FL STUDIO

When learning any new piece of software it takes a little while to understand things. The Fruity Loops workflow is the basic set of activities taken to make a tune.

Creating a choice music track in 5 steps:

Instruments/ generators -These are used to make sounds and are arranged vertically in the step sequencer. The instruments/generators are shown to the left as Kick, Clap, HiHat, Snare ect.
Step sequencer:

Composition/ sequencing – The musical elements are entered in to the step sequencer or piano roll. The step sequencer consists of the grey/red boxes in the image on the left. Highlight a box in the step sequencer  to play a note on the corresponding beat.   
                                                                                                             
Playlist editor

Arrangement – Pattern blocks are arranged and can be looped in the Playlist window. The are shown on the right as long grey rectangles. Audio clips can be loaded in and arranged towards the bottom of the playlist editor.

Mixing – The sound produce by the instruments, generators and/or audio clips pass through the mixer where effects can be appliend to them. Reverb, compression, eq and distoriton are just some of the many effects to choose from. The mixer can also be also used to set the levels of each of the individual sounds so that the overall sound is loud enough to a level that it doesn’t clip.

Mixer

Exporting/ rendering – After a set of intruments have been programmed in the playlist to form a song, the sound data can be exported to a sound format such as .wav or .mp3 and played in winamp or burnt to a CD.This is a basic overview of the Fruity Loops workflow in its simplest form. So get to it – start a new project make a tune, convert it to mp3 and bounce around the room to your sweet new tune!Yeah well ok you might not fully understand Fruity Loops just yet but play around you will fill in the gaps for yourself

for yourself

HOW TO OPEN A VST PLUGIN IN FRUITY LOOPS STUDIO

If your still wondering how to open a vst plugin in FL Studio then you don’t know what your missing out on! VST’s are one of the most widely used plugins in music production software and are a must have to expand your music creating abilities.

Over time your collection of 3rd party VST plugins will grow large, so its good practice to store them outside of the FL Studio installation directory so that they are independent of the FL Studio installation.

Create your own directory where you will save ALL your 3rd party plugins outside of the FL Studio install folder, e.g. C:\VST
Set C:\VST as the VST search directory. Open up Fruity Loops and select File Settings from the Options Menu. Near the bottom of the window there is a section named VST plugins extra search folder. Set this to C:\VST or whatever the folder you created for your VST plugins was called.
Create sub-directories for FX and Instruments (be organized, as later you will have no idea what is an instrument or FX plugin among your .DLLs).

Install VST Instruments/Synths/Generators (VSTi)

Refresh the plugin list. Click: Channels > Add one > More > Refresh (button at the bottom of the list) > Fast scan. The plugin you have installed should appear in the plugin list in red. If this does not happen, check to make sure you have installed the VST correctly.
Place a checkmark before the plugin name if you want it listed in your favorites and close the window.
Now the plugin is installed and can be used as a standard FL Studio instrument.To add an instance of the plugin to the current project, open the Channels menu, select Add One and in the submenu that appears select the name of the plugin. An instance of the plugin will appear in the Step Sequencer window.
Install VST effects

Install the Effects plugins (.DLLs etc) into a directory such as C:\VST or whatever you like. (If installation uses an installer, override the default install directory and point it to your VST directory.)
Refresh the FX plugin list – In the Mixer window, click down arrow for any of the plugin slots (external effects banks), click the Select item. In the submenu that appears, select More…. You will see a window listing all effect plugins available in FL Studio. At the bottom of the window, click the Refresh button and select Fast Scan. The plugin you have installed should appear in the plugin list in red color. If this does not happen, please make sure you have followed the previous steps properly.
Place a checkmark before the plugin name if you want it listed in your favorites and close the window.
Now the plugin is installed and can be used as a standard FL Studio effect. To add an instance of the plugin to the current project, open the Mixer FX slot, select Add One and in the submenu that appears select the name of the plugin. An instance of the plugin appears in the Mixer window.

HOW TO MAKE A BEAT