Oh bother.

[This Is Metal]

So I recently requested the almighty FL Studio 6, because I figured that after a year or two of putzing around with remixes on NWC, I was ready to play with the big boys with MP3s.

Obviously I was wrong.

The list of included resources is organized in a way which does not yet make sense to me and contains an overload of files with unhelpful names, half of with cause my speakers to emit an unholy sound as if they're giving birth to a walrus. Each. I just want to be able to able to push some buttons or wave some wands or do whatever time-consuming process is necessary and make some tracks that sound more or less like real instruments (or at least significantly less like devilspawn), not cause my glasses to break from the ineffable shrieks emitted by Mr. "phat bass saw tricky d hurpa bangwhiz lead mother pad" as it belts out the worst rendition of some Banjo-Kazooie song or other in recorded history.

Where on earth should I start?

Or should I acknowledge that I'll be doomed to an early institutionalization and resign myself to rocking gently, playing CANYON.mid on a never-ending loop?

[Zephyr]

Uhh... Not sure what problems you're talking about, but watch lots of video tutorials until you at least sort of know what you're doing.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

Make sure the included demo songs actually play properly--if not you have a problem with your setup (increase your buffer size maybe?).

if they =do= play alright, well, then look at those.

[HoboKa]

Just keep on plugging away at it...and if you've got the moola, get yourself Sytrus there's a bunch of samples that only require little in the way of editing...DON'T get Toxic III though...zomg that generator is too expensive for the limited samples it has...though Poizone may be a bit better if it's a tad cheaper than Toxic III. And get lots of .SF2 (soundfonts) and use them in the Fruity Soundfont generator. Sites like Hammersound.net and soundsnap.com are handy for that.

Now I'm a total newb to music but I've learned a lot from FL just by messing around with it, though I'm sure the tutorials are handy too. Good luck in making sexy music ^^

[Zephyr]

Just keep on plugging away at it...and if you've got the moola, get yourself Sytrus there's a bunch of samples that only require little in the way of editing...DON'T get Toxic III though...zomg that generator is too expensive for the limited samples it has...though Poizone may be a bit better if it's a tad cheaper than Toxic III. And get lots of .SF2 (soundfonts) and use them in the Fruity Soundfont generator. Sites like Hammersound.net and soundsnap.com are handy for that.

Now I'm a total newb to music but I've learned a lot from FL just by messing around with it, though I'm sure the tutorials are handy too. Good luck in making sexy music ^^

Personally I wouldn't recommend getting Sytrus right away, it's a big investment and is pretty much just a set of samples if you don't understand subtractive synthesis, it take a bit to pick up but you can use a mix of videos and messing around to figure things out. Oh, and HoBoKa, they're called patches first of all, and second of all, the number of patches doesn't represent the power of a synthesizer, Toxic may not have too many patches (although in my opinion it has plenty) but it's still very powerful if you know how to use it. Also, Synth1, which comes with no patches, is one of my favourites because it's relatively powerful and forces you to make your own stuff. Just a few things that bugged me...

[Sole Signal]

So I recently requested the almighty FL Studio 6, because I figured that after a year or two of putzing around with remixes on NWC, I was ready to play with the big boys with MP3s.

Obviously I was wrong.

The list of included resources is organized in a way which does not yet make sense to me and contains an overload of files with unhelpful names, half of with cause my speakers to emit an unholy sound as if they're giving birth to a walrus. Each. I just want to be able to able to push some buttons or wave some wands or do whatever time-consuming process is necessary and make some tracks that sound more or less like real instruments (or at least significantly less like devilspawn), not cause my glasses to break from the ineffable shrieks emitted by Mr. "phat bass saw tricky d hurpa bangwhiz lead mother pad" as it belts out the worst rendition of some Banjo-Kazooie song or other in recorded history.

Where on earth should I start?

Or should I acknowledge that I'll be doomed to an early institutionalization and resign myself to rocking gently, playing CANYON.mid on a never-ending loop?

hehe

I can empathize; not too long ago (just about two years now) all I had ever used was NWC, and FL was a bit of a learning process for me too. First things first; get yourself some decent soundfonts/free VSTs that make you feel like you're actually...doing something musical, instead of making all the horrible noises that you mentioned. It'll come with time.

Do some searches on google, or I'm sure there's some good stuff in this forum's stickies.

[HoboKa]

Personally I wouldn't recommend getting Sytrus right away, it's a big investment and is pretty much just a set of samples if you don't understand subtractive synthesis, it take a bit to pick up but you can use a mix of videos and messing around to figure things out. Oh, and HoBoKa, they're called patches first of all, and second of all, the number of patches doesn't represent the power of a synthesizer, Toxic may not have too many patches (although in my opinion it has plenty) but it's still very powerful if you know how to use it. Also, Synth1, which comes with no patches, is one of my favourites because it's relatively powerful and forces you to make your own stuff. Just a few things that bugged me...

Sorry excuse my newbiness, just trying to give some useful tips >_<.

I still think that Toxic III isn't all that hot though.