FL Studio 21.1 released! - A disappointment in the making

[Dionysos]

im sure this is obvious - but why if i have a bunch of channels with sends and i want to make a bus for all of them while keeping their individual reverb sends etc do i have to reroute everything one by one?

You don't. Right-click a send button while multiple tracks are selected to route or unroute them all. It's silly that it's never been implemented for the regular left click.

[bundoo]

Yes but then you would need to unroute these tracks from the master so they are going to the group bus only - if you send them to this track only it turns off all their original effects sends

[Dionysos]

Yes but then you would need to unroute these tracks from the master so they are going to the group bus only - if you send them to this track only it turns off all their original effects sends

Sorry, I haven't used FL in quite a while. I think there's a "Track routing" submenu in the track context menu that you can use to freely route multiple tracks without unrouting from the master track.

There is (or was) another quirk in FL's multi-selection in that you have to add the target track (that you want to route to) to the multi-selection before you can right-click it and send the other selected tracks to it. Feels a bit roundabout, but should definitely work.

[Trancit]

Yes but then you would need to unroute these tracks from the master so they are going to the group bus only - if you send them to this track only it turns off all their original effects sends

Sorry, I haven't used FL in quite a while. I think there's a "Track routing" submenu in the track context menu that you can use to freely route multiple tracks without unrouting from the master track.

There is (or was) another quirk in FL's multi-selection in that you have to add the target track (that you want to route to) to the multi-selection before you can right-click it and send the other selected tracks to it. Feels a bit roundabout, but should definitely work.

I am not sure if I understood everything but just to make it clear:

In the current Mixer state there is NO WAY to easily group a bunch of tracks which are routed to other channels (Sends or sidechain connections), to a bus without sacrifying either the one or the other connection...

The only suitable option from the menu is called and acts exactly like this: Route to this track ONLY!
So you have to decide what would be more work... use this option for the bus routing of tracks and having to redo all sends/sidechain routings or leaving send and sidechain routings intact and having to manually disconnect the tracks from Master and routing to the new bus...

There is no other way atm... hopefully this will change with the new Mixer one day but for the moment this is the one and only options!

[bundoo]

Not good imo
The fun side is throwing a bunch of stuff together and modulating / sequencing like mad but then when u want to organise its a pain

[Dionysos]

In the current Mixer state there is NO WAY to easily group a bunch of tracks which are routed to other channels (Sends or sidechain connections), to a bus without sacrifying either the one or the other connection...

There totally is, what you're saying isn't correct. Skip ahead to 22:31 in this video to see how it's done:

[xbitz]

enjoyed the presentation, so I will share it well

[osiris]

The Devil's Fruity Loops

[bundoo]

In the current Mixer state there is NO WAY to easily group a bunch of tracks which are routed to other channels (Sends or sidechain connections), to a bus without sacrifying either the one or the other connection...

There totally is, what you're saying isn't correct. Skip ahead to 22:31 in this video to see how it's done:

I dont think so.

In the screen shot you can see the selected channels - the 'sn' is sent to the delay send....but we want to route all the selected channels to the left docked drum bus while not getting rid of that delay send....AND we dont want those tracks selected to still be routed directly to the master...

How?

There is the Create submix option - this has solo peculiarities though....soloing the submix just solos the bus channel and not the channels routed to it as well....similarly it still gets rid of all previous sends

mix.PNG

[Dionysos]

AND we dont want those tracks selected to still be routed directly to the master...

How?

Indeed, it's the unrouting from master that has to be done manually (though it's pretty quick to do by keeping the cursor over the send button while using the arrow keys to change tracks).

I posted a feature request for a better way to unroute multiple tracks from another track, let's see.

this has solo peculiarities though....soloing the submix just solos the bus channel and not the channels routed to it as well....

That's standard FL soloing behaviour. You can hold Alt while clicking the solo switch to keep tracks routed to it active. Should definitely be the other way around.

[Trancit]

In the current Mixer state there is NO WAY to easily group a bunch of tracks which are routed to other channels (Sends or sidechain connections), to a bus without sacrifying either the one or the other connection...

There totally is, what you're saying isn't correct. Skip ahead to 22:31 in this video to see how it's done:

AND we dont want those tracks selected to still be routed directly to the master...

How?

Indeed, it's the unrouting from master that has to be done manually ...

It rarely happens (but it happens) that I am wrong about how FLS works...

I say it now again to be clear for everyone as the message was distorted:

There is currently NO WAY to do bussing of tracks in FLS which are already routed to other tracks without sacrifying the one or the other connection respectively having to do other work manually!

