Video Tutorials! A picture is worth 1000 words, so a video must be worth, like, BILLIONSonce you are registered pop over to the FL website and watch hours of cool video tutorials, this is really useful so Ill SHOUT
http://tutorials.flstudio.com

MAKE SOME NOISE

Press the Play Button (also note the button to the left is in SONG mode). You'll hear the demo song. If this is not the first time you've run FL Studio, you'll have to reload this demo. Open the browser (F8) left-click on the Projects folder and right-click on the NewStuff.flp, then select Open from the menu. You can also drag the FLP file onto the desktop to open it. FLP files are FL Studio Project files and save entire songs.
This guide is intended to get you up and running - it is not meant to be a reference manual for everything FL Studio can do (thats what the internal Help system (F1) and/or the FL Studio Bible are for). Lets consider the main FL Studio components, in brief 1. The Hint Bar. This is located on the Main Window just under the Menu Bar (top left in the picture on the previous page). When you hover your mouse over any of the controls in FL Studio, this panel will display a short description of what that control does. The Hint Bar also shows you the Shortcut Key that will activate the same function. This is displayed on the right. Pressing this shortcut key has the same effect as pressing the corresponding button. Hint Bar
2. On-line Help. FL Studio also comes with an extensive on-line help reference. Just use the Help Menu and select Contents. This help also features context-sensitivity select a window and press F1 on your keyboard. The reference automatically displays the help you are looking for. You will notice three tabs CONTENTS (the help), INDEX and SEARCH. The latter two tabs can be searched for key-words, try it! 3. Tutorial Loops. Click File >Open and surf to the Tutorials directory. These loops contain notes on how to do various things in FL Studio. 4. The Website. FL Studio has a massive web site at http://www.flstudio.com. The site has a support section that includes a FAQ Knowledge Base, Discussion Forum, Online Tutorials, Video Tutorials, Song Exchange section and the Samplefusion samples site. If you have questions, check the discussion forums to see if your questions have already been answered, or to post your own question.

3. Play with the Sample Effects. Ok, at this point the best advice is to start the loop, then play with the controls in the sample (SMP) panel of the Channel Settings Dialog and listen to the difference in sound. Here's a short description of what some of them do. For more info see the on-line help.
Vol, Pan: Volume and panning wheels that also appear on the main screen for each channel. Turning these will also makes the wheels on the main screen turn. Remove DC Offset: Use this option to fix vertical offset in the samples (see Wave View below). Reverse Polarity: "Flips" the waveform vertically. Normalize: Maximizes the sample volume without distortion. Fade Stereo: Creates a stereo fade from the left to the right channel of the sample. Reverse: Reverses the sample. Swap Stereo: Switches left and right channel of the sample. Fade In (IN): Applies a quick fade in to the sample (turn maximum to left to disable). Fade Out (OUT): Applies a quick fade out to the sample (turn maximum to left to disable). Pitch bend (POGO): Applies pitch bend to the sample. Useful with drum samples. Crossfade Loop (CRF): Allows you to crossfade the sample for the creation of smooth loop sections (turn maximum to left to disable). Trim Threshold (TRIM): FL Studio trims the silence at the end of the samples, as this frees up RAM and does not alter the resulting sound. This control allows you to raise the volume threshold below which FL Studio detects "silence". Wave View Window: Shows the shape of the sound sample. Click here to hear the sample with all the effects. Also a drag and drop window for loading samples.
Can't hear the difference? If you press a button or turn a knob and you can't hear any difference in the sound, try making the same change on another channel. For example, sometimes a change that doesn't affect a kick drum much will make a huge difference to the sound of a snare. If you still can't hear the difference, stop the loop from playing and listen the sounds separately by clicking on the wave view window. You might be able to hear the effect better without the other instruments.
4. Add Some Echo. Open the DNC_Kick channel settings and click the FUNC tab to get the view shown below. The controls in the top section (Echo delay / fat mode) can be used to set up a cool echo effect for a single instrument. Start by turning up the FEED about a quarter of the way, and listen to what happens to the kick drum sound Try playing with the other controls to change the sound of the echo You can also toggle between various echo and fat modes by clicking the title bar of the Echo Delay section (the default is Classic Echo). More on these different effects can be found in the on-line manual

