Getting bored of Fl Studio... What should I try?

[arkmabat]

If an artist gets bored of a piece of paper, he doesn't rip it up and go buy another. While paper quality can vary, the truth of the matter is, what you put on a canvas matters a lot more than the canvas itself. And if you don't want to put anything on that canvas, you're chasing the wrong thing. You need a new muse.

Now let me eat my own words with an example. I hadn't picked up my guitar in months. A music shop guy recommended me new strings for a few bucks. I said, "what the hell, why not" and tossed them in my shopping cart. Enter today. I put on the new strings. They vibrate with life. They're easier to hold down than before. But, WAIT! Why did I just now put them on? It's been weeks since I bought them. Well, I heard a song I really liked and wanted to learn to play it. The strings were a good reason to sit down with her finally, but the rest of the day was focused on music I liked, not the strings. At some point, the tool becomes invisible as the sounds become more solid than physical mass.

TL;DR
If you're not writing music you like, it doesn't matter how nice your tools are.
If you're writing music you like, it doesn't matter how nice your tools are.

[fairlyclose]

lots of creative people have different modes within which they are creative - some need to be happy, some depressed, some need to be in new environments, some like to be in the familiar. And most people move through that a bit as well. Sounds like you need a new environment for a bit. I would suggest Bitwig 8 track, which I think is free, and work with just a few tracks and lots of complex modulation.
But, if you are normally doing that sort of thing in FL then I would suggest get Reaper and work with audio files, no instruments at all, and use FX to make pieces with them. Reaper is cheap and audio files from places like freesound or https://www.freetousesounds.com/ are free. Nice challenge to explore FX that can impose melodic and rhythmic structure on field recordings - or maybe you come up with other types of music. Totally up to you.

[arkmabat]

True. Effects routing can be very different by DAW, and that could play a significant part in audio production if your DAW is holding you back from doing so. Certainly, every DAW has things they are better and worse at than another, but unless somebody is okay porting their songs into multiple DAWs, it makes more sense to learn how to do it in one rather than jump around. That said, some people work best this way. A radio chart-topper a decade ago was literally written in Reason and the vocals recorded in a program worse than Audacity, so you never know what will work best for somebody's workflow.

[fairlyclose]

True. Effects routing can be very different by DAW, and that could play a significant part in audio production if your DAW is holding you back from doing so. Certainly, every DAW has things they are better and worse at than another, but unless somebody is okay porting their songs into multiple DAWs, it makes more sense to learn how to do it in one rather than jump around. That said, some people work best this way. A radio chart-topper a decade ago was literally written in Reason and the vocals recorded in a program worse than Audacity, so you never know what will work best for somebody's workflow.

I use 3 DAWs, they all can do almost everything but the workflows are very different. For example Reaper is good for audio editing and simple FX processing but Bitwig is substantially better for work using lots of modulation. S1 has good ARA implementation and its own very good workflow for integrating instruments, FX automation and audio.

[xbitz]

I would try Rapid(-FX) before or beside Reason
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9KDD7kXAOM
it brings FL a bit closer to Bitwig, has very good modulation and sound design capabilities (and a great synth), MSEG is missing but
https://parawave-audio.com/rapid_roadmap

1.9.0
Freeform MSEG sequences.
Custom mapping curves for routing entries.
Copy/Paste/Save/Load effect stacks.
Undo/Redo.
Quick Import.

so fingers crossed, btw FL 21 gonna work and look "drastically" differently so wouldn't change it now

'21 will introduce some of the biggest workflow enhancements since...ever.' (c) Scott

Really excited for upcoming 21.0 version, so i decided to gather everything devs rumored or confirmed.
Feel free to add features/plugins that i missed (i'm sure there are plenty).

Playlist

- Selectable tracks
- Clone tracks
- Crossfades *
- Midi loop recording
- Integrated Newtone, Newtime & Edison plugins *
- Editable automation clips from the source
- 'Target link' window for automations to see what is linked to what
- Improved instrument/audio track workflow

* Highly requested and most likely in the works, but without any specifics, so don't give it too much hope.

Piano roll

- Vector based automations (also in automation clip channel settings, outside of piano roll)

Improved browser

Undo anything

New Plugins

- New LUFS / ISP-meter plugin
- New frequency analyser plugin
- Formant & Pitch-Shifter plugins
- Frequency Shifter
- PEQ3

- New synth

Updated Plugins

- 'HQ' button for 3xOSC (anti aliased oscillators)

Misc

- New themes (Dark Mode, Light Mode, Neon Theme, etc.)
- Customisable interface colours
- Custom keyboard shortcuts
- More languages support

Other

- No further development of VST versions of IL plugins
- No further support for 32-bit versions of FL (32-bit VST Bridge will remain)
- Multi-user support

- https://forum.image-line.com/viewtopic.php?t=245979

global undo, automation and multitrack selecting already has been published in the first beta
https://forum.image-line.com/viewtopic. ... 0&t=255587
so already much better than the prev versions

[arkmabat]

Holy hell. Reading about Rapid now. Looks neat.

