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TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................. 3 FOR FRUITYLOOPS 3.x and FL STUDIO v4.x USERS......................................................................... 5 INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS........................................................................................................................ 6 FIRST RUN ..........................................................................
SHARING YOUR WORK ......................................................................................................................... 71 EXTERNAL CONTROLLERS................................................................................................................. 73 CREDITS..................................................................................................................................................... 80 INDEX ..................................................................
FOR FRUITYLOOPS 3.x and FL STUDIO v4.x USERS This guide is current to Version 5 of FL Studio. If you were the proud owner of one of the FruityLoops 3 versions (good for you!) or FL Studio v4 (even better), then read on to see what's new in this version. 1. FL Studio Name. Since version 4, the name of the product changes to FL Studio. FL Studio contains all the stuff you know from FruityLoops 3.x and much more! 2. Mixer. The effects window from FruityLoops 3.
INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS There are two ways to purchase FL Studio: on line, or in a box with a CD and this printed manual. The installation differs slightly in each of those cases. Read here what to do: A. If you bought your copy of FL Studio in a box, here's what you do. 1. Run the CD. Insert the install CD-ROM that comes with your box in your CD-ROM drive. If you have auto-run enabled, you will see the CD menu automatically appear.
FIRST RUN OK, so you just finished the installation and started FL Studio. Read this section for an explanation of what you're seeing. 1. The System Settings Screen. When you first run FL Studio, you may be confronted with a dialog box like the one below (if not, use F10 to bring it up now). You just have to use the select boxes to choose your sound card and MIDI drivers. At first, you may be looking at the MIDI screen, but for now the most important one is the Audio screen, shown below.
Use Polling option can also improve latencies for some operating systems (keep it turned on if you use Windows 95 or 98, but try switching it off in Windows 2000 to see if it brings better performance). 4. The Main Screen. After you close the Environment Settings window, you'll be looking at a screen like the one below. FL Studio is all about windows within windows. So you're looking at the outer Main Window with its Tool Panels at the top.
HELP! This booklet is just supposed to get you up and running quickly. It is not meant to be a reference manual for everything FL Studio can do (that would take a multi-volume encyclopedia!). Fortunately, there's a ton of info out there on what FL Studio does. Here's how to get it. 1. The Hint Bar. This is located on the Main Window just under the Menu Bar (see the previous page, in the top left).
THE STEP SEQUENCER When you start FL Studio for the first time, you'll see the Step Sequencer window (see the “First Run” section). This is where you lay out your drum and melody patterns for your songs. 1. What is it For? This is where you find channels, and dots. The channels are laid out horizontally (see below) and each one contains a single sound. Each channel has 16 dots. If you're musically inclined, these dots represent 16th notes.
The Step Sequencer 3. Play with the Channel Controls. After you've set up the pattern, try playing with the Channel Controls on the left. The two round knobs (wheels) control the volume and pan of a single channel, and the green light switches the channel on and off (panning is like the balance control on your stereo; turning this knob moves the sound from left to right in the stereo field). If you want to reset a wheel to it's default position, right-click on it and select reset. 4. Make Your Own Beat.
TWEAKING THE CHANNELS In this section, we'll show you how to modify the sound of the loops you create by tweaking the sound sample on each channel. FL Studio supports so much of this kind of tweaking that it's possible for two people to create loops that sound totally different using exactly the same samples (technically, each channel contains a Generator, which could be sample-based or could be a synthesizer plugin. More on that later, though).
2. 3. Tweaking the Channels Load a New Sample. The first thing you can do is change the sample being used on the channel. The sample file name is shown on the picture above. Clicking on the file icon to the left will open a browser on the directory containing the file "DNC_Kick.wav" along with a number of other kick drum samples. As you click on them, FL Studio will automatically play the sounds for you.
Tweaking the Channels 4. Play with the Sample Effects. Ok, at this point the best advice is to start the loop, then play with the controls in the sample (SMP) panel of the Channel Settings Dialog and listen to the difference in sound. Here's a short description of what some of them do. For more info see the on-line help. Pitch: The wheel changes the pitch of the sample (speeds it up or slows it down). The number indicates how far the pitch wheel can stretch. Move it by clicking and dragging.
