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Need help learning the ropes


Minator2
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I received FL Studio 9. Anyone know how to work it? In other words, I learn better with 1 on 1 help. So if anyone is willing to take the time and effort to help me, that would be GREATLY appreciated.

I'm assuming you want the ABSOLUTE BASICS, so I will PM you.

The absolute basics is about as narrow as possible, because

"How do I use FL studio" is an insanely broad question.

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I would like to know as much as one is willing to teach. I was able to come out with something, by self teaching, but there's just so much to learn. So, with that said, I would in fact like to lean how to...

1) Create music from scratch

2) Take a song and make a mix. Example, take out, add, lengthen, shorten etc...

3) How to use the program to its fullest.

I'm always on AIM, so IM me freely, or send me a PM if you're willing to help. Thank you for the positive responses! ^_^

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again, you're too broad, dude. how to create music from scratch? what kind of music? what length? using fl's included stuff, or plugins, or what? you need to know what you want before you can find it - first rule of research.

take a song and make a mix - i'm assuming you mean rearranging it for remixing. do you know any theory? can you read music? that's your basic idea, there - listen to the song you want to arrange, decide on what you want to do to it (slow it down, change the meter or key, add instruments and harmonies...), and then do it. same thing - you need to know what you want before you can just dive in.

how to use the program to its fullest? keep trying, dude =)

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I came here for ASSISTANCE, not a lecture. I have self-taught myself SOME stuff, enough to come up with a crappy, 2 odd minute thing, which wouldn't pass off for music. I'm willing to work hard to learn what I need to, and apparently, the help I'm looking for is elsewhere. Sorry for wasting everyone's time.

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I came here for ASSISTANCE, not a lecture. I have self-taught myself SOME stuff, enough to come up with a crappy, 2 odd minute thing, which wouldn't pass off for music. I'm willing to work hard to learn what I need to, and apparently, the help I'm looking for is elsewhere. Sorry for wasting everyone's time.

We can't help you if we don't know what you need help with. :/

How to create a song from scratch? Learn Music Theory, because FL won't teach you that.

How to rearrange a song? Learn Music Theory, because FL won't teach you that.

How to use program to fullest? It's no use if you don't understand Music Theory.

If you want help with Music Theory, then I can help you a little, but we're not going to talk about FL Studio much.

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I came here for ASSISTANCE, not a lecture. I have self-taught myself SOME stuff, enough to come up with a crappy, 2 odd minute thing, which wouldn't pass off for music. I'm willing to work hard to learn what I need to, and apparently, the help I'm looking for is elsewhere. Sorry for wasting everyone's time.

Hard work includes lectures. If you're not willing to learn that way, may I suggest grabbing like 400 MIDIs and studying them for hours on end for like a year or two?

Actually, the real path to learning how to do music is all of it. Learning, assistance, lectures, studying music thats been done, hard work, time and devotion.

Like anything in life worth doing, its daunting at first and a road paved with inevitable failure time and time again, but those who stick with it and learn from their mistakes go the spoils.

Anyway, one of the things that's helped me a lot is the MIDI route in FL. I still rely on that technique today. You get to see the notes in the piano roll and cut channels down to bass only, drums only, etc. etc. and you get to see how they play off each other and build the track. vgmusic.com is the place for MIDIs.

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I came here for ASSISTANCE, not a lecture. I have self-taught myself SOME stuff, enough to come up with a crappy, 2 odd minute thing, which wouldn't pass off for music. I'm willing to work hard to learn what I need to, and apparently, the help I'm looking for is elsewhere. Sorry for wasting everyone's time.

hey, dude, i can't help you if i don't know what you need. if you don't even speak the language - if you haven't even googled some basic search terms - then how can we help you?

also, regardless of what you make - it's music. it's just a matter of what kind of music. if you're trying to write techno and you compose something akin to beethoven's fifth, is that crappy techno?

if you're already angry at the entire community - which is, frankly, probably the nicest community i've found online - after we actually did try to help you instead of ignoring or insulting you, you're screwed, man :<

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Umm... Usually when I'm driven by a question, I go ask the peeps here or at theflipside forums. They'll even be nice enough to put it in layman's term (sorry I'm more of a visual learner).