x. SynthMaker. Hang onto your hats! SynthMaker is an audio programming application that is used to create virtual instruments and effects without the need to write basic code. The instruments and effects you create in SynthMaker can be used in FL Studio as 'native' plugins and shared with other SynthMaker users
y. Sytrus. Sytrus the most versatile synthesizer in the FL Studio armory, combining Frequency Modulation (FM), Ring Modulation (RM), plucked string modeling and
subtracting synthesis, and featuring a powerful envelope editor. The synth includes a powerful editable unison mode and a comprehensive effects section.
z. TS404. Is a great techno machine for creating synth lines and bass lines, which sound similar to the classic TB-303 machine (look under more in the Add one pop-up).
aa. Wasp. Another full digital synthesizer. This one creates fast, buzzing, techno-oriented

sounds (hence the name).

bb. WaveTraveller. Create realistic scratches with a full control over the smallest details!
cc. Layer. This isnt really a Instrument, but its cool. It lets you create a master channel to control a bunch of other channels at once. dd. MIDI Out. This one isnt a Instrument either. It lets you send a MIDI controller signal to an external (or internal) MIDI device.
ee. Speech Synthesizer. This is a wizard to add synthesized speech lines to your song (see p.39). ff. Others. There are also quite a few other instruments, see the FL Studio Help (F1). 7. Even More Instruments! With the Fruity Wrapper you can now add any VST or DX plugin synthesizer you download or buy. From the Channels menu select Add One > More. This will produce a list of the available plugins as shown below. You can select any of the plugins under the Fruity Generator Plugins heading by double-clicking them. The F in the box beside the plugin name marks it as a Favorite and will make it appear directly in the Add One menu shown below.
8. VST and DX Plugins. You may have noticed the Fruity Wrapper in the above list of plugins. The wrapper is not strictly an instrument but provides the interface between FL Studio and VST or DXi plugins. If you double-click on an But you dont need to open it on its own if you double-click on one of the VST Plugins, it will automatically open the Wrapper for you. You may notice that some plugin instruments (and effects) dont have their own interface, see the DX10 freeware plugin below. This uses the generic wrapper interface. Others have a more professional looking interface, like Poizone.

DX10, generic interface.

Toxic III, custom interface.
9. The Other VST Plugins. I know what youre thinking what about all the other VST Plugins in the list? VST plugins are either synthesizers or effects (FX), and most of the ones you have to start with are FX (we explain how to use the FX in the Mixing & Effects section below). Unfortunately, there is just no reliable way for FL Studio to tell the difference between FX and synth plugins, so youll just have to remember which is which. If you try to open a VST Plugin and all you get is an error message and the empty wrapper shown below, then it was probably an FX plugin. 10. Do I have to register? Some of these products are made by FL Studio partners, so yes in some cases you do have to register them to unlock their full capabilities. Go to
http://www.flstudio.com for more information on where to send your hard-earned cash. 11. Where Can I Get More? There are literally hundreds of synth plugins out there to download. Some of them are free, and some you have to pay for. Search the web and http://www.flstudio.com or http://www.image-line.com for good deals. A place you should definitely bookmark is http://www.kvraudio.com - a huge sites with every VST plugin you could possibly want (new VST Plugins should go in the shared Program Files\Image-Line\ VST directory on your hard drive). 12. The Arpeggiator. Now that we've introduced the Synth instruments, we can finally tell you what the Arpeggiator section in the Channel Settings window is for. Open one of the synth channels (SimSynth Live, for instance) and go to the FUNC panel of the channel settings box. Now click the up arrow and select a chord. Now go to a new pattern and place a single SimSynth note and press play. Instead of a single note, you get a repeating arpeggio. Cool, huh? Read more about this in the on-line help.

Direction of Arpeggio

Octave Range and Repeat

Speed, Duration, etc.