Tweaking the Channels 5. Add Some Echo. Go back to GettingStarted1.flp, open the DNC_Kick channel settings and click the FUNC tab to get the view shown below. The controls in the top section (Echo delay / fat mode) can be used to set up a cool echo effect for a single instrument.
Tweaking the Channels 6. Play With the Instrument Settings. Ok, let's take a quick look at the INS panel before we move on. (There's also stuff you should read about in the MISC panel too, but you can get that info from the On-line Help.) Click on the INS tab and you'll get to the Instrument Settings. Here you can add Envelopes and LFO to your sample for the Volume, Pan, Cutoff, Resonance, and Pitch settings. Indicator Light Effect Selector Envelope LFO Set Middle Note 7.
Tweaking the Channels 9. How do I Use Them? Use the Effect Selector (see diagram above) to choose the effect, and then turn the knobs on either the Envelope or the LFO. To turn the Envelope on and off for each effect, click on the Indicator Light. To turn off the LFO, reset the Amount (AMT) to the middle (knob pointing straight up.) 10. Why Can't I Hear the Effect? Well, if you're still on the Kick Drum from GettingStarted1.
TWEAKING THE NOTES By now you're familiar with many of the ways FL Studio lets you tweak and shape your sounds. In this section, we'll show you how some of those effects can be applied to each dot separately. We'll also show you how to program melodies. 1. Check out the Graph Editor. The easiest thing to wrap your mind around is probably the Graph Editor utility.
Tweaking the Notes 3. Panning the Kick Drum. Try setting the pan effect as shown below for GettingStarted1.flp. The pan graph centers in the middle. You can set pan values by clicking inside the bar for each note at the desired level. After you have set up the view shown below, you should hear the kick drum flipping back and forth from one speaker to the other. This sounds really cool if you combine it with the 3-dot echo you added in the previous section… 4. Try the Velocity.
Tweaking the Notes 5. Play with the Other Effects. Try to get a feel for the other effects on the graph editor. Filter Cut and Filter Res can be used to add or subtract values to the main cutoff and resonance wheels in the INS panel of the channel settings dialog box. (See the "Tweaking the Channels" section.) Pitch makes the sample higher or lower, like the pitch wheel in the channel settings dialog box.
Tweaking the Notes 8. Super Important Tip. When you want to make a melody out of long samples, you often need to set it up so that each note cuts off the previous one. You can do this most easily by right-clicking the Channel Name in the Step Sequencer and selecting Cut Itself from the pop up menu. Notice that the Ins_Round channel has this option selected. Try deselecting it, but be warned - the results can be nasty! Big News! You can now undo the last tweak! Do it from the Edit Menu or with ctrl-z.
THE PLAYLIST (from Patterns to Songs) Now you've seen the basics of what can be done with sampled sounds in a single pattern. In this section we'll show you how to program more than one pattern and link them together into a longer loop. Load up GettingStarted2.flp and read on… 1. Check out the Pattern Selector. FL Studio lets you create hundreds of different patterns.
The Playlist 3. What's the Point? Now you can assemble a number of patterns together to make a song. This lets you alter melodies, change beats, insert fills, and reuse some of the early parts of the song later. Many composers use a separate block of patterns for drums, bass, lead, etc. so they can work on them separately at first, and then piece the song together in the Playlist. 4. Add Fill Patterns to GettingStarted2.flp. Here's a simple example.
5. The Playlist Using the Fill in the Song. Yeah, big deal. But now lay out the Playlist as shown below, and hopefully you'll begin to get the idea. Note that you need one extra dot for Pattern 1 and you need to move the Loop Point to the second bar (Right-Click to do that.) You can find the finished product in GettingStarted3.flp. Groovy. 6. What is in Pattern 2? By now you probably checked out pattern 2 and discovered that it seems to be empty and still appears to be long in the playlist.
GENERATORS (from Samples to Synths) Up until now we've only been playing with Sample Channels. But FL Studio also supports channels that contain sounds made in real time by software synthesizers like Wasp, SimSynth Live, and the TS404. To use the proper terminology, every Channel contains a Generator, which could either be a sample, a synthesizer plugin, or some other type of sound generator in combination with the effects in the Channel Settings dialog.
