FL Studio is directly related to composing and producing music from scratch. This is similar to a painter who creates a work of art with a mix of colors and a blank canvas or a writer who forms a novel or story with a pen and paper. FL Studio lets you create a music production in whatever genre you are comfortable with. You will be able to create a drumbeat, percussion, or rhythm track. You will be able to add virtual instruments and harmonies. You will have access to the mixer, where you can add well-known effects such as reverb and delay. You will also be able to use equalization, compression, limiting, and other effects such as flangers and filters. You will be able to manipulate and arrange your musical components to create a song. You can also include external audio and record into FL Studio.
This means that you will be able to record into FL Studio using a microphone for vocals, with an analog keyboard, with a bass guitar, with a drum machine, using a microphone to record the output of a guitar amplifier, and any other instrument that requires you to place a microphone close by (violin, banjo, keyboard, and so on). You can also record from a vinyl record player and then use that recording in FL Studio. You will also find ways to sample other music if desired. Edison, an audio editing tool within FL Studio, will teach you how to time-stretch any sample to fit the tempo of your project in FL Studio. You will be able to seamlessly use sampled material in your own music production. You will also learn how to master your project and make it sound good in multiple playback formats, including entertainment systems, CDs, online streaming such as YouTube and Vimeo, smartphones, and e-mail attachments.
FL Studio stands for Fruity Loops, but the name is a little bit confusing because you do not have to work with premade loops at all. The reason for calling it Fruity Loops was because it started as a powerful drum sequencer. As far as creating music quickly and intuitively goes, there is arguably no other software as powerful as FL Studio. There are many digital audio workstations (DAWs) in the market, but FL Studio has the most features and also offers free updates for a lifetime. This means that you will never get shut out of an upgrade, and you will always be able to update your version for free.
When FL Studio updates their software to FL Studio 8 to FL Studio 9, it will be free. Even when they update to FL Studio 10, it will be free, and so on. Music productions made with FL Studio are now all over the charts worldwide. It is used heavily by electronic and hip hop producers. It is also used for orchestral music, rock, pop, and jazz. There is no genre of music that it cannot create; there is no genre of music that gets shut out. The tools are present, and it is up to the creator/user to manipulate the sounds to form whatever feeling and song they want to communicate. You can use the WAV and MP3 formats inside of the software, so it is also user friendly across many file formats.
Since FL Studio has become the standard for music production, many people who learned other DAWs feel a little bit threatened by it and are upset. They may have learned a program such as Pro Tools only to discover a couple weeks, months, or years later that FL Studio has better capabilities. They may also shrug it off because it's not an industry standard, but that is quickly changing.
Though FL Studio is extremely intuitive, the driving force behind its output is the people who use the software. It's not so much the software, but how you use it. You should be creating music that inspires both you and hopefully the people who listen to it. Musicians should not be fighting with each other over DAWs. They may believe that certain DAWs are inferior, but that is simply not the case, and sometimes, based on marketing beliefs, they may use something such as Pro Tools because they have no real talent and it is a crutch for them. The DAW doesn't matter as much as how you use it. That being said, it certainly helps that FL Studio is extremely easy to use, allowing your creativity to flow quickly and naturally.
During the music-making stages, you need to get your ideas from inside your brain to inside the FL Studio software. This can happen very quickly when using FL Studio.
The FL Studio technology is invaluable. You can produce music simply using your laptop or computer. You can set up FL Studio as the hub of your music productions at the place where you live or the studio you work at. You can be sitting at a coffee shop and producing music wearing headphones. For some, it will be a creative outlet that they can enjoy. Others will use FL Studio to make radio-quality productions and sell their music across the globe. You can easily create many variations of the same song, which can help you if you are a live performer. Perhaps your song is completely finished with vocals on it. You can make an exact version of that song but remove the lead vocals because you know that you will be performing it at a live venue. The FL Studio software is continually being upgraded, and if there are any bugs in it, the administration staff are quick to fix them. Perhaps, the biggest reason for creating music is to share your own emotion with friends and family.
This book will enable you to make a full music production, starting from scratch. From the initial stages of creation to the end stages of mastering your project, you have all the tools you need. The many stages of music production are all intuitively harbored under one roof.
You should throw all conventions out the proverbial window. As far as creating music goes, there are no real rules for your workflow or creativity. That being said, FL Studio makes it very easy to create songs, and there are certain concepts that will enhance your audio productions.
