FL Studio 5

[JMC]

I know I'll get flamed but man, FLStudio is *hard* to figure out!

You'll get it eventually. Don't worry.

In the meanwhile check out :

http://www.flstudio.com/tutorials

... for 12 new video tutorials we have put online today (more advance once coming up soon).

See ya,

jmc (FL Studio)

[TheWall]

hehe, for a moment I thought buckskin was a 'she'...

[Hink]

I know I'll get flamed but man, FLStudio is *hard* to figure out!

No not really, in fact besides recording it's quite straight forward IMO.

I love many of the features but so many of what I consider 'the basics' have really got me puzzled.

Recording audio. Where does it go? Fine, it's a WAV file that gets stuck in a directory OK, But then it's also a channel. I see the WAV form down in the audio-clips pane of the playlist editor but then it's also contained in a Sampler Channel?

It's a wave that comes in through a channel, it can be in your buffer or streamed from the disk. In the step sequencer it is veiwed as one long file, the mixer tracks do not store audio anymore then a hardware mixer. The wave is just a sample or an audio clip, but if you are in pattern mode and you are playing a clip the length of the whole song, logic would suggest to be in song mode. So it's no different in playing back the waves then other apps, recording is a different matter. Slightly confusing at first but like I said to stale bread email me if you can around an 8mb attachment and I'll send you an avi with the steps written out.

For example - the latest "newstuff.flp" - I see 2 audio clips that appear contigous, but in the step-sequencer I see 11 audio-clip sampler channels? What's related to what? Is each sampler channel associated with a specific segment of the (apparantly) contigous audio clips in the playlist? It would appear so but the relationship isn't at all clear. How about a little right-click context menu help? I right clicked on the audio-clips in the playlist editor and I deleted them! WTF?

There is a dropdown menu at the wave in the playlist marked by a triangle, click there. It will be the key to your answers I believe.

I must have spent 20 minutes trying to add a tempo change before I gave up. The help file was essentially useless (for this, and the audio recording, frankly). Searching looptalk yielded a few hits but damn if I could figure out how to actually *do* it. Silly me - thinking I would add a tempo-change marker in the playlist - ha!

of course that is qite static opposed to automation clips which might take a little getting use to.

And I can see it has been discussed to death and the IL folks are defensive about it but that skin! Sheesh! It's hideous! I wonder what their reticence is towards allowing skinning or (gasp!) just using the OS theme.

I still fail to see how it impairs FL, I don't tell Marshall what color to make amps, I didn't tell Mackie what color to make a board...why should I tell IL what color to make it...it has no effect on performance and only serves as a scapegoat for those looking to put down FL

I'm not at all disputing that FLStudio is a fantastic tool but did they have to ignore *every* sequencer/host convention? I *want* to like it, I *want* to use it but it feels harder than non-euclydian geometry.

You know I want things to stay the same as I'm use to, it's human nature....change is something to fear, status quo is comfortable. But alas sometimes we have to take the chance and change. In 33 years of guitar playing I have gotten use to things changing just when I got use to them...in the computer world raise tis to the tenth power. Change may not always be comfortable at first but it can be rewarding in the long run....

[BC]

So it's no different in playing back the waves then other apps, recording is a different matter. Slightly confusing at first but like I said to stale bread email me if you can around an 8mb attachment and I'll send you an avi with the steps written out.

Actually that is NOTHING like any of the hosts I've used over the years:, PA9, SONAR1-4, ACID 2-5, N-Track, etc.

How I would expect it work is - audio clips/track are contigous across the length of the clip in the playlist editor, and are independent from the Step-Sequencer patterns. Such that if I'm looping a section of the song, the host should automatically loop the appropriate part of the audio clips.

It feels like audio has been sort of cobbled-together or tacked on top of the MIDI-pattern based guts of the FruityLoops under-pinnings.

I'm sure I'm still missing something. I don't care how it was put together or what the genesis of the features are as long as the tool allows me to do what I'm trying to do.

There is a dropdown menu at the wave in the playlist marked by a triangle, click there. It will be the key to your answers I believe.