Generators 2. What to Expect. The new channel will appear in the Step Sequencer and the Generator's Configuration Screen will appear (except for the TS404). If the Configuration Screen is small, it will appear inside a Channel Settings window (3xOsc, BeepMap, Fruit Kick, Fruity SoundFont Player, Plucked!,…). Otherwise, it will appear as a standalone window (BooBass, Buzz Generator, FPC, Fruity DrumSynth Live, Fruity DX10, SimSynth Live, Wasp, …). 3.
Generators 6. What do these Generators Do? OK, here's the skinny on some of the Generator. For more info on the TS404, see the next chapter. For more info on everything else, see the On-Line Help. Please note that some of these Generators need to be purchased additionally. If you haven’t bought them, you’ll only have the demo version of the Generator that will allow you to listen to its sounds, but these channels will not be saved in your FL Studio project. a. TS404.
Generators e. Buzz Generator Adapter. Buzz has a bunch of cool, buzzing synth sounds that you can pick from (Rectal Anarchy is shown below). A few “Buzz Machines” come free with FL Studio, but you can find lots more on line at www.BuzzMachines.com. For licensing purposes, this generator is not included in the boxed versions of our software. 28 f. Dashboard. Allows you to create your own MIDI and Internal Controller interfaces (check the on-line help to see what internal controllers are about). g.
Generators h. Fruity DrumSynth Live. A Drum Synthesizer plugin that lets you define drum hits and control them via a keyboard. i. Fruity DX10. An 8-voice polyphonic (that means 8 notes at once) FM Synthesizer. This one’s designed to give high quality sounds without eating up too much CPU. j. Fruity Granulizer. This one helps you get cool, choppy sounds out of your samples, like when the “Funk Soul Bruvva” sample slows down in Fatboy Slim’s “Rockefeller Skank”.
Generators k. Fruity Slicer. This one lets you slice up a beat and then play back individual drum hits using the keyboard. You can make cool breaks really quickly with this tool. (More on how this works in the BeatSlicer section below.) l. Fruity SoundFont Player. An advanced sample generator that works with the SoundFont2 collection. m. Fruity Vibrator. You can add vibes to your songs using any Force Feedback (.ffe) file.
Generators n. Plucked! A synthesizer that specializes in stringed instrument sounds like guitars, harps, mandolins, etc. o. SimSynth Live. A fully functional digital synthesizer. Use this baby to create phat-sounding analog sounds for your dance and trance tracks. p. Wasp. Another full digital synthesizer. This one is better for creating fast, buzzing, technooriented sounds (hence the name).
Generators 32 q. WaveTraveller. Create realistic scratches with a full control over the smallest details! r. Layer. This isn’t really a Generator, but it’s cool. It lets you create a master channel to control a bunch of other channels at once. s. MIDI Out. This one isn’t a Generator either. It lets you send a MIDI controller signal to an external (or internal) MIDI device. t. FL Keys. FL Keys is a realistic piano simulator with optimized CPU and memory usage.
Generators u. FL Slayer. FL Slayer is a realistic electric guitar simulation originally developed by reFX. It uses a hybrid synthesis similar to physical modeling. The simulator is equipped with a high quality amp section and effects rack enabling you to recreate the complete electric guitar sound without additional plugins. v. Sytrus.
Generators w. Fruity Keyboard Controller. Fruity Keyboard Controller is a very useful internal controller plugin, which allows you to map notes and their velocity to any property that can be automated within FL Studio & the loaded plugins. This plugin allows you to quickly implement Pattern Controlled Filtering (PCF), or accurate semitone-to-semitone slides for plugins, which do not support natively such features (VSTi and DXi plugins). x. y. z. 7. 34 Speech Synthesizer .
Generators 8. VST and DXi Plugins. You’ll notice the Fruity Wrapper in the above list. This generator is only to be used for VST and DXi synth plugins, which are listed under the obvious headings in the above picture. But you don’t need to open it on its own – if you double-click on one of the VST Plugins, it will automatically open a Fruity Wrapper for you. A VST plugin synth, confusingly called the mda DX10, is also available as freeware.
