Am I The ONLY Person Who Finds FL Studio EXCEEDINGLY HARD To Understand And Use?

[stonestreet]

Jancivil,

I agree with you that music does not need to conform to a machines clock. All I was intending to say is that just because others use a tool in a limited way does not mean that the tool is necessarily limited in that way and that the next person has to do the same. With experience and imagination a miriad of different ways of working with such tools can be had.

I can imagine that you have bucket loads of experience compared to me by virtue of forum posts I have read that you are included in. The first instrument that I bought was a harmonica. At the time I did not think I would persevere with something like a guitar. Since then I have managed to learn circular breathing and can now play the didgeridoo in a limited way. Audio software wise I first bought Dance Ejay. The last software daw I bought was Cubase SL 1. I have Fruity lifetime upgrades so I do check those out. So I have grown some but not necessarily grown up. I see you mention C4 with timeline warp and now understand what you mean by making the timeline useful. Your mention of timeline warp ties in quite nicely with another thread I was reading yesterday about the merits or not of working with a metronome.

Have fun

Mark

Just because there is a grid does not mean that you have to use it. You can use these daws as glorified tape recorders. What stops anybody from recording straight into the audio editor without any regard for the bpm or the grid.

I am not sure whether my memory serves me well, I think that when I first got Fruity Loops 3 it was similar to Reason in the sense that you could automate anything whilst recording. I have not done so but I think that you could automate the bpm during recording in song mode.

I'm talking about making the timeline useful per se. Rather than what was done in the other video, which doesn't sound like live music, in all likelihood following the fact it was done via midi conforming to a flat tempo for a long time. There is a better M.O. for orchestral music, that is a serious limitation imposed by a design which isn't up to the job really. You're not really dealing with what I wrote, but reacting to it. There is something to learn from it, which is why I went to the trouble.

In fact, what I do typically is record <without any regard for the bpm or the grid>, but should there come a point where I need a useful bars and beats, for scoring other parts, I have those which conform to what I recorded via this tool.

[subsynq]

+1 stonestreet.
@topic: Yes

[idfpower]

Like I said: FL is dead easy to use - if used for the proper job: it's not meant to record a symphonic orchestra with it, it caters primarely to the folks that work a lot with VST instruments, loops, etc.

You can use a different DAW for real instruments recording and/or editing if you can't cope with how FL deals with that, but for pattern based stuff, nothing beats it.

[aciddose]

I should care less about being improperly classified because of some archaic, misogynistic literary device.

Well I suppose we can all start referring to each other as "it" or "shle" or "sli".

Only I don't think the majority of people using this forum would care. I really don't think it has any impact on the discussion. The sex of a person is completely irrelevant and it is in fact better if that information remains hidden.

Only a woman could get riled up about being treated equally without care or concern for their sex.

Happy now?

...And yes it is normal that threads get derailed so let's try to stay on topic, as interesting as these other topics are of course let's try to "thread" our discussion rather than mixing it all together at once.

Facts are that yes, FL like other hosts has it's own set of issues. As I said though I think its piano roll implementation is actually very good and works quite well once you figure out how to use the rest of the host and how to work around its issues.

[SoundGoddess]

FL Studio needs some effort to get your head around it if you're coming from a conventional, linear sort of host. You do get used to it though, and quickly so if your mind is used to patterns.

I'm terribly sorry for being on topic btw, I don't want to derail the derailment.

Most DAW's have you put your audio directly onto a mixer track and the mixer track is where you arrange your song.

In FL, your assign your audio channels to mixer tracks, but how you arrange the song in the playlist is up to you. This is confusing at first, but it allows you to organize and arrange yourself any way you want, to where it makes it much easier to follow the logic of your arrangement.

FL allows you to record audio clips or put loops directly onto the playlist, but where it shines is when you make "patterns" which are essentially your own loops, arranging whatever combination of instruments you want. So it's like having a mini-daw inside of a larger daw.

This is ideal for "progressive" type music, where you increase the complexity of the song over time.

It's a different paradigm, but it allows for much more flexibility in workflow depending on what you're doing. There is also a "performance" mode which is more geared towards live music; I've never tried it so I can't comment on that. But it seems like those who dislike FL the most are more interested in live music than in meticulously arranging studio tracks.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Most DAW's have you put your audio directly onto a mixer track and the mixer track is where you arrange your song.

In FL, your assign your audio channels to mixer tracks, but how you arrange the song in the playlist is up to you. This is confusing at first, but it allows you to organize and arrange yourself any way you want, to where it makes it much easier to follow the logic of your arrangement.

FL allows you to record audio clips or put loops directly onto the playlist, but where it shines is when you make "patterns" which are essentially your own loops, arranging whatever combination of instruments you want. So it's like having a mini-daw inside of a larger daw.

This is ideal for "progressive" type music, where you increase the complexity of the song over time.

