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FRUITY LOOPS 101 - PLEASE direct -ALL- FL questions here


starla
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Okay, here's the deal: FL has to tell all the plugins to play at specific times, tell them what to do, etc. If you don't have an AGP soundcard that has either ASIO drivers or DirectSound drivers, the processing power to do this comes straight from your CPU. Additionally, the synths and stuff all need CPU cycles in order to run, some more than others. So, you can rack up quite a bit of work for your CPU to do on some of the more demanding projects. Increasing the directsound buffer decreases the strain on your CPU, but it can also reduce the performance of the program itself.

How will changing the directsound buffer affect your music? Aurally, not at all, but you might start to notice if you use MIDI at all, or try to lay down some automation. You'll probably notice that FL's included monitoring features will become more jerky, too. Like I said, though, getting some sort of soundcard with good ASIO or Directsound drivers can help reduce the strain here.

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Okay, so I've got a problem. I'm experimenting with the 3xOsc. I've got a tune down (It's a Bach invention) and it sounds pretty good. So I export to WAV, and compress to mp3. Now, the problem is that the mp3 sounds bad... even though I'm using VBR. There's a sort of rumbling, knocking sound you can hear while the track plays. I think it's coming from the one channel I have that is acting as the bass. I've tried tweaking it by lowering the volume, adjusting the Oscillators, but it still sounds bad. Any tips?

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Hey everyone. I'm new with FL Studio and all, and this is probably a dumb question, but here goes.

Alright, so I'm looking to use Edirol's Super Orchestra HQ to put some music together. My question is this: do I have to re-load the VST every time I want to add a new track? When I load it, I see that there are 16 separate tracks on the control board, but I have no known way of accessing those other 15, as the one on top is the only one that's expressed. Is there a way I can daisy-chain subservient channels to the master console, and have then act as channels 2-16 within that same instance of the VST, or do I have to actually re-load it every time? I really hope not, cause that's just a huge CPU hog.

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Ok, just got FruityLoops, I have barely any music background at all. But I'm loving it thus far, and have learned a lot of new things..

One thing that bugs me, is whenever I load up a midi and apply those crappy samples (but whatever, I'm just playing with it). Anyways, what annoys me is when I stop, pause, move place the sequence in a specific place on the remix. All my settings for the particular midi setting are defaulted.. meaning the sound, Pan, FX etc are all screwed up.

It's annoying I haven't figured out how to stop it from doing that. Anyone know what I"m talking about/can help me with it?

Edit: Btw, I'm refering to the volume in the channel settings, also I'm using 3.4

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Montblanc: Set the "PORT" display-thing at the top-right corner of the wrapper window that the plugin is in to whatever port you like. Then load up MIDI Outs and set all of them to that same port. Then assign them to the channels you've set in that plugin.

Calabrel: Check to see if there's any automation that's making the channels revert back (it's under Current Project>Automation in the side bar, and it'll normally be under "initiallized controls" in this case). Once you've found the event(s) that are causing this, right click on the automation event, select "edit events", then in the new window that pops up, press ctrl+A (select all) and hit delete. No more automation!

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Jonodude: check the WAV before converting it to mp3, sometimes the 3xOsc sounds bad when it is exported. Play with the export settings to see if it helps.

sometimes screwy things happen with the 3xosc and the ts404, specially if you layer up various patterns using the same instrument at the same time, for that you should use different colored bars in the piano roll for example

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1. It's not impossible to search, use the "Search" link at the bottom right of the the OCR logo.

2. You want the samples and sounfont request thread, anyway. Try to keep discussion in this thread FL-centric.

3. Using different colors in the piano roll will have no effect on the performance of any of FL's generators.

Nice FLP. Exporting as a zipped loop includes all the samples you used (there's a few samples missing, which you have to provide in order for anyone to hear the completed song).

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Sorry, no flp's from here. I should try making something with all FL samples, synths, and effects, though....