Generators 10. Do I have to register? Some of these products are made by FL Studio partners, so yes in some cases you do have to register them to unlock their full capabilities. Go to http://www.flstudio.com/ for more information on where to send your hard-earned cash. 11. Where Can I Get More? There are literally hundreds of synth plugins out there to download. Some of them are free, and some you have to pay for. Search the web and http://www.flstudio.com/ for good deals.
Generators 12. The Arpeggiator. Now that we've introduced the Synth generators, we can finally tell you what the Arpeggiator section in the Channel Settings window is for. Open one of the synth channels (SimSynth Live, for instance) and go to the FUNC panel of the channel settings box. Now click the up arrow and select a chord. Now go to a new pattern and place a single SimSynth note and press play. Instead of a single note, you get a repeating arpeggio. Cool, huh? Read more about this in the on-line help.
Generators 13. Static Synthesizer Sounds. FL Studio also contains static support for the standalone version of SimSynth and a drum sound synthesizer named DrumSynth. If you own either of these pieces of software, FL Studio can read their output files into a normal Sample Channel. It is not as flexible as a real synthesizer in FL Studio, but this way you can get the phat sounds of SimSynth without the huge processing load of a real-time synth. DrumSynth is free from www.mda-vst.
Generators 14. Speech! Yep, you read that right. You can have a conversation with FL Studio using the built in support for speech synthesis. The easiest way to access this feature is to look under “speech” in the sample browser, and drag one of the files there onto the step sequencer. You’ll get a dialog that looks like the one below. All you have to do is replace the text, choose a personality, style, rate (speed), and pitch. Click the “listen” button to hear what it will sound like.
INTRODUCING THE TS404 The TS404 was originally a standalone synthesizer designed to perform like the classic TB303 bass-line sequencer that gives modern techno it's unique sound. The 404 is not intended to be an exact replica of that classic machine, but it will still lend a unique techno flavor to your compositions. 1. Add a TS404 Channel. First of all, load up GettingStarted1.flp. Then add a TS404 channel as shown in the previous section. 2. Copy the Notes from Ins_Round.
Introducing the TS404 3. Not Too Impressive Yet! OK, so that doesn't sound too good. That's because you're using the TS404 default settings. Click on the channel name to bring up the TS404 Channel Settings Dialog as shown below, click the TS404 tab and tweak the controls however you want (one possibility is shown below, with some of the changes pointed out). Our own version can be found in GettingStarted4.
Introducing the TS404 4. Understanding the Controls. Like with the other channel settings, this stuff is explained further in the on-line manual. But for now, here's a brief overview of what the main controls do. There are also lots of other interesting controls you can get to by clicking the MISC, FUNC, and SMP tabs. Have fun, and try to get a feel for it… The oscillators: You can have two slightly different sounds playing at once. Click on the little pictures for different waveforms.
Introducing the TS404 5. Pitch-bending the 404. One last thing. You can bend the notes on the TS404 to make some really cool synth lines. The TS404 also has a Pitch Bend Line at the top of its keyboard as most of the other synths (but not all of them support it!). If you click on the Pitch Bend Line, the current note will slide into the next one. Go back to GettingStarted4.flp and try setting up the keyboard as shown below. The finished result is in GettingStarted5.flp. Actually, as of version 3.
MIXING & EFFECTS IMPORTANT REMARK: This guide is a general Getting Started guide for all existing FL Studio Editions. Some features however, are not available in some editions. The FL Studio Fruityloops Edition doesn’t have the Track Adjustments & Mixer sliders capabilities. Please check our site www.flstudio.com for upgrade conditions. One great addition to FL Studio Producer Edition is the new Mixer window (previously called Effects Tracks window).
Mixing & Effects The Track Adjustments panels show some properties each track has. The volume and stereo balance settings are the same like the one below each track (the other ones are added for convenience, as you see them all, no matter the selected track). The other things on the track adjustments panel are equalizer, stereo “width” knob and a decibel meter (shows the output volume of the track). 3. Turn Plugins On and Off / Mixing Wet and Dry.