Chapter 1, Configuring FL Studio, introduces you to using their factory soundcard, using audio interfaces, understanding what an ASIO driver means, and installing virtual instruments and effects. You will learn how audio flows in and out of your computer with a factory soundcard or an upgraded audio interface. You will also understand the basic setup of a DAW. This chapter is crucial to understanding what you can and cannot do using ASIO4ALL (free download online) and the possible reasons for an upgraded audio interface.
Chapter 2, Using Browser, helps you understand the file structure of FL Studio, where most sounds, files, and instruments can be found in the browser. You will learn how to manage the folders of MP3, WAV, and recorded audio files, and also how to use the browser correctly during music creation. The browser is a way to preview sounds that may be used in your project, and you will learn how to utilize it properly to get the most out of the creative process.
Chapter 3, Working with the Step Sequencer and Channels, explains the channels in the step sequencer and the many parameters inside of each one. The step sequencer is also important when recording harmonies, MIDI tracks, audio tracks, and contains every sound you are using in your project. You will also see the fundamental areas in the step sequencer, such as volume and panning, and find ways to manipulate sounds using the Keyboard and Graph editors on the step sequencer.
Chapter 4, Building Your Song, explains how to add rhythm, percussion, and virtual instrument sounds. You will also learn the various ways to program sounds into FL Studio, which can be done with a mouse, MIDI controller, piano roll, or your actual QWERTY keyboard. You will understand how to build patterns, which are later arranged in the FL Studio playlist in order to make a full production.
Chapter 5, Using the Playlist, helps you arrange your song. You can copy, edit, paste, change, or remove the many elements of your song in the playlist. This is where you will mix all of your patterns together.
Chapter 6, Using the FL Studio Mixer and Recording Audio, shows you how to gain more control over each sound after inserting your sounds into the mixer. The mixer is one of the most important functions of FL Studio. It allows you to add effects such as EQ, reverb, delay, compression, and the like. It is also crucial because in order to record external audio such as microphones, keyboards, and guitars, you will have to prepare the mixer. This is where you will really be able to put a creative spin on your music project based on your individual taste or genre.
Chapter 7, Sampling Using Edison, explains how you will be able to time-stretch any sample or acapella sample to their project tempo in FL Studio. There is a set recipe for this that must be understood for a seamless loop to be used inside of FL Studio. You will learn how to accomplish a seamless loop and find the tempo using the FL Studio tap tempo functionality.
Chapter 8, Exporting and Rendering Your Project, will help you come to understand the different methods to render your song. This is crucial because there are differences between MP3 files and WAV files. If you need to use your individual project stems/audio stems in a separate environment or different DAW, you will learn how to export and render your wave stems correctly. There are also many ways to save, share, and back up your project files. You will also understand the concepts of sample rate and bit depth.
Chapter 9, Humanizing Your Song, demonstrates how you can separate your production from a good song to a great song. It is the little nuances and the groove of your song and rhythm that can take your music to the next level. There are a couple of methods that you can use for this depending on your own workflow and preference.
Chapter 10, Recording Automation, shows you how to use automation in order to enhance, build suspense, and automate any parameter or function in FL Studio. This means that you can program certain functions to occur in specific areas of your production, and when you are satisfied with the result, you can keep it that way for the final product. Readers will find many ways to use automation, including mouse movements, physical knobs or sliders on physical MIDI controllers, and drawing on automation curves and points in a visual manner.
Chapter 11, Rewiring Reason to FL Studio, introduces Reason, which is a music software that has been developed by Propellerheads. Inside of the program, there are instruments, software synthesizers, samplers, and drum sounds. Rewiring reason into FL Studio allows your creative palate to expand, but you will still be using the functionality of the FL Studio step sequencer, mixer, and playlist. When rewiring Reason into FL Studio, you will use FL Studio as the host and Reason as the client.
Appendix, Your Rights as a Composer and Copyrights, helps the reader understand the ins and outs of the music industry and music publishing industry. When a song is created, there are certain rights and permissions needed for it. There is a master recording and also the music within the song. These are two separate entities and shouldn't be confused if you want to understand your rights or anyone's rights who is representing or composing your song. This chapter will review U.S. copyrights as well as discuss how you can publish your music into film, TV, video games, ad agencies, music libraries, and all new media outlets.