FL Studio questions

[aMUSEd]

I’m not interested in using FL Studio as a DAW but I do own a lot of their plugins including Harmor, Sytrus and Edison. However I am fed up with waiting for them to come out on Mac as plugins. If I bought the cheapest version of FL Studio would I be able to load and use these plugins in that and does the cheapest version also work as a plugin?

Also if I did find the ‘Fruity’ version too limited is there an upgrade path to the full versions?

[elassi]

You already checked this page? --> https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio/compare-editions/

Might be important also: https://www.image-line.com/windows-vs-m ... -versions/

Your 2nd Q: There is an upgrade path.

[sjm]

Tbh, your best bet is to ask this on the IL forums. But the way it has always worked (albeit, my experience is not with Fruity, but with Producer) is that your license includes both the DAW and the plugins you own. So, for example, if you owned the Producer edition, and bought Harmor, you would get access to the unrestricted version of Harmor in Producer, but all the other plugins that aren't included at that tier are demo versions with the corresponding limitations.

I don't see why Fruity Edition would be any different, I just can't 100% confirm that it works the same because I have never personally tried it. But the main restriction in Fruity Edition is that you can't use audio clips and record audio - other than that it just includes less plugins that Producer. The limitation with audio clips and recording audio should be a non-issue if you are using another DAW, and the plugins aren't dependent on that functionality to work either and governed by a separate license.

There's a feature comparison page here btw:
https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio/compare-editions/

And then a list of core features Windows vs Mac here:
https://www.image-line.com/windows-vs-m ... -versions/

That last page has both VST and AU listed as formats under "FL Studio as a plugin" and no mention of any restrictions with the Fruity Edition anywhere.

But, given you already own IL licenses, I'd suggest posting on the official forums and getting an official reply, just to be on the safe side. There's not that many Fruity Edition owners out there, so you might not get that many replies from people who have actually tried any of this out for themselves.

[runagate]

Hey, amused. Long time.

I own the "all plugins" version of FL Studio (which I upgraded over the many years during sales).
I own no VST versions of any FL instruments (given that you can load FL as a VST this seems like a senseless waste of money to me, and I almost never use any of FL's instruments anyway).

I loaded FL as a VSTi in Studio One and loaded Sytrus (non-VST) and took a screenshot.



I can't see how the version of FL would matter since you already own the plugins you want to use.

[ edit ]

Seems like there's a couple things you can't have on macs, all of which seem irrelevant to me.
You can use 64 bit ARM and Intel VSTs but not 32 bit ones, but you do get FL as an AU plugin which never occurred to me and is pretty cool. You also can't use Dashboard, Razer Chroma, Fruity LSD, or Fruity Slayer, things no one uses as they were basically deprecated long ago.

[aMUSEd]

Thanks, great to see you again too

- does the FL plugin come as a VST3 as well as AU?

[aMUSEd]

The manual is very unclear but it seems to imply it's just VST2 and AU? Which is not good if it is supposed to support Apple Silicon.

https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio-le ... plugin.htm

[sjm]

You can download the demo and try it out to answer the question definitively - it's the same installer as the full version.

I don't think there's a VST3 version of the FL Studio plugin. However, I've not tried out the more recent releases, but I don't remember any mention of it. My understanding is that IL are working on migrating everything to VST3, but given the vast amount of plugins they offer, this could take some time (and throw in the complication of Yet Another Breaking Changes MacOS on top of that, it becomes clear that this is not a trivial undertaking).