You could just find video tutorials for this but since you're probably lazy, I'll start with the basics of FL. Before that I'm assuming you have nothing but FL Studio (no vst, plugins, external hardware, etc.)

First press F1. Read through the "Getting started". This will guide you through setting up ASIO. Download and install ASIO4ALL. Ensure that you disable any midi drivers by setting the port number to ---. I assume you know what ASIO is?

Expand "Introduction to FL Studio." Select "How to use FL Studio." It has everything you need to know for the basic workflow of FL.

For me I categorize 7 areas when I work with DAW.

Understanding music theory (ei. how to build chords)

Understanding the genre you're working with (How do I do a progressive trance?)

Understanding technical and musical terms (What is Midi? ASIO? Velocity? Tempo? Digital? Analog?)

Understanding the program's workflow (ei. the GUI, mouse interface, keyboard interface, how to get around places)

Understanding synth programming (if your into synthesizers: how to create the desired synth)

Understanding DSP Effects (ei. compression, limiter, reverb, parametric EQ, phasers, chorus, flanger, etc.)

Understanding the art of mastering (how to make it sound good on different systems)

Now choose one of the 7 (or more if it's others) and please narrow your question. If you don't know anything about music theory, I suggest you ask that first.

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Umm... Usually when I'm driven by a question, I go ask the peeps here or at theflipside forums. They'll even be nice enough to put it in layman's term (sorry I'm more of a visual learner).

You could just find video tutorials for this but since you're probably lazy, I'll start with the basics of FL. Before that I'm assuming you have nothing but FL Studio (no vst, plugins, external hardware, etc.)

First press F1. Read through the "Getting started". This will guide you through setting up ASIO. Download and install ASIO4ALL. Ensure that you disable any midi drivers by setting the port number to ---. I assume you know what ASIO is?

Expand "Introduction to FL Studio." Select "How to use FL Studio." It has everything you need to know for the basic workflow of FL.

For me I categorize 6 areas when I work with DAW.

Understanding music theory (ei. how to build chords)

Understanding the genre you're working with (How do I do a progressive trance?)

Understanding technical and musical terms (What is Midi? ASIO? Velocity? Tempo? Digital? Analog?)

Understanding the program's workflow (ei. the GUI, mouse interface, keyboard interface, how to get around places)

Understanding synth programming (if your into synthesizers: how to create the desired synth)

Understanding DSP Effects (ei. compression, limiter, reverb, parametric EQ, phasers, chorus, flanger, etc.)

Now choose one of the 6 (or more if it's others) and please narrow your question. If you don't know anything about music theory, I suggest you ask that first.

I'll check out the following. I've checked out video tutorials, but the few that I've found don't got to far into depth, and it's not like I can communicate with the video.

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A lot of what you want to learn will come from years of trial and error as well as studying. Unless you have the time and money to go to school for composition and recording, that's what it's going to take. There is way too much to learn with respect to what you want to do and it's not something that's going to happen by reading a few tutorials and watching some Youtube videos.

How did I get started in all this? A LOT of experimentation. You are going to be your own best help. Since there isn't one single way to do things, it will take you some time to learn your own methods. FL can do a lot of things and there's many ways to accomplish the goals you set out.

Now if you tells us more about your music and recording background, we can probably steer you into a direction as to what sort of subjects you need to bone up on. You have very ambitious goals, and that's a good thing. Just don't expect yourself to reach those goals very quickly. The journey is where the fun is at anyway! I'm 35 years old and I've been involved in music most of my life. I'm still learning!

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I'll check out the following. I've checked out video tutorials, but the few that I've found don't got to far into depth, and it's not like I can communicate with the video.

There you go. So what is it that the video is missing or lacking? You saw the video, and probably had questions. Link us to the video if you have to and ask us questions. Tell us what it doesn't explain clearly. This is how you ask questions. However if you expect a single video will try to cover everything, that will never happen in light years.

Btw, most likely all the tutorial videos will assume you have knowledge of music theory. You'll need to master this first before touching FL let alone any DAW application. Do you know music theory? Like how to build chords and analyze the chord progression of the source?

