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

[skulkrusha]

If you can't set up your keyboard to do that already, I think there's some sort of hardware converter you can buy that'll do roughly the same thing (possibly by the same company that made the little box to fix the DX7's MIDI Out CC# problem, and also a MIDI>CV converter if I remember correctly, but I can't for the life of me remember who makes them). Otherwise I don't know what else you could do other than play your keyboard softer.

[Darlos]

Odd... I can't seem to open the help file. Actually, it doesn't seem to be there. I guess I'll have to look for it online.

I have a Soundblaster Audigy, a 2.0 Pentium 4, and 512MB of RAM, and Windows XP. I don't really have anything running in the background, though I guess I could go into Task Manager and try to cut the chaff.

[Less Ashamed Of Self]

I gots a question...

In the effects window, what are those 4 special channels on the right and how do they work.

Also, could somebody remind me how the keyboard controller, dashboard, and midi out instruments work?

[FiremanJoe]

ive seen the soundfonts request thread

aare these the right things to use in FL?

if i just open them and put them in my composition theyll work, right?

i dont wanna dowlnoad the wrong thing

[skulkrusha]

LAOS: They're send channels, you can "send" the dry signal from any mixer channel to them to layer effects and the like in parallel with whatever's in the other mixer channels sending to those channels.

You can check the help file or the online help file for how the other things you asked about work.

Darlos: I don't have enough time to speculate why you might not have the help file installed since it's standard with the program, but look at the online one anyway.

OilSlickKing: Soundfonts can be used in FL either with the built-in soundfont player or through a VSTi soundfont player.

[Darlos]

I tried some optomization guide, but it didn't quite work out. Now, I DID find an odd solution by accident. It seems when it's on the CPU fritz, all I have to do is tap a note on a random insturment and it just falls right back down to around 10% instantly, and stays there for a while. I wish I could stop the CPU from climbing, but at least this is far easier than turning the entire program off and on again.

[IC]

Alright, I (finally!) just got FLStudio. Everything's gone pretty smooth so far, but I've hit a surprisingly simple snag.

How do I remove a channel from an fx track. I can link them with the mixer window menu, but I can't "unlink" any channels. W. T. F?

Also, how do I route an fx track to another fx track? All of the FX tracks are grayed out in the "out" menu at the bottom of the mixer.

Sorry if this has been answered before, or is stupid simple. But I looked twice in the fruity manual and searched the forums but found nothing.

[prophetik music]

How do I remove a channel from an fx track. I can link them with the mixer window menu, but I can't "unlink" any channels. W. T. F?

Well, you should be able to select *none* under the channel type. Like, when you go to the big menu that says all the different effects to apply, the top one is *none* - select that.

Also, how do I route an fx track to another fx track? All of the FX tracks are grayed out in the "out" menu at the bottom of the mixer.

That's cause you're mixing through the master track. Put all the crap that you've got in there under some of the other FX channels (1-64) NOT the 'master' track. then you can route them wherever you want through that 'out' menu.

Hope that helped. im me for anything else.

THE PROPHET

[IC]

How do I remove a channel from an fx track. I can link them with the mixer window menu, but I can't "unlink" any channels. W. T. F?

Well, you should be able to select *none* under the channel type. Like, when you go to the big menu that says all the different effects to apply, the top one is *none* - select that.

No, not that. I mean, like, I accidently linked my kick drum generator and strings into the same fx track, but I just wanted the strings. How do I unlink the kick drum from that fx track?

Also, how do I route an fx track to another fx track? All of the FX tracks are grayed out in the "out" menu at the bottom of the mixer.

That's cause you're mixing through the master track. Put all the crap that you've got in there under some of the other FX channels (1-64) NOT the 'master' track. then you can route them wherever you want through that 'out' menu.

Huh? What do you mean 'put crap under fx channels'? I already have some generators routed through fx tracks, but the only choice for output of fx tracks is to the master.

Hope that helped. im me for anything else.

THE PROPHET

I im'd you, but you were away.

EDIT: Many thanks to zircon, whom I pestered for the answer.

Thanks to those who tried, heh.

Turns out all I needed to do was change the fx track in the channel settings window.

And I'm guessing I need the producer edition to route fx tracks thru other fx tracks.

But now I can be on my merry little way.

Edit part deux: I never used so many smilies.

[chillsonic]

I'm using FL Studio 4.1 Producer Edition, and I'm having some trouble. It seems that, while I'm working on things, the program just likes to suddenly start chewing up my CPU resources. It has nothing to do with what I'm doing at the time. I could just open FL Studio up with no particular project and let it sit there and do nothing, and without fail in a few minutes it'll be tearing up the CPU. What's weird is that it isn't some gradual thing over that time period. Instead, it's quite fine for that whole time, only using under 10% inactively, and maybe between 10 and 20% when I'm actually doing stuff. And then WHAMMO it suddenly jumps to 90% or more and stays there, and all of the sounds just go right to shit. I generally have to turn it off and then back on again. And while that worked for a while, now I have a 180MB soundfont that takes forever to load, so I don't want to do that anymore.