Anyway, I finally figured out what the "Hardware Buffer" and "Polling" parameters in the DirectSound buffer mean (I don't know if this has already been answered, but it was a mystery a while ago). You can use either one of them to ensure MIDI timing, so that the timing doesn't go along with the audio buffer. For example, just make a MIDI Out, and set the port to your soundcard's MIDI synth or external hardware if you have it, and then turn up the DirectSound buffer all the way... heheh. Now try it with Polling or Hardware Buffer. Of course, if you have good drivers (I certainly don't =P), all that stuff is not so important anyway, but it's good to know. Imagine how frustrating it would be to have your $2,000.00 ROMpler so horribly out of sync with your sequencer!

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I have a new problem. I think it's already posted before me, but I don't go looking trough 90 pages :).

When I save something as midi, all instruments are abrubt piano in the midi file. In the flp file, all instruments are midi out, I have LSD on and the instrument's port and LSD's port matches.

Please help me before saturday

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btw, I've made a screenprint where you can find all info about my settings (perhaps it has something to do with wrong settings):click here

Fixed it; presumably Lycos runs on Apache, and links are case sensitive.

Anyway, nothing looks wrong from the screenshot ... This is only happening when you export the MIDI? The only thing that I can think of is that there's some automation doing it. If that's not it, I have no idea.

If we could see the FLP file, we might be able to better help you.

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Have a question about keeping big projects organized the best, and if anyone would be interested in sharing their syntax and methods of keeping the big beasts tamed. I'm running into problems as far as step sequencer sample organization goes primarily; kinda kicking at me and putting a stop to any progress, and hope others imput will cure it. Here goes.

Playlist setup

flplaylist3.jpg

I'm fairly happy with what I've set up for taming the patterns. What we have here is patterns for different sections of the song at the top, Arranged by what fires first. Following them is the reverse cymbals, the percussion patterns, then the crashes. Afterwords, the sound effects and corresponding sound controllers, then the pitch change automation and finally tempo change automation. Anyone notice anything I'm missing anything in this? I'd also like a little better system when dealing with percussion rather then placing them by what fires first.

Step Sequencer setup

flstepsequencer1.jpg

Here we have a step sequencer setup to corresponde with the sectioned song patterns in the playlist. Thats where it's downfall dwells. From top to bottom, the samples are arranged in order corresponding to their patterns (the instrument samples that is). This helps keep things in order when making changes, and makes for a nice clean accesible project. They are also grouped by months as viewable below.

flstepsequencer2.jpg

Now the downfall to this. Any sample that is used throughout the song is cloned, so that there are no out of place samples, and also provides flexability when costumizing samples for that part of the song. However, it's two downfalls are wearing at me. There are an annoying 26 different Cadenza Strings Soundfonts scattered throughout the sequencer for instance. With 234 different samples used in one song, the song become's chippy and hard to work with. Cleaning up any un-used samples and patterns cures this for me (which is what I'm doing right now :). The other downfall, is that I'm struggling to make my song more realistic. I'd like to have about 4-6 different cadenzas used throughout the song as in how a real song would be made, and 4-6 more clones of those an octave higher or lower for say. The only sollution to this I can think of is depreciating the song out of its pattern base, which really isn't something I want to do. i was about to break down the songs samples and get rid of all these clones, but then I ran into the fact that this would destroy the current group system I have. Any suggestions? How does everyone else make their songs easy to work on? I'd think that a more proper change in balancing flexability with mangement would exist in the correlation of patterns and sample placement. Who knows?

Everything below the song samples is pretty easly managable. Drums are organized like a kit: hats, kicks, etc, then sub arranged in alphabitical order,, and the sound fx are arranged in alphabetical order with their controllers below them.

Not exactly a technical question, but I see this helping a lot of other people than just me. But does anyone feel like reading through all that? Lol. I'm glad I brought pictures to spice things up a little.

Btw, automation allwayes eats at me. Is there anyway to list what patterns are automated, and how they are automated like how you would work with keyframe animation in a 3d program? Odviously not, but I'll dream. Pitch changes, sound changes, tempo changes. Not the sample stuff. I usually end up moving my piano rolls to a brand new pattern if things start to get weird.

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How DO you set up automation effects? What I've been doing is hitting record to a pattern, then tweaking the knobs to various parameters to get the effects I want. But is there a way to undo this or clear my changes in case I mess up and want to re-record? I'm getting tired in re-opening my files.