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I don't know what this music theory is, but it's something that I will look up, if that's whats needed for FL. In terms of video tutorials, the only ones that I were able to find, are earlier versions of FL. So in respect to the FL 8, changes were obviously made between 8 and 9, so when I go to check out what the tutorial is stating, sometimes I cannot find the location of what is stated. I have also messed around to figure out what a few things do, and I am looking up guides to try and assist me, but like I just stated, their isn't much to go on when it comes to FL 9, only 8. So I can only do what I can find.

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I don't know what this music theory is, but it's something that I will look up, if that's whats needed for FL.

People have been using this "music theory" long before FL. :P

Music theory can be pretty daunting at first, but take small steps towards it and it starts to unravel and make sense over time.

Look up something like "music theory for beginners" or "music arranging for beginners". You'd be amazed how little they condescend and how much they can offer. I look through them every once in a while and usually find something basic I missed.

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I don't know what this music theory is, but it's something that I will look up, if that's whats needed for FL. In terms of video tutorials, the only ones that I were able to find, are earlier versions of FL. So in respect to the FL 8, changes were obviously made between 8 and 9, so when I go to check out what the tutorial is stating, sometimes I cannot find the location of what is stated. I have also messed around to figure out what a few things do, and I am looking up guides to try and assist me, but like I just stated, their isn't much to go on when it comes to FL 9, only 8. So I can only do what I can find.

Music theory is what's needed to write music. It's basically all the principles and guidelines, about chords and melodies, rhythm, how parts fit together, etc.

You can't make the program write the song for you. You need to write the music in your head; FL Studio is simply putting it through your speakers with all the instruments, effects, etc.

Just like you can't bake cookies with that awesome new oven, no matter how hard you try, without knowing how.

Music is the same way. No matter what awesome program you have, you need to learn the basic guidelines of music should/should not's. It's more of a mind thing, than a program thing.

And by the way, I say "should/should not's" because as time progresses and so does your skill, you can even break the guidelines if you do it right, and the end result would be very pleasing. (but only if you do it right, which takes experience)

Trust me, you should take a break from learning FL and learn to how to write music (not physically, but learn the principles etc.). From there, you use FL as your medium from your brain to your speakers. You WILL NOT LIKE THE RESULTS AT FIRST, but the more songs you make, the better you get.

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hehe. Reminds me of my old arrangements. I deny my old arrangements lol, but yes I do revise them. I started my career in arranging sheet music for piano long before I started FL. Boy what an experience. It started out as hammering random notes on my piano to get the right sounds (chords were the worst). Lots of trial and error. I was shooting myself in the foot. A year later I began noticing a pattern. How arpeggios actually work (I realized they were broken chords) and how blocks of chords work. What "minor" and "major" and other chords really meant. To put it to the test, I turned on accompaniment (I play on a digital piano) and played the chords in my left and the melody in my right. It worked! The rest was history as I no longer have to listen to single notes one by one in an arpeggio, but simply figure out what chord it is and build it from there. With ear training I can discern the differences between major, minor, augmented, and diminished chords as well as 7th and dominant 7th chords. Even today I'm still training my ears.

To OP: If you have a keyboard or a digital piano, I suggest trying out the accomp feature. Choose a song you're comfortable with. We'll walk you through and help you analyze the song's chord progression.

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I don't know what this music theory is, but it's something that I will look up, if that's whats needed for FL. In terms of video tutorials, the only ones that I were able to find, are earlier versions of FL. So in respect to the FL 8, changes were obviously made between 8 and 9, so when I go to check out what the tutorial is stating, sometimes I cannot find the location of what is stated. I have also messed around to figure out what a few things do, and I am looking up guides to try and assist me, but like I just stated, their isn't much to go on when it comes to FL 9, only 8. So I can only do what I can find.

www.musictheory.net would be a fantastic resource for you, then. seriously. go through the lessons, ask questions about them here.

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Yes, I'll look into as much of it as possible then. seems like I have a daunting task ahead of me.

I was in your position, once. I took piano lessons for approximately 8 months. I've lost a lot of techniques since then since I haven't played for 3 years but the mere ability to press the keys with more than one finger has helped me immensely when understanding both theory and my music-making program.

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