Should I get FL Studio All Plugins Edition?

[SamDi]

I was in the same boat a week ago. Installed the demo twice, tried to make some tune each time, loved some aspects of FL and hated many, MANY more. It's an awesome deal, but you have to comit to using it, since you can't use all of those plugins elsewhere. In my case announcement of Live 11 sealed the deal, because I'd rather get the upgrade there, than buy a new DAW that I don't really like.

Oh, and since I'm in Europe the actual price of the All Plugins - with tax - was like EUR480, compred to say FL Studio Producers Edition at audiodeluxe.com at USD250 (EUR210) incl. current -15% discount: https://www.audiodeluxe.com/products/im ... ure-bundle

Oh mate this is so cool. Thanks to your hint, I was able to get the All Plugins Bundle for ~350 EUR -in Europe. Bought Signature Edition at audiodeluxe.com for 225€ (Paypal stole 10€ for exchanging to Euros) and then upgraded to All Plugins Bundle for 127€ (incl. VAT) directly at IL. So I was even cheaper, than the offer from IL w/o VAT. Crazyness!!!

[Skandiluz]

Well, good luck then! As I said I gave it a chance few times - by now 5 or 6 at least - and I just can't use it. It's to different & weird, but perhaps v21 changes that

Do you have 2-3 examples, what you found weird? My impression was: not as streamlined as Ableton, but nevertheless quite useful. I do not intend to use it as a full-stack-DAW. Intention is to build some bass, beat, texture skelettons via patterns and then export it to another DAW . I am lacking of motivation to vary bass and beat in linear DAW measures. So maybe this step-sequencer/pattern approach is giving me some gain to handle it

Imo, even though FL is where I started, I just can't get to grips with it anymore. Everything is too chaotic for me. For example, here's some things I truly find annoying (not unworkable, just annoying - to me):

- Instead of tracks, there's patterns. Anything can go in a pattern and then you place a pattern on the playlist.
- Anything goes anywhere, on top of anything. Unless you're very meticulous about where you put stuff, you can have an audio clip sit on top of a midi clip which sits on top of an automation clip. They've only recently implemented a "track style" but it's still not really that great, imo.
- Grid snapping is a little wonky at times. To get on the grid sometimes, I have to zoom in super close. Most daws, this isn't an issue.

There's some other smaller issues that bother me (clip bouncing, track insert copying, etc) but nothing show stopping wise. I do love the lifetime free updates, the vector GUI, and the smoothness, but that's kind of where it all ends for me.

Also, this isn't to say that I think FL is bad software. It's the complete opposite. I think it's fantastic and I applaud IL for sticking with their promise of lifetime free updates. Just the workflow isn't for me anymore no matter how hard I try. Kudos to those who love it though.

[Yorrrrrr]

No. Get another DAW. Live 10 (free upgrade to 11), for instance. Great price here: https://www.thomannmusic.com/ableton_live_10_suite.htm

[antic604]

Well, good luck then! As I said I gave it a chance few times - by now 5 or 6 at least - and I just can't use it. It's to different & weird, but perhaps v21 changes that

Do you have 2-3 examples, what you found weird? My impression was: not as streamlined as Ableton, but nevertheless quite useful. I do not intend to use it as a full-stack-DAW. Intention is to build some bass, beat, texture skelettons via patterns and then export it to another DAW . I am lacking of motivation to vary bass and beat in linear DAW measures. So maybe this step-sequencer/pattern approach is giving me some gain to handle it

Mostly what @Skandiz said above ^^^

I started with trackers on 8-bit Atari and Amiga, so patterns shouldn't be weird for me, but the way FL implements it and kind of blends it with "normal" DAW is weird. They tried to salvage that with 20.1, that introduced notion of instrument & audio tracks that "link" plugin to track, to rack and to mixer, but this "link" easily breaks and you get back to separate worlds. Also, for someone working mostly in Bitwig, the amount of long, multi-level drop down menuse everywhere is overwhelming; and so is the total lack of control over pop-up windows.