Chord Selection
Don't deny yourself, dude! You need all these generators. Save up your squeegee money and buy them ASAP. Probably the one that will make the most difference to your tracks is Sytrus and while we are on the topic, dont forget Maximus, this Maximizer plugin rocks!
13. Speech! Yep, you read that right. You can have a conversation with FL Studio using the built in support for speech synthesis. The easiest way to access this feature is to look under speech in the sample browser, and drag one of the files there onto the step sequencer. Youll get a dialog that looks like the one below. All you have to do is replace the text, choose a personality, style, rate (speed), and pitch. Click the listen button to hear what it will sound like. When youre done, press the check mark and a sampler channel will be added. You can also drag a speech file into a Granulizer, Fruity Scratcher, or Fruity Slicer channel. Have fun.

You might have to spell some words funny to make it sound ok Also, you can make it sing by putting the number of semitones you want the pitch to rise on each word in brackets after it. Try typing all your(2) base(3) are(2) beelong to us in the dialog above (use a monotone style.)

MIXING & EFFECTS

IMPORTANT: This guide is a general Getting Started guide for all existing FL Studio Editions. Some features however, are not available in some editions. E.g. the FL Studio Fruityloops Edition doesnt have the Track Adjustments sliders capabilities. Please check our site http://www.flstudio.com for upgrade conditions. One great feature of FL Studio Producer Edition is Mixer window. From here you can mix more than 64 tracks and make links between mixer tracks to create complex mixing chains. Take a deep breath! One of the best features of the mixer is that you can add effects to the sounds coming from the channels. Effects can range from a simple volume changes to more advanced effects such as chorus, reverb, phaser, delay, flange, and EQ, among others (you can also add instruments, notebooks, controllers, monitors and all kinds of other goodies!). Open the Mixer Window. Bring up the Mixer screen by pressing F9 or by going to View > Mixer. You'll get a window like the one below FX Plugin slots Master track Mixer tracks Send knobs

Track controls

What are you looking at? Along the left are the mixer Tracks. You have one Master Track (M in the header), 64 Regular Tracks, 4 dedicated Send Tracks and 1 Selected Track, although any mixer track can act as a send. The edge of the mixer may be selected and dragged to show up to 64 mixer tracks at once or there is a slider in the top left corner of the mixer to scroll across the tracks. The Master Track is selected by default (although in the picture above track 1 is selected as shown by the lighter color). Each track has room for eight FX Plugins (to the right above). When you change the selected track (by clicking on it) the FX bank and Track adjustments will change to show the settings for that track.

The Track Adjustments panels show the properties for each track. The volume and stereo balance settings are the linked to the corresponding knobs below each track. Some of the other things on the track adjustments panel are an equalizer, stereo width knob and a sound level meter (shows the output volume of the track). Turn Plugins On and Off / Mixing Wet and Dry. Click on the green LED next to each plugin slot to turn it on and off. Try this with the loop running to hear the difference. You can also tweak the knob next to the LED to mix a dry (without effect) and wet (with the effect) sound. Select Plugins. If you want to add new plugins, click on the arrow where you want to add the plugin and then choose from the Favorites List or choose Select to choose from the entire list and configure your favorites.

1. Click here

2. Then here
3. Then select from here.
Tweak the Plugins. Right-click the plugin to open and close its Plugin Settings screen. Some plugins have a plain interface like the Fruity Fast Dist shown below. Others have fancier looking controls. Most plugins come with their own help as shown below, so we won't go into how to use the controls here. But for now, why not play with them to see what they do?
Effects have presets too!
Left-click here to open the FX