[xbitz]

True. Effects routing can be very different by DAW, and that could play a significant part in audio production if your DAW is holding you back from doing so. Certainly, every DAW has things they are better and worse at than another, but unless somebody is okay porting their songs into multiple DAWs, it makes more sense to learn how to do it in one rather than jump around. That said, some people work best this way. A radio chart-topper a decade ago was literally written in Reason and the vocals recorded in a program worse than Audacity, so you never know what will work best for somebody's workflow.

compare to this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0NVZl3ESZ4
Bitwig/Reason 0.01

[Trancit]

I agree with most of the previous posts...

Even if of course a new DAW can bring new inspiration there are many things to get used to...
If you are happy in general with the workflow of FLS I doubt you will find a home anywhere else...

My first thought would be going to get some new toys especially if you used primarily IL natives before...

Rapid is a great choice but imho nothing beats atm the Reason Rack as addition to FL Studio...
The Player devices alone, which are second to none in the VST world, can bring inspiration for long long time...

[DizzlerMusic]

try ableton or bitwig, theres tons of interesting stuff there. But i personally was never able to switch because i was so used to FL´s workflow, but its still fun to try another DAW.

[chk071]

I often get this "bored" feeling when I can't be arsed to go into more detail of the software I use. So, my advice would be... to get a grip on yourself. Sounds harsh, but, it's basically just that.

If you feel like the software hinders you, you don't like the workflow, or it simply doesn't have the features you want from it, or you dislike the GUI, or anything, that's a different story. Or... if it doesn't inspire you. That's a very valid reason as well.

[Kinh]

why arr-you gettin' bored?

[antic604]

Try knitting. You should pick it up quickly, as it's also pattern-based and requires a lot of manual work.

[xbitz]

I agree with most of the previous posts...

Even if of course a new DAW can bring new inspiration there are many things to get used to...
If you are happy in general with the workflow of FLS I doubt you will find a home anywhere else...

My first thought would be going to get some new toys especially if you used primarily IL natives before...

Rapid is a great choice but imho nothing beats atm the Reason Rack as addition to FL Studio...
The Player devices alone, which are second to none in the VST world, can bring inspiration for long long time...

sure but RapidFX quite a good quality of life stuff in FL (who wants open closes windows in it constantly)

with 8 uniformized parallel/serial fx layers (tons of devices) and Bitwig like modulation/macros (around 1%-2% CPU per instance depending on the used layers)

Filter & Insert

6, 12, 24 dB Lowpass and Highpass.
12, 24 dB Pro-Lowpass.
12, 24 dB Bandpass and Peak.
24 dB Multi-Bandpass and Multi-Peak.
12 dB Notch and Multi-Notch.
Acid, Analog, Legacy and Vintage Lowpass
Xtreme Lowpass I and II.
Formant, Vowel, Bitcrusher and Sample and Hold.
Feedback-Comb and Time-Lag.
Parallel and Serial Low/High-Pass combination.
Tube Distortion, Overdrive and Tone-Fuzz.
Exciter and Attack Booster.

Modulators

4x ADSR envelopes with adjustable slopes.
4x LFOs with dual waveform and phase bending for complex shapes.
4x Sequences with up to 32 steps, with loop and one-shot mode.
Different trigger modes for various use-cases.

Effects

Reverb with 8 spatial models for different sizes.
Delay with smooth delay time modulation.
Dual Delay with Cross-Feedback and Ping-Pong mode.
Tonal Delay with tunable delay times.
Chamber for very short reverb acoustics.
Smooth Tube Distortion with dynamic EQ Boost.
Bit-Crusher, Rate-Reduction with jitter.
2-Band Waveshaper with adjustable crossover.
4-Band Saturator with 16 different insert types.
Phaser, Flanger, Chorus with precise modulation depth control.
Ensemble Chorus.
Multi-Stage dual Chorus X.
3-Band-Equalizer with low-pass, high-pass, low-shelf, high-shelf and bell filter.
Talker Filter 6 vocal formant modes and internal crusher.
Dynamic Compressor with Digital and Analog mode.
Syncable Sidechain leveler with different shapes.
32-step stereo Trancegate with Shuffle-Rhytmn control.
Send Router, for parallel mixing with other layers.
Tapestop with adjustable slope, start and stop time.
Glitch for pitch shift, stutter and time jumps, controllable by sequences.
Vintagizer Retro and Lo-Fi emulation.

but the "Send Router, for parallel mixing with other layers." makes it very usable

https://parawave-audio.com/rapid_synth , fyi only miss MSEG but FL has so ... hope one day Vital also gonna get fx unit https://forum.vital.audio/t/vital-fx-in-the-future/515 has a nice long request topic of it

[jonljacobi]

Try a new approach. Or get a new hobby.

[Googly Smythe]

Sequoia
https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/i ... roductMenu