Why doesn't Sound on Sound mag. have an FL Studio section?

[robotmonkey]

FWIW, I just checked DJ Mags top 100 DJs - http://www.djmag.com/top-100-djs

Think of it what you will, but these guys are making serious money in the business and so I would call them 'professionals'.

10% of the people on that list are using FL Studio as their primary DAW platform.

Arty
Avicii
Afrojack
Dyro
Porter Robinson
Madeon
Oliver Heldens
Ummet Ozcan
Martin Garrix
Heatbeat

It jumps to around 20%+ when you include people who use it as a second DAW or got their start using it.

The days are long gone when FL Studio has anything to prove about being a viable platform on which to base your music career.

Regards Scott

Well, I see your point, but with all due respect these are the people who enter stuff into piano roll with the mouse most of the time (I admit FL is great for that).

In the context of why FL Studio is considered kids DAW, so far the critics in this thread have been spot on. And I'm not trying to put FL Studio down, I have been using it since it was Frutiy Loops 2 so I know where it's lacking. But when we talk pro then none of the above can hold the candle compared to any of the innumerable real musicians who are masters in recording and playing instruments and studio production and who actually take music somewhere.

[Image-Line]

Well, I see your point, but with all due respect these are the people who enter stuff into piano roll with the mouse most of the time (I admit FL is great for that).

None of the following are 'kids' just entering stuff into the piano roll.

Armin van Buuren

BT (Brian Transeau) - http://www.image-line.com/documents/pow ... ranseau%29

The Flashbulb (Benn Jordan) - http://www.image-line.com/documents/pow ... -jordan%29

Jayce Lewis - http://www.image-line.com/documents/pow ... e-lewis%29

Zardonic - http://www.image-line.com/documents/pow ... -agreda%29

Dot Rotten - http://www.image-line.com/documents/pow ... h-ellis%29

Savant - http://www.image-line.com/documents/pow ... -vinter%29

Tom Ellard (Severed Heads) - http://www.image-line.com/documents/pow ... tom-ellard

Blake Robinson - http://www.image-line.com/documents/pow ... obinson%29

Ronald Jenkees - http://www.image-line.com/documents/pow ... ld-jenkees

As for the previous list, it's like saying Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart just wrote notes on a piece of manuscript? It's very easy to dismiss and denigrate the work of others. Artists, like Avicii, are making tracks that are the classics of their generation. People attend to the data that fits their preconceptions, that's all, and it sounds to me as if you have decided that musicians who record guitars are somehow more real than those who compose complete tracks on a computer.

Regards Scott

[Mivo]

But when we talk pro then none of the above can hold the candle compared to any of the innumerable real musicians who are masters in recording and playing instruments and studio production and who actually take music somewhere.

Fewer and fewer studios use session musicians. A lot of the orchestral or seemingly acoustic music you hear in movies, for example, is just samples. Real musicians are costly, and the vast majority of people can't even hear the difference anymore.

I honestly don't "get" how purely electronic musicians aren't "real musicians". Learning how to use synths, DAWs, plugins, etc really well isn't even very different from learning how to play a traditional instrument. Both approaches require a lot of time and a lot of practice. Knowing how to use these well allows for as much expressiveness as playing a "normal" instrument does. The computer is the instrument.

DAWs are tools. FL Studio isn't my first choice when recording my acoustic instruments (neither are most of the other DAWs I bought or tested), though I just decided to actually learn how to do this properly in FL Studio this week (inspired by Scott's video above), but I don't see how that makes it a program for "kids", or something for people who aren't "real musicians". At most, it makes it a tool lesser suited for people who have an "old school" background in recording audio, and who want to do multitrack recording in an old-fashioned way.

Recording has nothing to do with "real music" anyway, unless by "real music" you mean sound waves coming from a hallow, wooden container of varying shape. It's just the art of getting the sound onto a persistent medium. With computer generated sound (that is, the computer is what the guitar or the piano are), you don't need this step. The rest, like mixing and mastering, is required just the same.