Mixing & Effects 5. Tweak the Plugins. Right-click the plugin to open and close its Plugin Settings screen. Some plugins have a plain interface like the Fruity Fast Dist shown below. Others have fancier looking controls. Most plugins come with their own help as shown below, so we won't go into how to use the controls here. But for now, why not play with them to see what they do? Effects have presets too… Left OR Right Click This Bar Click Here for Help 6. Sending Sound to the Plugins.
Mixing & Effects 7. What are the Send Tracks For? There are 4 special Send Tracks that take their input from other FX Tracks, rather than from Generator Channels. Suppose you want to put the same Fruity Reverb on Guitar and Drums, but you want to add Fruity Delay to the guitar and EQ to the drums. Easy. Send the drums to Regular FX Track 2 where you put the EQ. Send the guitar to Regular FX Track 3 where you put the Fruity Delay.
Mixing & Effects 9. What do the Plugins Do? Like we mentioned, you can get on-line help for all of the FL Studio Plugins, but here's a quick rundown on what they all do… Buzz Effect Adapter. This adapter lets you load in any Buzz Machine effect. FL Studio comes with a bunch installed already, but you can get more at www.BuzzMachines.com. Fruity 7 Band EQ. Equalizes your sound (just like on your Dad's stereo at home.) Fruity Balance. Lets you change the pan and volume while live recording.
Mixing & Effects Fruity Free Filter. Yet another filter - a classical 12db instead of a state variable filter like the Fruity Filter (whatever the hell that means.) Fruity HTML Notebook. Add some notes to your loop in html format, or add your own web page! Fruity LSD. Enables FL Studio to access the DirectMusic Software Synthesizer bundled with DirectX 8. Note that you must have DirectX 8.0 or later installed on your machine.
Mixing & Effects Fruity Vocoder. An advanced vocoder with a wide range of adjustable parameters and zero latency (i.e. the vocoded sounds are not “late”). This effect uses quite a lot of CPU with slower machines but has unique precision and features. Fruity WaveShaper. Is a wave distortion effect which maps input to output values using flexible spline-based graph. Fruity X-Y Controller. Yet another internal controller you’ll learn more about in the Live Recording section below. 10. Preset Effects.
Mixing & Effects 51
RECORDING WITH LIVE TWEAKING Load up GettingStarted1.flp, open the Channel Settings for Ins_Round, and click on the INS tab. Now start the loop and watch the cutoff wheel. Hey! It moves while the song is playing! What's up with that? That, my friend, is what we call Live Recording and it's the key to making your songs come alive… Click the INS Tab Watch this Wheel Move! 1. Choose an Automation Pattern. OK, this is important. Finally, we can tell you what Pattern 2 does in GettingStarted1.flp.
RECORDING WITH LIVE TWEAKING 2. Record Some Live Tweaking. The easiest thing to do is load up GettingStarted5.flp - the one with the TS404 in it. Open the Channel Settings Dialog, start the song, and practice playing with the CUT and RES wheels of the TS404. When you think you've got something groovy, make sure you've selected pattern 2 (the Main Automation pattern), then press the Record Switch shown below.
RECORDING WITH LIVE TWEAKING LemonBoy's Live Tweaking Recording Advice… * Always, always, always check the pattern selector before you start recording!!! * Try to get your song laid out the way you want it before you start live recording. Once you have events recorded, it is difficult to change the layout of the playlist in a way that will still sound good. * Always save a backup copy of your loop before you start any live recording.
THE EVENT EDITOR Unless you're a real pro, and you have a buffer length of zero milliseconds, you'll probably find that the live recordings don't always sound exactly perfect. That's where the event editor comes in. Each time you move a wheel during a recording session, the new setting is stored as an "event" for that wheel at that moment in the loop. With the event editor, you have complete control over how the sound is tweaked during playback. 1. Record Some Live Tweaking on a Particular Wheel.
The Event Editor 3. 4. 56 Event Editor Modes. The event editor has several modes, which are explained below. a. Draw Mode. In this mode, the mouse pointer looks like a pencil . You can add new single events by left clicking in the main window. You can also left-click and drag to draw multiple events, or right-click and drag to draw a line of events. b. Brush Mode. This mode ( mouse. c. to change to this mode. You can delete events by Delete Mode.
