangest patterns together... it's the ideal polyrithmic/polymelodic tool also, cause you can even play with no academic knowledge of polyrythmie, it's the core of FL !

3. the grooveslicer

the beatslicer, that does not come with FL, looks like a very efficient one, but comes apart (but works perfectly within FL since you buy it)

5. the subBussing approach (I'm sure there's a way to do this in FL, but I haven't seen it yet)

yep, it is in the FX tracks module. Routings of the 64 tracks are fully assignable for making subs or any other routings (although you can't route mixer track 4 to 5 and then 5 to 4, what seems logical)

I won't miss the way Orion sometimes crashes while you are moving notes around in loop mode. I've lost a lot of cool riffs that way because I would get so involved in the creative process and forget to save for 15 minutes

haven't you ever had good results in the middle of moving notes ? i like to launch the live audio rec before doing that.

Also there is many things that you can save like scores, mixer tracks, automations, layers etc... and all scores can be used to quantize other scores.

I hope FL will soon be transparent to you, have fun

atomic_(no)afro · Post by **atomic_(no)afro** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:18 am

I've been using FLStudio alot this week myself. I finally have had it with Acid Pro 4's issues. When I discovered the power of FLS's audio sequencing in the playlist window, I was totally sold. My process now is to make a very basic track with very little flash and changeups with fruity's pattern based sequencing. Then I bounce every track down to audio. Then I go back, put all the audio into the playlist menu, chop them up, and re-arrange them into a final mixdown. Doesn't work so hot for melodies, but for perc, drums, & sfx it's great. I can stutter, reverse, and change the pitch of a drum all on a single channel (since in FLS audio files can share the same track, something that Acid could never do). If there is a slight melodic variation that I want on a certain bar, I go back to my original project (at this point I resaved the project as a "mixdown" version, and killed all the sofsynth tracks to save CPU) and record a new pattern just for that bar. I export that bar out and slap it in the new mixdown project. It's a bit of work, but it's fair in comparison to the headaches I had with Acid.

ATA

scuzzphut · Post by **scuzzphut** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 7:55 am

try hitting F10 and setting a midi channel for channel muting.

that's great fun and relly helpful when playing around trying to decide on an arrangement. it's like a budget Ableton Live

mon0 · Post by **mon0** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 12:58 pm

Well, well, the choice between FL and Orion gives me headaches bout a few moths now.
The Playlist and Pattern System in Orion seems almost perfect for me. I have Multiple Patterns for each Instrument (!!!) and the Playlist shows me easily which pattern on which Instrument is running - excellent. FL manages this a bit strange IMHO and in a much more time wasting-style. For example:
I have a 4/4 Bass on Pattern 1. Now i want to add a synth with 32 length melody. Both Instruments could no be add together in 1 Pattern in FL, cause the 4/4 und 32 Beats wont function. So i make a new group, where i put the synthi in. BUT careful: the new group has to be on Pattern 2, elsewhere it wont work.
So thats quite shitty tbh.
In Orion i go go to the drummachine, give it pattern 1 and add it to the playlist under the drum entry. next i start the synth and add him under pattern 1 of the synth. thats it. theres no easier way.
Saddly my Orion 5.20 is making trouble with Albino2, cause i all Events in the Event Editor are named "unassigned". With 50 Entry of that its quite hard to find the responding knobs on Albino2.

Mirabebe · Post by **Mirabebe** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 1:12 pm

The distinction between Orion and FL pattern style is extremely simple:

Orion pattern - can only contain a single instrument.

FL pattern - can contain any mumber of instruments.

Btw if you liked strum in Orion - take a look at strum tool in FL pianoroll (click on the little piano in the corner of pianoroll - and look in tools menu). When playing around with it (and the groove quantize, and chooper) - remember that "Spacebar" triggers playback - so you can hear what you doing immediately and visually.

bluedad · Post by **bluedad** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 1:19 pm

one reason I get pissed off at fl studio, is that the last few times I've begun something, when I come back to open the tune and work on it - it gets hung up looking for something and won't open again!
this has happened using only native plugs as well.
and I have posted at loop talk..

j.ho · Post by **j.ho** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 1:33 pm

Great thread! Can some folks post some of the tutorial links, user sites, etc for FL?

I tried downloading some of the tutorials from their website (FL) but they wouldn't donwload.

ANyway, picked up some good tips here...keep it going!

bluedad · Post by **bluedad** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 1:36 pm

fl studio handbook
I like this place

Help me understand Fruity Loops