Limiters and Compressors - I Really Need Help...

[Malheureusement]

Ok I thought I had it all down in FL Studio, but no, there's more to learn. I just got an idea for a new track and started plugging things in, but then FL jacks with my sound.

I have an arp intro that goes up in volume, then when the drums come in, (and I DIDN'T TOUCH ANYTHING) the arp volume automatically goes down. Is this a compressor thing? Because it pisses me off to have the main part of the song going down in volume and letting the drum track totally overpower it. I've tried cutting the drum track's volume in half, I've tried messing with some compressors and limiters, but nothing works; it always goes down in volume when the beat comes in. HELP!

Here's some samples of what I'm talking about:

With FX (Compressors, Limiters, EQ, Stereo):
http://tindeck.com/listen/qhwq

Without FX (just notes plugged into FL with arp volume being much louder than the dance track):
http://tindeck.com/listen/mndo

Seriously, anyone who knows FL Studio, please tell me why I'm so n00b, and help me to get better. I'm quite frustrated right now. If there are tutorials out there on this kind of thing, I'd love to watch/read/listen to any of them. I just want this FIXED.

Again, sorry I'm so n00b. I just wanna learn...

[Zephyr]

Okay well even if you don't have any compressors or limiters that are messing with it, there's still a max volume at 0db that FL will peak at. This will create the compression effect if the arp is already too loud and the drums need to do something to be heard. Try lowering all of your mix levels until your master output stays out of the red and see if that helps. If you get a good mix going into the master, then you can always use a limiter to bring the volume back up without adverse effects. You could also just try lowering the volume of the master-out, which might work, but if it doesn't, then try the other method.

Good luck!


edit: after listening it still does sound as if your drums are just a bit too loud, especially in the second track, try the first methods, but you may also want to eq each track so they leave room for each other, if they share fewer frequencies they won't mess each other up as much.

[Malheureusement]

Thanks, Zephyr. I'll definitely try that. I just spent a few hours reading about how compressors work and I'm gonna see if I can compress it all down then bring it back up. Hopefully that works. I just hope I don't run out of CPU lol.

[Zephyr]

Compression shouldn't take much of any CPU, I'm not sure what you mean by that statement.

[Malheureusement]

Well if I have ten instruments playing at the same time, compression running on all of those instruments as well as EQ, and all those instruments are being pumped through a master channel that has affects on it as well. They all add up. And my POS laptop only has 2 gigs of RAM and only dual-core processors. So I run out of memory to process the sound... :(

[BlackOpsProject]

You can actually gain a little bit more CPU overhead on laptops with integrated sound cards if you use ASIO4ALL instead of the default windows output. You may need to do a little tweaking on the settings. If you check the FAQ that comes with the ASIO4ALL driver, it will help a lot!

[Malheureusement]

Thanks, man! I just checked into that stuff and I think it works perfectly! I still have lack of CPU, but it's a lot better now that I'm using an ASIO driver. Wow can't believe I never thought of that! Saved me some serious time and effort, even money! Thanks!

[BlackOpsProject]

Glad to help! I actually just discovered that, like a coupla months ago, and I've been using FL for years!