The Event Editor d. Live Recording Defeats Static Tweaking. If a wheel has some events recorded on it, you can no longer just set it anywhere you want and expect it to stay there. You have to go through the Event Editor or start a new live recording session to change it. 5. Introducing the Event LFO. Earlier on, we explained how to use the LFO (Low Frequency Oscillation) controls on TS404 channels (it's also available for Sample Channels on the INS panel).
The Event Editor horizontal position 8. 58 What About the End Section? If you want to make the LFO change as it progresses, turn on the End section by pressing the red button. Once the light is on, you can modify the parameters for the beginning (left) and end (right) of the LFO, and FL Studio will smoothly morph the settings from start to end. This lets you create really cool changing LFO effects like below. In the picture, a square wave LFO starts at bar 2 and ends at bar 4.
The Event Editor 9. What is in the Edit Menu? In the Edit Menu you can delete all events (Edit > Delete All), select all events (Edit > Select All), and change the color and look of the editor (Settings). You can also turn Snap on and off. Use Snap to make sure your highlighting and event placement is always right on a beat or bar. The grain of Snap can be changed on the main toolbar (see below). Try the different settings to see how it effects highlighting and event placement.
THE PIANO ROLL You may have already realized that there are some things that the Step Sequencer doesn't do very well. It gets tricky to use when you have melodies that are longer than 1 bar. It's also tricky if you want to use a single-note sample to play chords. Finally, it's nice to be able to slide notes like on the TS404, but you can't do that with any other type of channel. The Piano Roll solves all of those problems! 1. Open the Piano Roll. Load up GettingStarted6.flp and select pattern 3.
3. Edit Menu Edit Mode Buttons Play Indicator Zoom Display Mode C5 4. Important Advice. Before we go any further, here's a tip. Make sure you always keep your Piano Roll patterns separate from your regular patterns. You'll just avoid a lot of confusion that way. 5. What Kinds of Channels Can Have Piano Rolls? You can have a Piano Roll for any type of Generator. But there's something you should know about Sample Channels.
Using Loop Points Man, this thing just keeps gettin' better! Loop Points 6. 62 Basic Piano Roll Editing. Here's a run-down of how to edit your melody line. a. Entering Notes. To enter a note, make sure you're in Draw Mode by clicking the Draw Mode Button (see the Event Editor section) or the Paint Mode Button, click on the canvas, and drag the note to where you want it to start. If the loop is not playing, you should hear the note you are entering as you drag it around.
f. 7. Cutting, Copying and Pasting Notes. Go into Select Mode with the Select Mode Button (see Event Editor section) and click and drag to highlight some notes. Then use the Cut, Copy and Paste options in the Edit Menu or use Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X, and Ctrl-V. Pasting can get a little tricky, though. The notes will paste to their identical locations in the first bar that is currently displayed on the screen.
Slide Icon Note Starts Slides Up Slides Down Event Select 9. Then Stops Tweaking the Notes. Remember the Graph Editor from way back in the Step Sequencer section? It let you individually change Volume, Cutoff, Resonance and so on for each note. The Piano Roll has a similar function, laid out in the bottom part of the Piano Roll Editor.
AUDIO TRACKS IMPORTANT REMARK: This guide is a general Getting Started guide for all existing FL Studio Editions. Some features however, are not available in some editions. The FL Studio Fruityloops Edition doesn’t have Audio Track or the Integrated Wave Editor capabilities. Please check our site www.flstudio.com for upgrade conditions. FL Studio Producer Edition let you work with Audio Tracks and automation envelopes.
waveform preview inside the tracks. You can cut and split the audio clips in multiple pieces and arrange the pieces independently on the audio tracks. Each audio clip, available in the audio tracks, is in fact an instance of the Audio Clip generator. Each Audio Clip channel you add in the Step Sequencer becomes available in the audio tracks and vice versa - dropping samples on the audio tracks generates an Audio Clip channel (unless a channel exists with the same sample).