It's a different paradigm, but it allows for much more flexibility in workflow depending on what you're doing. There is also a "performance" mode which is more geared towards live music; I've never tried it so I can't comment on that. But it seems like those who dislike FL the most are more interested in live music than in meticulously arranging studio tracks.

Fruity can be used like any other DAW
ie it has the pattern concept and the linear arrangement view.

Fruity is hugely powerful and can do some crazy stuff that makes Sonar, Cubase etc look like grumpy old has beens

[SoundGoddess]

Fruity can be used like any other DAW
ie it has the pattern concept and the linear arrangement view.

Fruity is hugely powerful and can do some crazy stuff that makes Sonar, Cubase etc look like grumpy old has beens

Perhaps you could shed some light on my unanswered question...I'm not trolling, I seriously want to know why one couldn't compose orchestra pieces in FL...

I wasn't trying to impress anyone, simply trying to show what i can be used for, if you want to transcribe classical music you can but the intricacies of a violin solo may be beyond it's means but as said there is edison for that. I don't claim to know everything about it or advocate using FL above anything else; use whatevers suited to what you're doing. FL has a great piano roll which is important for what i do so i spent time learning FL Studios unique paradigm.

The way it handles certain things is unintuitive but there is usually a way to things with the included tools and it's improving with each version. Anyway i'm farked so i'll leave it there. No dog in this fight just trying to show that it's not for loops and people with learning difficulties and you can produce full arrangements with it but it does need improvements. However i doubt it will ever be the goto for classical composers!

So if FL isn't the goto, then what is?

The main point i was trying to make really is that it's a high-end DAW that you can do a hell of a lot with, and a lot of people seem to dismiss it because of its humble beginnings, but frankly I'm impressed with what Image-Line has done as a company.

To your example specific example of a violin solo...why would FL be insufficient? For $99 I can get the eastwest solo violin pack: http://www.soundsonline.com/QL-Solo-Violin ... wouldn't that provide me with the tools necessary to achieve the elusive intricacies of a decent violin solo, at least as good as one could get without hiring an actual violinist and recording them?

I really would like to know, why it would be insufficient enough to allocate that money instead towards a new DAW? Extrapolating even further, why would another DAW for $499+ be a better investment than EW's composer collection bundle that starts at $799? Is FL really that limited, or is it just a matter of having better quality instruments (which has nothing to do with the DAW you're using)?

I understand about having the right tools for the job...but sometimes it seems like the reason why some tools don't seem like they can do the job is that people haven't put in enough effort to learn them.

[hibidy]

[Arglebargle]

The same could be said to you, given that you're constantly posting about how little you care about a thread or how people should stop posting in it.

[SoundGoddess]

hmm well I guess nobody is willing to answer my simple question.

If FL isn't good enough for making orchestral compositions, then what DAW *is* good enough for it? And why would it be better value for my money to save up to purchase said DAW vs. simply buying some instruments from EastWest collection?

In what way is FL limited to where one couldn't make compositions on par with any other virtual orchestral composition? I'm not comparing FL's piano roll to hiring an actual orchestra to play your composition; I'm talking in terms of doing everything 100% digitally...so in what way is FL limited that some other DAW is not in this regards to doing this?

[jancivil]

Fruity can be used like any other DAW
ie it has the pattern concept and the linear arrangement view.

Perhaps you could shed some light on my unanswered question...I'm not trolling, I seriously want to know why one couldn't compose orchestra pieces in FL...

[] to show what i can be used for...
but the intricacies of a violin solo may be beyond it's means. FL has a great piano roll which is important for what i do so i spent time learning FL Studios unique paradigm.

It has a piano roll fashioned pretty much after Cubase. That isn't what is unique about it. It was made for people that think in what we can call a different paradigm (starting out to be a virtual drum machine) than the linear way I adopted from the start, and the market was acknowledged by including a Cubase type of piano roll. However there are some fundamental things that seem 'special' to it that are really sort of incomplete implementation. Such as Cubase gives you all of the events and/or parts in one editor as a no-brainer, the parts distinquished to the editors via 'solo edit' [or not].

It's <Ghost notes - These are notes in other Piano rolls associated with the current Pattern. See the Piano roll Menu > Helpers > Ghost channels (Alt+V) option. To edit Ghost notes (Double Right-click or X1 button) on the notes to switch to the Ghost channel.> for FL Studio. Hence:

The way it handles certain things is unintuitive but there is usually a way
i doubt it will ever be the goto for classical composers!

So if FL isn't the goto, then what is?

Cubase, if you want to know. Digital Performer, people like it. I never got into it as it was very different and VE Pro doesn't love it or vice versa. Logic; Guy Bacos was using it, seems like he switched. Cubase, though, make no mistake.
One can ignore the grid entirely or ignore some of it, or whatever, and work freely. I used to do whole pieces and never set the timeline to bars and beats but ultimately I found I was wasting time and got to where I wanted to define more and more, define all the bars at least. There's more to learn about my own time defining things further, inside bars but I have only got real interested in that lately.