Any idea as to what I can do to fix this? It's a total pain in the ass.

a 180mb soundfont. either that's a really nice font, or it's a bank. if it's a bank (having multiple presets), then you could always delete everything you are not using with vienna soundfont studio. that would probably knock a preset to less than 5 megs or so. be sure to save a new version and not over the original.

[FiremanJoe]

ive got FL Studio 4

is it worth getting the latest version?

[skulkrusha]

Yes. Bug fixes, new features, etc ...

[jordex]

I'm having a problem with my FL

I've had this problem for quite a while and don't know how to fix it

The plugin window never snaps into the channel settings window

[richter]

The plugin window never snaps into the channel settings window

Wow, how the hell'd you do that? I gotta mess with that when I get home...

Anybody that went from 4.5.x -> 5.0 experiencing any latency differences? My buffer size is set the same but in 5.0 the latency is way worse.

[jordex]

K I've still got that non-snap window issue but there's something else I need to know right now

When I convert my song to midi sometimes only a few channels show up and sometimes its just one

[richter]

TOOLS > Misc Macros > Prepare for MIDI export

then

FILE > Export > MIDI File...

careful not to then save your .flp because all your channels would then be MIDI outs.

[jordex]

Wait, I figured it out but thanks anyways

One more question

How can I figure out what notes are being played in the arpeggiator? I want the notes to show up in the piano roll

[IC]

How can I figure out what notes are being played in the arpeggiator?

Learn your chords, or at least look at a chart or something.

I want the notes to show up in the piano roll

Put them there.

[/smart ass]

[Kevin Fair]

I don't know if this has been asked on here or not. I mean, 121 pages is a lot to read. If it's been asked already, feel free to direct me to the post that answers it.

But anyway, I have Fruity Loops Vs. 5.1. I'm a total n00b to it. I can put piano rolls and beats in it, and it will play fine. But when I import a Midi into it, no sound will play. It automatically converts the tracks onto piano rolls. And they seem like they should play fine. I've done everything I think I'm supposed to do. But it won't play. Any suggestions? Thx.

[Xerol Oplan]

I'm using FL 4 right now I'm going to actually by FL5, in a week or 2 when I get my paycheck in. But I don't actually "have" FL4, so that's why I'm still using it. and was wondering if there was any way to manually program new patterns into the arpeggiator, or if this has been added in FL5, or if it's not possible at all.

I mean, 121 pages is a lot to read

If a few other people want to help me with it, I'd like to go through, figure out what's on each page, what's still relevant, and then make an index of the thread. If it's divided up amongst a few people it wouldn't be nearly as much work. (I recently mentioned something similar in the Sample & Soundfont request thread.)

[Kevin Fair]

Hmm... I think that would be a great idea to have an index or whatever. It would definitely help out n00bs, like me. I guess that means you don't know how to fix my importing Midis problem, though.

[jordex]

FL doesn't have any midi sounds, you have to replace the midi channels with FL patches

So is there a way to record what's being played in the arpeggiator into piano roll?

[Sora]

FL does have MIDI sounds.

-import the MIDI

-go to the Master Mixer.

-press the arrow on the first channel and go to 'select'

-select LSD

-turn the number thing down (I can't remember the name for it right now )

and there, instant MIDI sounds. you can also turn on the buttons that say 'chorus' and 'reverb'.

to add more MIDI tracks just right click on a plugin track and go to add a track. Then go down to MIDI ___

er..um...something....

sorry...I'm kinda sleepy and can't remember all the correct terms for this stuff... if you can't understand this I'll write it again later.

[skulkrusha]

If a few other people want to help me with it, I'd like to go through, figure out what's on each page, what's still relevant, and then make an index of the thread. If it's divided up amongst a few people it wouldn't be nearly as much work. (I recently mentioned something similar in the Sample & Soundfont request thread.)

Myself and a few others were working on it, but these days (partially due to my more busy schedule and lack of inspiration) I haven't been putting much work into it. If you want I can go dig up the stuff I've archived and send it over to you if you want to work on it (it's around p50-90, but hey, most of these questions have already been asked anyway).

Most of these questions could be answered in the help file, though. There's only a few things dotted around the place which you won't find in there if you don't look hard enough.

jordex: Don't know and I don't think so either, but have you tried using the arpegiator tool in the piano roll (select the notes you want and hit alt+a)?

[Cozark]

Hey, I've got a really newbish question for you guys. I'd just like to apologize beforehand if this has been asked a lot of times already. I searched around this topic and others, but couldn't find the information I was looking for.

My question is: How do you get VSTs to work in Fruity Loops? I go to channels > add one > more > select the VST, and then it says Error: can't load an effect into a channel and brings up the Fruity Wrapper. What am I doing wrong?