It's chaos. It mighe be beautiful chaos and in the right hands and then it's definitely inspiring and very powerful (https://sourone.bandcamp.com/album/subsurface), but those are not my hands

Happy you could upgrade from Producers Edition like that. I thought about it, but have not even asked anyone because I thought it's too good to be true

[antic604]

No. Get another DAW. Live 10 (free upgrade to 11), for instance. Great price here: https://www.thomannmusic.com/ableton_live_10_suite.htm

He's already 90% Live user. It's another side-DAW, for fun and when inspiration drops

[stillshaded]

Eh.. what the hell is this thread even about now? Tried skimming it and it just seems really confusing.

Anyway, in response to the OP:

If you have all those daws, I’m guessing you have a lot of instruments too. It seems kind of insane to drop all that money on the all plugins bundle if you aren’t even set on FLS.. unless you’re rich. In that case, go for it.

IMO, sytrus and harmor are the only plugins that are anything to write home about. Other than that, the charm and usefulness of FL has nothing to do with plugins. You can get all your bases covered with producer edition and freeware.

[antic604]

IMO, sytrus and harmor are the only plugins that are anything to write home about.

Agreed. That's why I got the VST versions cheap last year on sale

[xbitz]

Since big enterprises & companies are by default much stronger in terms of finance and structure, than end-consumers, they are protected by many laws in Europe.

Just to put things a bit into perspective: https://www.owler.com/company/image-line

Employees: 35. Estimated annual revenue: $20.9 millions.

Image-Line, just like most of the other audio software companies is a (very) low tier company, not a big "enterprise". And even if they were bigger, I couldn't really comprehend why it has to be brought up so many times that they should be sued or whatever. If you really feel like they break laws, and you're so hurt and harmed by that, then I would just sue them, rather than talk about it the whole time. Or you just accept that about every company in this business is a small business, consist of musicians in many cases, and, especially, of people who need to bring food on the table.

Yeah of course. It's no NASDAQ-100 company. I just tried to explain, what is the intention of the laws, which regulate B2C relationships and contracting.

I have the impression, you mix-up things. I didn't complain about anything. I just bought FL studio 30 minutes ago, so why should I accuse them? I don't care for NFR, because I do not sell SW, at least up until now. I just answered to antic604's post. Maybe you should re-read his post and my answer and calm down..

just to see

the dev team, just another typical "girl band" https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio-ne ... tudio-bus/ no offense

[antic604]

just to see

the dev team, just another typical "girl band" https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio-ne ... tudio-bus/ no offense

Man, with each post you're making me care about IL more and more, leading to me wanting to support them by buying FL... The "personal touch" vibe I'm getting from such photos or how they interact on the forum with users is really quite something!

Yes, I know by KvR standards - and logic, to some extent - it's a wrong reason to buy a DAW

[xbitz]

^^^ "They tried to salvage that with 20.1, that introduced notion of instrument & audio tracks that "link" plugin to track, to rack and to mixer, but this "link" easily breaks and you get back to separate worlds"

separated worlds are the normal working methodology in FL, the channel<>mixer assignments can be automated (or this how you can do A/B ing in FL)

FL is fully modular it has to be used(be exploited) instead of work against it

ps. if Mattias was able to learn it you will able to handle it

[stillshaded]

IMO, sytrus and harmor are the only plugins that are anything to write home about.

Agreed. That's why I got the VST versions cheap last year on sale

They really are quite good

[Reefius]

I see people praise Harmor all the time, but every time I try it I can't seem to get any decent sounds out of it. I don't have this problem with other synths so I guess Harmor requires a different approach which I have yet to discover.

[antic604]

I see people praise Harmor all the time, but every time I try it I can't seem to get any decent sounds out of it. I don't have this problem with other synths so I guess Harmor requires a different approach which I have yet to discover.

He's using an older GUI version that was messy as hell, but the workflow and ideas remain the same. Yes, it's quite a special synth

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... U3jGkyyAbb

[Reefius]

If only I had the patience to watch all those video's

[antic604]

If only I had the patience to watch all those video's

This one's only 11:34