INTEGRATED WAVE EDITOR IMPORTANT REMARK: This guide is a general Getting Started guide for all existing FL Studio Editions. Some features however, are not available in some editions. The FL Studio Fruityloops Edition doesn’t have Audio Track or the Integrated Wave Editor capabilities. Please check our site www.flstudio.com for upgrade conditions.
THE BEATSLICER In yet another awesome FL Studio team-up, you can now import beats sliced up into separate drum hits using the BeatSlicer. This is really handy if you're into break beats. Here's how you do it… 1. Select Import→Beat to Slice from the File menu. 2. Select a Beat. The first thing you'll be asked to do is select a wav file to slice. Make sure it's at least a 1 bar (1 pattern long) beat. You can slice a file that's not a beat, but it won't work very well… 3.
5. To Merge or Not To Merge. Final question - do you want to merge the beat with the current project? If so, click off the light on the above dialog that says “Start New Project”. The beat will be inserted into the first pattern of your song. Because of this, you should probably insert a blank pattern at the start of the song before you slice. You can do this with ctrl-insert in the Playlist. 6. Save Your Changes.
Importing ReBirth RB-338 Songs. You might have noticed this option in the Import Menu... This feature allows you to open a ReBirth song, configure it to FL Studio Format, and listen in FL Studio. Of course, it's not a perfect conversion see the pop-up window for details about what parts of the song might not be converted properly. The playlist and pattern layout also needs some explaining. The first 32 patterns are TB303 #1. The next 32 are TB303 #2.
SHARING YOUR WORK So now you’re done with your song – you probably want to bring it out of FL Studio so you can put it on a CD, post it on the Internet, or edit it in another program. The Export function exists for this purpose. Here's how to use it. 1. Export to Wav or MP3. This option is available from the File menu. Whether you choose Wav or MP3, you will be asked to specify the name of the file and then the dialog below will appear. There's a lot to choose from here, and we're not gonna go into it.
Sharing Your Work 4. Exporting to a Zipped Loop Package. This feature is useful if you want to transmit your FL Studio files over the web. It takes your FL Studio file, plus all the samples used in that files, and puts them into one zip file. 5. Project Bones and Project Data Files. These options let you save a lot of the information about your track. The Project Bones option saves a file with all your presets, automation information, and so on to be loaded later.
EXTERNAL CONTROLLERS An External MIDI Controller is kind of like a big fancy joystick to control the wheels and switches in FL Studio. The main difference is that you have to tell FL Studio ahead of time what you want each knob on the controller to do (a minor inconvenience for the luxury of changing both cutoff and resonance at the same time!) Each knob on the controller can be linked to a different wheel or slider on FL Studio.
The PhatBoy and Other Controllers b. The DrehBank. Another popular choice is the DrehBank from Doepfer at www.doepfer.de. This baby gives you 64 knobs instead of 13! Only I may own a Drehbank. They are not for manual writers! The Boss c. Other Controllers. The Korg MicroKONTROL, Edirol PCR-50 and MC-505 by Roland (www.rolandgroove.com) are some of the many other controllers that can be used with FL Studio. The MC-505 is a lot more than a MIDI controller.
The PhatBoy and Other Controllers 2. Setting Up Your Controller. a. Get a MIDI Cable and Plug in your Controller. Look on the back of your computer. If you see two or three round, 5-pin connectors labeled "MIDI", then you're in business. If not, look for a 15pin trapezoidal joystick port. If you have the round connectors, you need a cable to go from "MIDI Out" on your controller to "MIDI In" on your computer.
The PhatBoy and Other Controllers d. Set Your MIDI Input Device. If the light is still not coming on when you turn knobs on your controller, go into MIDI Settings (from the Options menu or by hitting F10). Check out the Remote Control Input box. If you see the word "none" there, then you've got to select an input. Typically, you will be presented with a number of choices, and you'll just have to try them all to figure out which one is right. Are you ready to rock? e. Troubleshooting Checklist.
The PhatBoy and Other Controllers 4. b. Turn a Knob on Your Controller. You should see the Channel and Controller numbers change. Now click OK, and turn the same knob. You should see the volume control turn back and forth and hear the volume of the instrument change. You're in business! c. Set the Buffer Length as Low as You Can. Earlier, we explained the buffer length slider (get to it by hitting F10 and clicking the Audio tab).
