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10 FL Studio Questions

LChen	Date: December 30, 2006 @ 2:15 AM 1. Exactly what is it that makes people think that FL Studio is an amateur program? What is it that Cubase, SONAR, Logic and Reason have that FL Studio supposedly lacks? I haven't had the chance to use any of these properly aside from SONAR and Ableton Live, but FL Studio's interface and piano roll still strike me as being superior. However, most people seem to go "pah!" when they hear the name FL Studio. Why is this? 2. For those of you who have Producer or XXL, what's the audio recording like? Is it true you have to have an ASIO card or something like that? 3. Is there a way to set the default save folder? 4. Is there a way to solo a track or mute more than one track at a time? 5. How do I change the tempo more than once? For example, I can change the original tempo from 140 to 160, but I can't change it from 160 to anything else; it simply resets itself to 160. 6. Is there a way to change the time signature from 4/4 to something else? Also, is it possible to do this halfway through a track, not just at the beginning? 7. I have a MIDI keyboard plugged in, but there are also extreme latency issues. It's really annoying when I play to have an "echo" sound from the computer from the track I'm recording to. Is there a way to stop tracks from playing when I play on my MIDI keyboard? 8. Does FL Studio have video scoring abilities? 9. Is there a way to import MIDI into a current project without having to start a new project? 10. Could someone please provide me with a few realistic Slayer settings, or else point me towards a free soundfont/VST that doesn't come from Hammersound or any of the common sites everyone also knows of? Thanks!
Italye	Date: December 30, 2006 @ 2:33 AM 1. it's called fruity loops, and other snooty people with 'better' software possibly spent alot more for harder to use software. but mostly cause it's called fruityloops. 2. You just have to download the asio driver. in the help files, they suggest you get the !FREE! asio4all driver, which IMO is better than the 'legit' asio driver. 3. i dont know, i imagine so... 4. Mixer channels or generators in the step seq? in the mixer, press S to solo the currently selected channel, press Alt-S to solo the selected channel and all that are linked to it. you can also check little green lights under the channel names. in the step seq, there are also little green lights you can check and uncheck, or right click on the generator name and choose solo. 5. make one automation pattern where you record (or edit event) the changing of the tempo from 140 to 160, and make another where it goes from 160 to 140 and stick them in the playlist where you want them to change. 6. in the options(?) menu, go to project settings and you can change it to any time signature you could imagine. i dont think it's possible to change it around mid-song. you'll just have to do some neat-o sequencing magic. 7. when you get asio4all, latency goes down a whole bunch. you can set the buffer length in one of the settings windows...dont remember which one.. 8. you can have a video 'player'. but it's kinda useless for anything cool... 9. i'm pretty sure...maybe not, though.. 10. ouch. slayer and boobass are like the cheese-o of the entire world. it's only 'realistic' on EXTREMELY ridiculous settings, like fuzzboxed to absolute death with feedback to the rats. KVRaudio.com. thats where you reallly gete VSTs from. but if you're going for guitar sounds, just record a real one... i hope that helps. FL studio is truly a great program.
LiQuidMetamo...	Date: December 30, 2006 @ 3:40 AM 1) Fruity Loops has it's strengths, it's got a fairly user friendly interface and some nice features for quick composition, some good sounds and the ability to host vsts etc. It has improved quite a bit in the last 2 releases with a better mixer and delay compensation and better plug-ins. There is nothing 'wrong' with it per se, it is a mini workstation that can handle most aspects of music production reasonably well. It is less deep and offers less audio editing and midi editing plus notation/scoring and lacks some features which are rarely used or not at all. Sonar/Cubase etc also have more insert and send channels, more effects plug-ins and better handling of audio clips and take recordings. But for most regular audio tasks FL is totally fine. Part of FL's reputation problem is because it is a favourite tool for people who cannot play music, who use it for beats/playing samples and maybe using step sequencer to enter musical notes in a grid, which gets on the nerves of some of the more classically trained or virtuoso musicians who don't regard that as music, and at Dmusic a whole bunch of beats spammers trying to sell their 'beetz' made of dull repetitious FL preset sounds. 