[TheNickC]

I honestly don't "get" how purely electronic musicians aren't "real musicians". Learning how to use synths, DAWs, plugins, etc really well isn't even very different from learning how to play a traditional instrument. Both approaches require a lot of time and a lot of practice. Knowing how to use these well allows for as much expressiveness as playing a "normal" instrument does. The computer is the instrument

It is very different in terms of the physical skillset required, you can for instance sequence some pretty good sounding music if you have horrible timing and dexterity as long as you have the knowledge and creativity in your head where you can make good melodies, rhythms, and harmonies. This of course is going to be offensive and scary to people who've been playing instruments since they were young children and can do amazing things with them, so there's a reflexive tendency to discredit people that only compose and produce. Add to this that music is already something that people have a predisposition to becoming extremely snobby about and it's really not hard to understand why the "not real musicians" thing comes up. Although strictly speaking, musician describes someone that plays an instrument, a composer isn't necessarily a musician. The mistake is the elitist attitude that only by playing an instrument at a high level can one compose good music, which is clearly not the case

[Mivo]

I agree on the physical skillset that is required, though I've always felt that it is a shame that it excludes numerous people from unleashing their inner musician. I say this as someone who is much better at playing traditional instruments than at making electronic music. Being over forty, though, I am painfully aware that one day dexterity and nimbleness will fade (they already do), so I'm really glad that computers now make fantastic instruments that don't have insurmountable physical requirements. It allows many more folks to make music that actually sounds decent without having to practice for countless years.

[tooneba]

I enjoyed reading another stereotyped typical authoritarian elitist comment.

[whyterabbyt]

I'm pretty sure its either because Sound On Sound have never done any research whatsoever into the demographic of their readership and just picked the software they do focus on at random, or because they're innately prejudiced against the users of every other bit of software except the ones they do focus on, who they think are all dicks. That must be it, there's clearly no rationale explanation for their omission. Clearly this thread perfectly reasonable and in no way comprises the basic childish kneejerk of 'you dont like my favourite toys so you suck.'

[LawrenceF]

Leave it to KVR to turn what was a relatively decent and informative objective technical discussion into a war between EDM people and acoustic musicians.

FL being better at electronic music than the other stuff has nothing to do with how some people choose to make their music. I am personally not a fan of most electronic music but if an artist is making it and people are buying it, good for him. Nobody is buying any music I created.

As to the other stuff, like I said way back, you can fill that conventional role with FL but few who only do that or largely do that would choose to for obvious reasons. Scott's video aside, which didn't really address the biggest differences in detail, it's simply not one of the better choices for that role and we all know it.

Like I said earlier, you can muti-track in anything but like Bitwig has clearly stated that's not what they built the product for, to be another PT, which just not makes that thing "possible", but is "really great" at that role... which is not quite the same thing as it just being "possible". It's one thing to record your own drums at your leisure, it's another to be on the clock when someone else is burning $70 an hour.

Point me to any collection of full time commercial walk in studios who are regularly multi-tracking with FL or Live or similar and I'll change my view on that. Someone somewhere is doing that successfully with Garargeband but that doesn't by itself make it the best choice for that.

In my opinion, the "kids" are people prone to calling the hard work of others "toys", because mature adults don't really think that way. The Imageline guys are professional developers with a successful line of products, they're not making cheap plastic throw away products for Toys 'R Us.

At any rate, I own FL Studio Fruity Edition because long before I even heard of Fruity Loops I already owned products that were many miles better at the studio role so why would I ever use FL for that? I mostly run it as a VSTI to more easily do all the stuff it does really well that Cubase or S1 or whatever struggle with.

[GaryG]

I'm pretty sure its either because Sound On Sound have never done any research whatsoever into the demographic of their readership and just picked the software they do focus on at random, or because they're innately prejudiced against the users of every other bit of software except the ones they do focus on, who they think are all dicks. That must be it, there's clearly no rationale explanation for their omission. Clearly this thread perfectly reasonable and in no way comprises the basic childish kneejerk of 'you dont like my favourite toys so you suck.'

I remember the shortlived Reaper column (assume it never came back, haven't looked at SoS for a few years..?). They admitted they had trouble finding a writer with the knowledge needed to write the depth of article they wanted every month.

Probably the same with FL, simply don't have a writer who can cover it comprehensively.

[trimph1]

Don't you still need some kind of musical talent to pull off what Tom Ellard and others do??

My god...just listen to them. Sheeesh.

Oh...BTW...I am just joking about FL being a toy!!!

[Image-Line]

Don't you still need some kind of musical talent to pull off what Tom Ellard and others do??

My god...just listen to them. Sheeesh.

Amazing what a man and his dog can do with FL Studio...

[hibidy]

I SUCK!

[t3toooo]

Avicii, are making tracks that are the classics of their generation.

So is Heino.

[Kriminal]

Avicii, are making tracks that are the classics of their generation.

[robotmonkey]

I enjoyed reading another stereotyped typical authoritarian elitist comment.

There's nothing wrong with elitism.