(though it's pretty quick to do by keeping the cursor over the send button while using the arrow keys to change tracks).

Not if the selected tracks aren´t consecutive or even close to each other... The current behaviour can be a huge PITA...

I posted a feature request for a better way to unroute multiple tracks from another track, let's see.

You are preaching to the choir... of course they are aware of this shortcoming and if there is a way to avoid such situations again they will do it in the new mixer... until then nothing will change...

[thegbuddy]

Well if you have major problems with it, try out other daws.
I started with FL studio and found that other producers could do stuff like vocal comping much faster. After going back and forth, I finally switched to Studio One and honestly I can't imagine using FL exclusively again.

The piano roll still holds a special place in my heart though.

[osiris]

Maybe this is already here and I just don't know how to access it, but I'd very much like something like Reaper Tempo Markers where you can drag a wave section to where you want it. Essential for vocals, but I know Reaper has elastique inside so i don't know how software dependant this is.

[choomaque]

There is still a severe lack of Playlist functionality and ZERO ability to copy/paste MIDI directly within the Playlist. Come on... it is mid 2023 and we STILL cannot copy/paste MIDI directly in the Playlist?

Inability to display Ghost Notes over multiple Patterns within the Playlist

Inability to copy/paste MIDI directly in the Playlist

Audio Clips/Drums in the Playlist don't have the same features and editing capabilities as Audio Clips/Drums used in the Channel Rack (Envelopes, LFOs, Mod X/Y, Arpeggiator, MIDI Delay/Note Echo)

No Ability to have two or more Instrument Tracks on the same Mixer Insert (LOTS of reasons this is problematic)

No MIDI support for native Generators (plugins) (I think there is a workaround with Patcher, but once again... not everybody likes using Patcher to solve "simple" problems)

When using Instrument Tracks, moving them up or down in the playlist does NOT reflect in the Channel Rack or Mixer as if they're completely independent. There is no sense of being "tied" together or any linkage (this requires the user to exert a lot of effort to stay organized)

Inability to edit multiple instruments MIDI data off a single Piano Roll without first consulting Patcher and using VFX Color Mapper

When using Layer, the real-time note preview/highlight doesn't display

Inability to "Set Children" when using an instance of "Layer" in the Playlist as an Instrument Track

Windows/Plugins pop up wherever they so please

Inability to use Slide Notes on third-party plugins (yes I know there exists a tool called Bendy but to my knowledge it isn't a walk in the park to set up and use)

All that sounds like it's coming from a person, which first DAW was not an FL Studio, but something else, with entirely different paradigm.
People who got into music making from FL Studio and use it as their primary DAW, will probably disagree with you on these requests. Those remark probably wouldn't make any sense to them.

Except for slide notes.
There are no slide notes support in MIDI 1. And IL strategy in this case is understandable. MIDI 2.0 is in active development and will probably tackle most, if not all of the issues people had with MIDI 1. Wait until MIDI 2.0 rolls out and integrate it into the FL rather than spending energy on hacks and workarounds such as MPE - is probably a wise strategy.

[choomaque]

[...] I 100% stand by what was said in the video that "FL Studio has the best Piano Roll of any other DAW" this is indisputably true [...]

Pedantically speaking, it isn't.

For example, the user experience of REAPER's piano roll can be customized/personalized to be more convenient than that of FL Studio (albeit it depends on the user's needs, to some extent). And there are users of other DAWs who are more comfortable with the piano roll in theirs - especially if it was their first DAW.

The thing that IL (not sure if it was gol alone anymore, at the time of FruityLoops v3) got right in their piano roll is a minimum-clicks-required basic functionality with a two-button mouse. As a result, most newbies learned intuitively how to do elementary things in FL's pianoroll, without having to read the manual, and often with little-to-no usage of modifier keys. Hence, the "best piano roll ever" meme happened.

From the UX design standpoint, the "minimum amount of actions needed to achieve a goal" is one of the key metrics of usability, if you don't prioritize this metric when designing your software - you probably don't prioritize usability (more often than not - unknowingly).

Another, quite common notion among the UX Designers (once dubbed by Elon Musk) states "if your product needs a manual - it's a bad product". And in the domain of making music this statement is rather true. The less hassle you have when trying to recreate the idea you have in your mind using the application - the better.

Some DAW developers such as AVID and Steinberg began their products way before UX design become a thing in software development. Other players that came later more often than not - copied their approach, because that was an established pattern at that point in time.
But nobody questioned it or thought maybe those established patterns were unnecessarily complicated.

Later on the unnecessary complexity became a flex among mainly Cubase, Pro Tools, Sonar etc. users as a coping tactic.