2. You should have an ASIO card for any serious music production work with Windows, FL STudio included. ASIO4ALL is sometimes a reasonable workaround but it doesn't always work - you can get decent pro audio cards for around 100 bucks these days (M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 being an example) - you will get better results, less latency with properly written ASIO drivers compared to ASIO4ALL and higher frequency sampling (ie 24 bit recording is a lot easier to work with than 16 bit) and 48/96/192 Khz as appropriate resolution if needed instead of the default 44.1 Khz. 3. It helps if you can simulate how a guitarist plays on a keyboard - Jan Hammer was particularly good at this, there are times when it's hard to tell he was playing a synth and not a guitar. Without the right feel and emotion it wouldn't matter how realistic the VST instrument is. I would concur that a real guitar or pay for guitar samples played on a real guitar are the best option. FL is being used by Mike Oldfield, a world renowned musical composer in his music, so it is not just a toy. People fall into that trap. Software is nothing without the creative mind of the user, people have produced masterpieces using freeware like Audacity or Kristal v1.0 or the 40 dollar Reaper software. The more expensive, the more features you get but also it can take away from your creative flow as there are TOO many plug-ins and options. I love Cubase SX3, it has great audio and MIDI functionality but without Reason or Ableton Live 6, I would have a lot less fun composing music and need much more time. Then again, if I were recording a drum (using 8 mics) and recording a group of live instruments and vocals, I would definately have to say that Cubase/Sonar/Logic/ProTools etc would get the gig over FL. It's strength is as a compositional tool and don't forget you can rewire it to Cubase, Sonar etc. FL is a great program - yes, it has inspired many great tracks and the proof is in the pudding, look up Bluenevus (among others) to hear some amazing music that was created in FL. However, it has some limitations too, so people should also appreciate the more traditional DAWS (Cubase/Logic/Protools/Sonar/Samplitude etc) still have an important role to play.
Tallisman	Date: December 30, 2006 @ 10:44 AM 1. Exactly what is it that makes people think that FL Studio is an amateur program? What is it that Cubase, SONAR, Logic and Reason have that FL Studio supposedly lacks? ... in my opinion, and much of this boils down to personal preference and opinion... For the loot, it is hard to match or beat the Fl feature set. That said, I am not crazy about the GUI, and I feel the many of the features find better implementation in most of the front runners. 2. For those of you who have Producer or XXL, what's the audio recording like? Is it true you have to have an ASIO card or something like that? For the best performance, this is true of most applications. Some like the Protools family need proprietary hardware that uses a standard similar to asio. www.asio4all.com - download that driver as mentioned above and you'll probably gain a performance boost and a decrease in latency. 3. Is there a way to set the default save folder? There is in Cubase, Sonar, Live, Protools, etc... 4. Is there a way to solo a track or mute more than one track at a time? Yes... Italye mentioned the methods... this to finds better implementation in Cubase. 5. How do I change the tempo more than once? For example, I can change the original tempo from 140 to 160, but I can't change it from 160 to anything else; it simply resets itself to 160. Wouldn't it be killer if FL Studio had a tempo track feature (like cubase and protools etc...) this would be soooooo much easier. 6. Is there a way to change the time signature from 4/4 to something else? Also, is it possible to do this halfway through a track, not just at the beginning? see my tempo track comment... 7. I have a MIDI keyboard plugged in, but there are also extreme latency issues. It's really annoying when I play to have an "echo" sound from the computer from the track I'm recording to. Is there a way to stop tracks from playing when I play on my MIDI keyboard? www.asio4all.com should help here. 8. Does FL Studio have video scoring abilities? most of the front runners do though some excel (Cobase, sonar, and i belive Live with v.6) 9. Is there a way to import MIDI into a current project without having to start a new project? ther is in sonar, cubase, pro tools, Live... 10. Could someone please provide me with a few realistic Slayer settings, or else point me towards a free soundfont/VST that doesn't come from Hammersound or any of the common sites everyone also knows of? sorry, can't help here.
orgasmotron	Date: December 30, 2006 @ 2:59 PM import midi. select the midi track number you want to import and it will import that midi data into the piano roll.
orgasmotron	Date: December 30, 2006 @ 3:00 PM damnit my posts never work. i don't like this forum. but that one sentence there was a reply to questions number 5,6,8,&9 and the answers are yes. i dun wanna type it out again, so if anyone is curious just drop me a dnote. peacce.
LChen	Date: December 31, 2006 @ 10:03 PM Thanks for the replies! However, although most of you seem to have stressed ways to reduce latency, I'm still interested in finding out how to stop a track from playing when I'm recording to it (question 7). Is this even possible? Also, how do I set the dafult save folder? Oh, and does FL Studio have video scoring abilities? The answers to that question were somewhat murky.

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