Again - my expectation is: If I select a generator channel in the Step Sequencer - the corresponding 'segment' in the audio-clip should be highlighted somehow. Show me the link, is what I'm saying.

of course that is qite static opposed to automation clips which might take a little getting use to.

I agree, once I learn how to do it, it becomes a non-issue. I use it as an example of a feature that is critical to me (90+% of my projeccts have multiple tempo changes in them, my host has to support tempo changes in a reasonably forthright fashion) but is not at all intuitive in FLS.

I still fail to see how it impairs FL, I don't tell Marshall what color to make amps, I didn't tell Mackie what color to make a board...why should I tell IL what color to make it...it has no effect on performance and only serves as a scapegoat for those looking to put down FL

Point taken and I won't belabor it *except* to say: Look at the popularity of Windoze skinning applications & themes etc. I view hosts like SONAR and FLS in similar way. We spend a lot of time working away in them. I, for one, value the ability to be able to customize it in such a way that it appeals to my sensibilities and makes me smile while I create my music. That said; I value the host's power to enable me to create the music I want much more than the aesthetic value of it's skin, but I won't trivialize it either.

Marshall wouldn't sell as many JCM-800's if they were covered in Pink fur and were meant to stand vertically next to a 4x4 cabinet, I don't care how they sound.

You know I want things to stay the same as I'm use to, it's human nature....change is something to fear, status quo is comfortable. But alas sometimes we have to take the chance and change. In 33 years of guitar playing I have gotten use to things changing just when I got use to them...in the computer world raise tis to the tenth power. Change may not always be comfortable at first but it can be rewarding in the long run....

Hey, I'm coming from SONAR4PE - that is a pretty solid host! SONAR is more geared towards music capture and mixing as opposed to song creation and arranging (IMO). I struggle with the limitations of SONAR's MIDI editing (which is 'eh') and pattern creation & arranging (which is weak), and loop syncing, mangling, slicing (which is poor).
Conversely, I do alot of audio capture & manipulation too - lots of guitar takes, bass takes, vocal takes. I'm trying to get my head around how FLS deals with that (which is SONAR's strong suite).

I strongly suspect that the last two newstuff.flp's (which sound *fantastic* and make me believe that FLS is capable of getting the results I want) audio clips were tracked and comp'ed outside of FLS.

So - that's what I'm struggling with atm.

Thanks for the assistance btw. Having communities like KVRAUDIO and LOOPTALK are immeasurably powerful and helpful.

[tony tony chopper]

Actually that is NOTHING like any of the hosts I've used over the years:, PA9, SONAR1-4, ACID 2-5, N-Track, etc.

well it FL had to be working like other hosts, you wouldn't need FL to exist.

As for skinning, been there done that, FL was skinnable, and the reason it was removed are the ugly user skins that could only damage FL's image on ugly screenshots. If you think you're good at skinning, contact IL to show your talents, you don't need FL to be skinnable for that.

[Vonbrucken]

hehe what about a skin competition at image line ?
i can't skin myself but i loved so much bb boy skin
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 346#800346

though it still works in fl 5, since i've tried to paste all the skin data into the folder "with pattern selector" ,the pattern selector doesn't appear no more...
some will say the pattern selector pad is useless, but i would say no in the case of live performance especially if you're playing in pattern mode and not in the playist live mode and especially if you 've drink to much beer
OMFG what was the pattern i was playing again ?

[tony tony chopper]

since i've tried to paste all the skin data into the folder "with pattern selector" ,the pattern selector doesn't appear no more...

and this is the second reason not to support user-skinning: I don't want to stop changing features just to ensure that old skins keep working.

[Vonbrucken]

fine

. If you think you're good at skinning, contact IL to show your talents, you don't need FL to be skinnable for that.

so what about a skining comp?

[tony tony chopper]

so what about a skining comp?

..that will last for 6 months? because yes, that's the time it'd take to do a good full skin.