The PhatBoy and Other Controllers 5. What About Internal Controllers? Finally, we can tell you about the Internal Controller Plugins listed in the Effects section (the Formula Controller, Peak Controller, and X-Y Controller). These are plugins with controllers, which can set other controls. Did you follow that? Let’s take the Fruity X-Y Controller as an example. Open the plugins window (F9) and put a Fruity X-Y Controller on the master FX track. a.
The PhatBoy and Other Controllers b. Link the Cutoff wheel to the X value of the internal controller, as shown above. Now link the Resonance wheel to the Y value. Then open up the Fruity X-Y Controller window, start the loop, and drag the circle around to listen to the Cutoff and Resonance changing at the same time. Cool, huh? Well, that’s it. Have fun! Don’t forget there’s more help available inside FLStudio and on line at www.FLStudio.com.
CREDITS Web Site Jean-Marie Cannie Frank Van Biesen Programming and Graphics Didier Dambrin (gol) Additional Help / SDK Translation Frédéric Vanmol TS404& Wasp Engine Richard Hoffmann SimSynth 1 & 2 Renderers David Billen DrumSynth Renderer Paul Kellet Getting Started Guide Sam Scott Tutorials, Help, Manuals Frank Bongers (The original LemonBoy!) Robert Conde (Jaha, Doo-D-Rox) Sam Scott (hERETIC, Burton Coggles) Stanislav Vasilev (mmlabs) BeatSlicer Engine Peter Segerdahl Speech Engine SoftVoice A big r
INDEX 3 321 countdown, 52 3xOsc, 25, 26, 27 A amount (AMT), 16, 17, 42 Aphex Twin, 27 arpeggiator, 15, 37 attack (ATT), 14, 16, 42 Audio Settings, 7, 52, 73 automation, 24, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 56, 68, 73 auto-smoothing, 55 B background rendering, 67 balance, 11, 48 bass, 20, 23, 27, 40, 48 BeatSlicer, 30, 39, 64, 65 BeepMap, 25, 26, 27 bit rate, 67 BooBass, 25, 26, 27 browser, 8, 13, 23, 38, 39 buffer length, 7, 50, 52, 54, 73 Buzz Effects, 48 Buzz Generators, 25, 26, 28 BuzzMachines.
Index flanger, 44, 48, 49 Force Feedback File, 30 Fruit Kick, 25, 26, 28 Fruity DrumSynth Live, 25, 26, 29 Fruity DX10, 25, 26, 29 Fruity effects, 11, 27, 35, 44, 74 Fruity Granulizer, 29, 39 Fruity Scratcher, 39, 49 Fruity Send, 49 Fruity Slicer, 30, 39, 64, 65 Fruity Soft Clipper, 49 Fruity SoundFont Player, 25, 26, 30 Fruity Vibrator, 30 Fruity Wrapper, 34, 35 Fruity X-Y Controller, 50, 74, 75 FruityLoops.
Index oscillator (OSC), 27, 42 oscillators, 42 P pan, 11, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 48, 49, 63 pat/song, 22, 23 pattern selector, 22, 23, 56 phase inversion, 49 phaser, 44, 49 PhatBoy, 69, 71, 72 piano roll, 5, 43, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63 ping pong, 15 pitch, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 39, 43, 59, 62, 63 pitch bend (slide), 19, 43, 59, 62 pitch width (PW), 42 play indicator, 22, 55, 56, 59 play switch, 8, 10 playlist, 22, 23, 24, 51, 54, 65 Plucked!, 25, 26, 31 plugin, 12, 25, 29, 34, 35, 36, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 65, 74 p
Index export to wav, 67 files, 64 Windows, 8 www.mda-vst.com, 38 Z zipped loop packages, 68 zoom, 54, 55, 60 Please don’t forget to consult the extended and detailed online help that comes with your FL Studio. Just push F1 to call the context sensitive online help. This guide is only intended to get you started. If you are in need of more details, the online help will tell you everything you need to know about the FL Studio features, the generators and its effects.