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How DO you set up automation effects? What I've been doing is hitting record to a pattern, then tweaking the knobs to various parameters to get the effects I want. But is there a way to undo this or clear my changes in case I mess up and want to re-record? I'm getting tired in re-opening my files.

Ricers, do you mean to edit the events? If you right-click a knob/slider, (any automatable knob in FL,) then click "Edit Events," you can, well, edit the events. If you've already used the record button to "record events," you'll see the automation in there and you can delete it/edit it however you wish. There are also some nice tools (The LFO one is useful.) Remember that the events you edit will end up in the pattern you're working with, so it's a good idea to label them well so that you don't accidentally overlap it with something else, you know?

Anyway, I hope that helps, but if I'm totally off track of what you're trying to do, just holler.

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MasamunE: That was a long post, and I'm not really sure what you're asking. All I can really tell from what you've said is that you're using a LOT of resources with the amount of soundfonts you're using and by cloning channels so much.

The patterns that are automated are listed under "Current project>Automation" in the sidebar. I'm not sure what else you really want (I don't work with 3D animation programs so I don't know what you mean by "keyframes").

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Playlist setup:

I deal with the playlist same way as you, usually making downward stairways for loops, but FL 4 lets you color different patterns or pattern groups using the 'select' tool in the playlist then Playlist options/Patterns/Color selected. That helps a lot

To separate these sections I use different colored blank lines filled with empty patterns, as to make a long colored boundary that spans the length of the song rather than just an empty space (usin the brush, the pencil takes forever).

step sequencer:

Thinking about your step sequencer problems, you can automate the mute buttons of the instruments, maybe turning off unused instruments per section of the song helps? you can do it by setting up a group of separate patterns to become on/off switches. You can check beforehand to see if that saves CPU by turning off instruments yourself. Still, I think having clones is the way to go, although you can also set up patterns as switches that change the parameters of your instrument, maybe that way you can reduce the size?

recording automation:

oh and there Is a way of checking what patterns have automation recorded: go to 'edit events' for whatever parameter is dancing by itself, then scroll through the patterns pressing the + or the - sign.

Maybe you automate by using the record button and start tweaking. you can do this manually, if you didn't know, by selecting a pattern that will hold the automation, then right clicking on the instrument's volume/cut/arpp/porta/mute/whatever button (most functions, even main pitch and main vol, can be automated) and select 'edit events'

Hope this long post answers your long post!!

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Automation

I was in CC Ricers boat as to how to handle it too. Record, then undo, use different patterns for everything. A real mess, and made me not want to automate anything. The edit events button never really made any sense to me, because I had miss interperated it for being global (the whole song), not pattern based. It all makes so much sense now thanks to you guys. So from what I understand, you basically record an automation manually, and then fine tune it in the edit events screen.

Are there any standardization rules you guys have figured out? Since theres no means of telling what means what on the lines is what as far as I know.

fleditevents.jpg

Here's my 128-140 tempo change. Hehe, I would have assumed the lines would have started at the bottom, but nope. They are up in the air meaning wherever it starts is where 128 is. Does that make sense?

flcurrentevents.jpg

Skullkrusher (hehe), that helps a lot. From what I understand, thats how many different patterns are automated. Blarg! Now I can go back and fix a whole lot of problems. Thanks X2

Playlist

I didn't know there was color, this makes things a lot easier for finding things quicker by eye, thanks!

Step Sequencer

Yeah, I've come to realize that clones are infact the way to go all along. A tip I can give everyone on increasing cpu performance is to go into the Samples properties > Misc menu and lowering the cut numbers (Usually by clicking the cut itself button or doing it manually (make sure those numbers match if your not sure what it does). Mine were all at 99! Hehe, I'm not certain how technically sound this is, but it helps a ton. Having them around 50-70's makes for nice smooth playback in FL. Another thing would be to lower the poly rate in the same window, but I'm not certain how that effects quality.

The Beast

thebeast.jpg

There it is. The thing is, if you go exploring in there, you'lle find no soundcard but ndvidia onboard sound. I'm not really sure what I'm getting by on exactly

Conclusion

Thank you for the help felles. Theres a whole new world of weighted keys, easy editing and power I've yet to expierence. Thanks a lot, my band says thanks too

hanselandhansel.jpg

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