[Vonbrucken]

um i dono myself, i have never try to skin anything ...
i was just thinking that it was just a matter of change of colour , like it does with the red clok skin for example ...
but it is cool that we can still change the playlist grid color or the piano roll grid as well
it was just about customisation stuffs nothing serious
and by the way thanks for the answers

[Twigg]

some will say the pattern selector pad is useless, but i would say no in the case of live performance especially if you're playing in pattern mode and not in the playist live mode and especially if you 've drink to much beer
OMFG what was the pattern i was playing again ?

Has any body out there been able to select differant Fruity Loops Patterns when FL is controlled as a VST from Cubase? I'm about to give up trying this feature even though the help clearly states it should work.

[Warmonger]

I'd just like to say that BC isn't the only one having issues with understanding FLS. I've downloaded the demo on at least 5 separate occasions and tried as hard as I could to "get" it, but so far I just can't figure it out. The first music program I ever used was Reason, which I figured out after just a few days, which is not bad considering I knew absolutely nothing about synths (virtual or real). Even Cubase (my second music program, first host) only took me a day of playing with to figure out the basics, and I consider that program to be a complete pain in the ass now..

I'm not saying Reason is better than FLS. I'm just hoping to point out that there are people who find FL unintuitive, even those with plenty of experience with other programs. I really want to like it, because it offers more bang-for-the-buck than any other program I can think of, but if I can't use it the way I want, all the features in the world won't convince me.

[Sotiris]

Hi.
I've been playing with the demo version of FLstudio 5.0.1 and i never had so much fun while creating music!
I have used full or demo versions of Sonar, Cubase, Reason, Orion, Muzys, Tracktion, Acid and Live and nothing gave me the "instant" feel that i got while using FL5. (well ... ok, maybe Live ...)
FL5 is so inspiring and fast!
I'm almost decided to buy the Producer Edition,
but i'd really appreciate some help regarding solving a few "problems"
(which could be me not doing the correct button press...) :

1. How can i use a multichannel/multitimbral VSTi in FL5? I have NI Kontakt which can receive on 16 MIDI channels. Can i have ONE instance of Kontakt driven by various patterns through different MIDI channels?
I'm also thinking seriously about IK Sampletank and the new "Miroslav's Classical" module which are multitimbral/multioutput VSTi. Can FL5 "handle multiple MIDI channels/multiple audio outputs on ONE instance of a plugin?

2. I cannot use MIDI CC on plugins. For example, in FL5 i open a VSTi, like NI FM7 or Pro53, and play on my MIDI keyboard. Note data come fine, pitch bend comes fine, but NO continuous contoller data (no mod. wheel, no sustain pedal, no volume or pan, etc.)
The MIDI in activity "LED" on FL5 lights up indicating that the CC messages arrive into FL5, but the VSTi does NOT respond. (the same Vsti responds to these CC messages in other hosts on the same PC)
What am i doing wrong? Is there a switch/adjustment i am missing?

3. Is the installation hardware independent?
The FL site says that cookies must be enabled and that i must not delete their cookies, and then download/register, etc. but i want to order and download from my PC at work (where i have VERY high transfer speed) and then take the files home and install it on one of my two computers, and i'm about to upgrade my hardware soon. Will i be able to reinstall FL5 on my new machine or will i need a new license?

Thanks for all your help.
Cheers.

[JMC]

Can i have ONE instance of Kontakt driven by various patterns through different MIDI channels?

Sure : Add several midi out channels and set their midi port to the same as your Kontact Midi port.

The MIDI in activity "LED" on FL5 lights up indicating that the CC messages arrive into FL5, but the VSTi does NOT respond.

You will have to link up the different controls manually yourself.

Is the installation hardware independent?

Not at all.

Will i be able to reinstall FL5 on my new machine or will i need a new license?

Sure. You can install it on as many machines as you like although you're only allowed to use one of them at the same time (not that we have any means to check this though).

See ya,

jmc (FL Studio)

[stoney]

I have been playing with the FL 5 demo. I find a great way to learn this app is exploring the demo songs.
However, I have a problem.The 'minimize/restore' button does nothing, so I can't resize the gui.( it works fine in the FL 4 demo) This is ok in stand alone, but when I rewire it in Tracktion, I can only see one app at a time, all Tracktion or all FL. I want/need to be able to see both at the same time. I am hoping this is a bug??