Click Here for help

Click here to enable / disable FX
Sending Sound to the mixer. The box in the top right of the Channel Settings (below) is a Mixer track send. Any effects placed in the Master Mixer Track will be applied to all the sounds in the song. But effects in Mixer Tracks 1-64 will only be applied to the Samples and Synths, which have selected that Mixer Track in their Channel Settings Dialog. Sending to Mixer track 2
What are the Send Tracks For? Economy! There are 4 special Send Tracks that take their input from other Mixer tracks, rather than from Instrument Channels. Suppose you want to put the same Fruity Reverb on Guitar and Drums, but you want to add Fruity Delay to the guitar and EQ to the drums. Easy. Send the drums to Regular Mixer track 2 where you put the EQ. Send the guitar to Regular Mixer track 3 where you put the Fruity Delay. Then put the Reverb in Send Track 1 and turn the Send 1 knob on Mixer tracks 2 and 3 to send the output of these tracks to Send Track 1. Now you have the same reverb applied to both guitar and drums, but you only had to use a single reverb plugin. The send knobs are placed beneath the track receiving the input not the track sending. An orange down-arrow shows the source track.

THE EVENT EDITOR

Unless you're a real pro, you'll probably find that the live automation doesnt always sound perfect. That's where the event editor comes in. Each time you move a wheel during a recording session, the new setting is stored as an "event" for that wheel at that moment in the loop. With the event editor, you have complete control over how the sound is tweaked during playback. NOTE: You will find an option under the Edit Menu to convert Event data to Automation Clips. 1. Record Some Live Tweaking on a Particular Knob. The PAN on the Snare sample, for instance. Let's assume you already did that in the previous section. 2. Stop FL Studio and Open the Event Editor. Right-click on the knob you automated, and select Edit Events from the pop-up menu. The screen you are looking at now is a lot like the Graph Editor described earlier. One difference is that this graph controls the level of a single wheel or slider at a particular point in the song. (OK, it's actually more complicated than that. Remember how we told you to keep all your live recording in a single pattern (Pattern 2) and place this pattern once at the beginning of a song? If you do that, then the bars in the Event Editor will match the bars in the Playlist. If you don't do that, you're on your own!) The other main difference is that this graph is used to set Events (bright vertical lines corresponding to the value of the wheel you are setting) that persist until the next event. Vertical/ Edit mode Horizontal Play indicator Edit menu selection zoom

(click + drag)

Events
(Each sets the level until the next event)
3. Event Editor Modes. The event editor has several modes, which are explained below. a. Draw Mode. In this mode, the mouse pointer looks like a pencil. You can add new single events by left clicking in the main window. You can also left-click and drag to draw multiple events, or right-click and drag to draw a line of events. b. Brush Mode. This mode ( the mouse. ) is very similar to Draw mode, but ignores snap distance
c. Delete Mode. Click on the delete symbol to change to this mode. You can delete events by clicking on them, or click and drag to delete a series of events (the events are the bright vertical lines on the main window.) d. Smooth Mode. Click on the smoothing (interpolation) symbol to change to this mode. You can click and drag to highlight a region. When you let go of the mouse button, the events will be smoothed out, instead of looking choppy. Try it! You can also turn on Auto-Smoothing from the edit menu, so that events you draw in Draw Mode are automatically smoothed out. e. Select Mode. Click on the select symbol to change to this mode. When you click and drag, you will see a red region highlighted on the Play Indicator Bar. You can also right-click on the Play Indicator Bar in any mode to expand the highlighted region. You can cut and zoom to this region from the Edit Menu. f. Zoom Mode. The zoom mode automatically zoom fit to that area. allows you to select an area in the event editor an