One of the things that happens in an actual orchestra is that instruments speak differently, bigger things move more slowly; a tuba speaks not as fast as a piccolo flute. If you place the percussion at the same place in time, it's going to be perceived as ahead of strings. Even as they are at the back of the stage. These are adjustments that no one notates, that happen with people, and with people in a room where that figures into it. But to fake this in a virtual project involves a type of knowledge about things.

As I have said, this sort of 'live musician effect' does not adhere to ticks of a clock. The ticks of a clock are kind of just less interesting than a musician's time, because a musician is responsive and sensitive. So, I went to some lengths to show a good orchestra doing something at tempo and what the barlines read as. As the eye-opener the Cubase 4 tutorial, using a well-known Pretenders track was for me.

It isn't necessarily anything to do with 'transcribing classical music'. I don't transcribe any performances of classical music. I use that tool which saves me from thinking 'oh, so what's my tempo' and some trial and error; then the whole way of working is you continue to 'decide' on a BPM while you're 'writing'. INSTEAD, I perform the music in and I apprise the machine of the musical places after, by a simple drag of the cursor to them, and it knows absolutely what the time is.
So if someone wants to say 'FLS is not limited in its tools!', it's not a true statement as to these particulars. Unless they have improved it, the way you'd deal with this is to make up a tempo out of a guess at a number and go with that. That puts a cart in front of the horse. Then, the 'automate tempo' was a ramp (which isn't always how you want to change) and a percentage and a whole M.O. I would find anti-conducive. The way I work, I have never had a thought about that number; the horse pulls the cart.

This is not me saying 'FL sucks', or 'don't use it'. But over the years I keep seeing people believing, and reinforcing beliefs, that all teh hosts can do it all. Which isn't any good. Just as I would have to grant 'scenes' to Live and/or Maschine.

One can use FL for orchestra writing. It's not the best tool for that for at least this reason.

As to this distinction between what someone does with an orchestra vs virtual, Danny Elfman says he typically beefs up his orchestra considerably with VSL strings, and he always does his own percussion in the box. What I do seems live to people, it's my whole thing. It doesn't have to sound like a midi and fake.

[jancivil]

FL Studio needs some effort to get your head around it if you're coming from a conventional, linear sort of host. You do get used to it though, and quickly so if your mind is used to patterns.

I'm terribly sorry for being on topic btw, I don't want to derail the derailment.

Hey, I'm an idiot, everything would have been, was a challenge for me starting out.

BUT, since what I DO is more linear music, I would find certain things a PARTICULAR KIND OF Pain In The Ass for that, as they were developed along a quite different line of thinking.

such as that explanation of teh 'ghost notes', a quite circuitous path for something that didn't have to be.

You wanting to control a conversation may make the conversation's turn a derailment but I don't see it that way.

[musikmachine]

@Kati Maya I wasn't saying it wasn't good enough i was saying i doubt it would be the classical composers first or most obvious choice but then i am not one so what do i know? Here's a composition using EWSL Gold, sounds ok to me:

But maybe to the more discerning ear it's too flat or lacks the movement of a real orchestra but i think it would sound fine for film or tv. But i was thinking of real instruments and scoring and composing.

People don't generally associate FL with that but it's a DAW like any other, however i think it's best suited to producing dance music and all the tools it comes with are geared towards that; i certainly wouldn't think of producing hardhouse with Sibelius which is the only notation software i can think of right now!

I use maschine for my drums cause it's designed for it; i get the best results of anything i've used. FL has the best piano roll so i pushed past it's idiosyncracies and i've found as good marriage between the two as maschine doesn't really have a 'song mode' but i'm becoming more comfortable with it the longer i use it. I think FL rocks for working itb, it's extremely stable, good cpu use, native bridging, good stock samples, decent fx plugins, and a great piano roll.

[jancivil]

@Kati Maya I wasn't saying it wasn't good enough i was saying i doubt it would be the classical composers first or most obvious choice but then i am not one so what do i know?
But maybe to the more discerning ear it's too flat or lacks the movement of a real orchestra but i think it would sound fine for film or tv. But i was thinking of real instruments and scoring and composing.

I wouldn't go around characterizing myself as classical music. If you're going to make a big hard rock record ITB you're going to want live feel, there isn't any salient difference here. A lot of KVRs go around thinking that midi has to be this deficient kind of thing. I know educated people that do, too. Doesn't have to be.
I would have a problem with that as a score for anything. Wouldn't happen, too much competition and producers really will want something that sounds more like real music.

however i think it's best suited to producing dance music and all the tools it comes with are geared towards that.

That seems to be true enough.

[robogone]

I'm terribly sorry for being on topic btw, I don't want to derail the derailment.