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Why is FL not popular?! I thought it was good!


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This is just a question out of curiosity. I was in WHSmith (do they have them in other places but england?) and was browsing the 'music' section of the magazine collection. They had stuff on Cubase, Pro Tools, Reason, all that lot but ZILCH on FL. Nothing. Not even the general music tech magazines covered the thing. I've used all those other DAWs and found FL to be the best. Why are they so damn popular? Even the course I'm doing at university has all the DAWs but FL (and Reaper, that's meant to be awesome too). Is it just not good in industry? And why?!

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Because FL developed out of consumer-grade software (notice that they've now dropped the distinctly non-pro sounding Fruity Loops name) and Pro Tools et al. have been professional-grade software from the start. At this point, the capabilities of the programs are basically the same, but I think any marginalization of FL is mostly due to its history.

EDIT: And also possibly because its (and Reaper's) lower pricing may tend to get them lumped into the pro-sumer demographic. All of this is more about marketing than it is actual software capabilities.

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Is it just not good in industry? And why?!

FL is awesome gateway software but it has limits; granted those limits are diminishing but they keep it out of professional studios. It is not bad software, at all, it is just something that started at consumer grade and now is stepping into pro-grade. It probably doesn't have the foundation that AVID does; but it is coming up. Like when we stopped using RCA connections and moved on to XLR/TRS connections; or when we stop monitoring on our 9" Sanyo home stereo speakers and move onto Mackie HR824mk2 monitors. I give FL ~ three more years and then we'll probably see more of it in professional studios; as more artists use it the more the artist will want that tool in the studio.

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This is just a question out of curiosity. I was in WHSmith (do they have them in other places but england?) and was browsing the 'music' section of the magazine collection. They had stuff on Cubase, Pro Tools, Reason, all that lot but ZILCH on FL. Nothing. Not even the general music tech magazines covered the thing. I've used all those other DAWs and found FL to be the best. Why are they so damn popular? Even the course I'm doing at university has all the DAWs but FL (and Reaper, that's meant to be awesome too). Is it just not good in industry? And why?!

I'd have to disagree, there are several magazines that can be found in any given Barnes & Noble or what have you (i.e. Electronic Musician) that have a lot of Image-Line coverage.

Some claim FL's audio engine isn't up to par with its more "professional" counterparts, such as Cubase, but that's a little up in the air. Personally, FL's audio editing interface is a little clunky, and I'd like to see it more intuitive. For its purpose, though, which for me is to easily lay down piano roll programming, it excels.

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I'm excited to see where FL Studio is going, it's too bad it's written in Delta, but I'm sure they'll do something about that when the time comes. With the new version they're starting to change a lot, making it more linear while still keeping a pattern based approach. I really like where it's going.

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I'm excited to see where FL Studio is going, it's too bad it's written in Delta, but I'm sure they'll do something about that when the time comes. With the new version they're starting to change a lot, making it more linear while still keeping a pattern based approach. I really like where it's going.

Delphi* Gol the coder has said before that he won't recode it in C++. Given Logic's hold on the apple DAW market it prob isn't worth it to recode FL from a financial perspective.

It's def cool to see FL incorporating more of a linear workflow without changing it's own unique style of doing things. That along with it's audio editing and massive # of windows was a big complaint by many former FL users myself included.

If FL developed macros like Cubase has that would be the bees fuckin knees right there. (unless it already has em by now)

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How does FL have too many windows? I think it's much cleaner than any other DAW I've used, certainly WAY easier to view than Logic. I "only" have a two monitor setup and I only use the right screen for the piano roll, which is probably a waste. As for audio editing, FL's automation is beyond awesome and Edison is really powerful. However, the weakness is that it doesn't stream audio from the disk.

Also, FL will last into the 64bit era thanks to jBridge, as BGC said, but Delphi might eventually be able to compile as 64bit as well.

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How does FL have too many windows? I think it's much cleaner than any other DAW I've used, certainly WAY easier to view than Logic. I "only" have a two monitor setup and I only use the right screen for the piano roll, which is probably a waste.
I can see a window problem if you like to keep everything open. Sometimes it can get a little tricky with my single-monitor setup. But I usually just close windows when I'm done with them, considering they can just be re-opened and brought to the front with a click or two.

Windows? Why would we want to see anything? It's audio engineering. We listen. How visual does one need to be?

... I jest ... :tomatoface:

But I wonder if anyone else notices the increase in visual mixers / engineers verse the decrease in aural?

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But I wonder if anyone else notices the increase in visual mixers / engineers verse the decrease in aural?

Is it a surprise that people gravitate towards quantitative mixing techniques over qualitative ones? Which concept is easier to grasp and implement? This sound needs a touch more "air", or this sound needs a 1dB boost at 3kHz?

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lol@the too many windows

I agree, why not use something with a much cleaner interface, where everything's locked in place?

FL's not that bad though, quality wise - it comes with some decent plugins and at the very least the piano roll doesn't suck. I just wish they'd abandon the step sequencer already. Maybe make it a plugin instead of the focal point of the software.

When I used FL [for about 6 years!] I had a perfect window system set up, though one wrong mouseclick or a new version comes out and it'd all get reset! I wonder if there's a way to pin windows down in the newer versions.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I change all my hot-keys to the ProTools hot-keys in all my DAW's. Most decent ones will let you rebuild the whole key-stroke set-up... I just wish the key-stroke files where all the same file-type in the system folders for each DAW, then it would be just copy & paste.

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