4. Miscellaneous Facts. Here's some stuff you should know about the Event Editor. a. Undo. There is a limited form of undo available for the Event Editor. Use CTRL-Z to undo the last action. b. Setting the Initial Event. You will notice that after live recording, the wheel you recorded sometimes doesn't start in a sensible place when you play back the loop. This can be fixed by turning the wheel to a good start position, and then right clicking the wheel and selecting Init Events With This Position. This sets the very first event so that the wheel will always start where you want it. c. Getting a Feel for It. It takes some practice to master the event editor, and to be able to get a song to sound exactly the way you want it, but it's definitely worth it. Keep practicing until you get it right!
d. Live Recording Defeats Static Tweaking. If a wheel has some events recorded on it, you can no longer just set it anywhere you want and expect it to stay there. You have to go through the Event Editor or start a new live recording session to change it. 5. Introducing the Event LFO. Earlier on, we explained how to use the LFO (Low Frequency Oscillation) controls on TS404 channels (it's also available for Sample Channels on the INS panel). But it's sometimes hard to control exactly how this oscillation is going to fit with the song. That problem is solved with the Event LFO, which lets you simulate the perfect oscillation inside the event editor. 6. Using the Event LFO. Open the event editor for some control. Make sure you're on the right pattern in the pattern selector. Now select an area to oscillate using Select Mode or by rightclicking on the Play Indicator Bar. Now hit ctrl-l or select LFO from the Tools Menu. This will pop up the LFO Settings window and immediately apply the LFO to the selected area. See below for an example.
7. Play with the Main LFO Settings. Notice the dialog has three sections. If you play with the controls in the Start and Shape sections, you should be able to create all kinds of cool effects. In the Start section, you can alter the value (height), range (depth), and speed (length) of the waves. In the Shape section you can alter the shape of the wave (sine wave, saw-tooth, or square) and the phase (basically moves the waves left and right.)

horizontal position

8. What About the End Section? If you want to make the LFO change as it progresses, turn on the End section by pressing the red button. Once the light is on, you can modify the parameters for the beginning (left) and end (right) of the LFO, and FL Studio will smoothly morph the settings from start to end. This lets you create really cool changing LFO effects like below. In the picture, a square wave LFO starts at bar 2 and ends at bar 4. As the LFO progresses, the speed increases and the value and range decrease from their Start to their End values.

bar and play for 3/4 of a beat.

Edit Menu

Edit Mode Buttons

Local Snap

Display Mode
Note C5 Velocity (volume)
3. What Kinds of Channels Can Have Piano Rolls? You can have a Piano Roll for any type of Instrument. But there's something you should know about Sample Channels. You can use the Piano Roll on any Sample Channel, great for percussion programming, but chords and sustained notes will always work best when you are using Looped Samples. Loop points that let the sample play over and over again to create a sustained sound that lasts as long as the note is held (length of the green bars above). If you don't have a looped sample, you can still use the Piano Roll, but remember your notes may not last as long as you wanted them to.

Using Loop Points

Man, this thing just keeps gettin' better!

Loop Points

4. Basic Piano Roll Editing a. Entering Notes. To enter a note, make sure you're in Draw Mode by clicking the Draw Mode Button (see the Event Editor section) or the Paint Mode Button, click on the note area, where you want it to start. Then grab the end of the note and stretch it to the length you want. If the loop is not playing, you should hear the note you are entering as you drag it around. The length of the note will match the length of the last note you placed. To change the length, grab the right hand side of the green bar and drag it. b. Note Snap. You may find the note snaps to a place you didn't want it to go. If so, change the Snap Level on the main toolbar the same way as you did for the Event Editor (see previous section). Sometimes you just can't get the note length to snap where you want no matter what you do. In this case, hold the ALT key to override snap and drag the note (smooth!). c. Note Color. See the row of 4 colored buttons under the Edit Mode Buttons? These let you select the color of the notes you enter. This may seem foolish right now, but colorcoding can really help you out when you're trying to make sense of the notes you entered. Plus, the Edit Menu lets you Select By Color so you can Delete or Copy and Paste only
those notes. d. Deleting Notes. Two options here - either right click the note you want to delete or go into Delete mode with the Delete Mode Button (see the Event Editor Section). e. Undoing Changes. Like the Event Editor, there is a limited undo available from the Edit Menu or by pressing Ctrl-Z. f. Cutting, Copying and Pasting Notes. Go into Select Mode with the Select Mode Button (see Event Editor section) and click and drag to highlight some notes. Then use the Cut, Copy and Paste options in the Edit Menu or use Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X, and Ctrl-V. Pasting can get a little tricky, though. The notes will paste to their identical locations in the first bar that is currently displayed on the screen. So to paste from bar 1 to bar 2, select the notes in bar 1 and hit Ctrl-C to copy, then scroll over to bar 2 and hit Ctrl-V. If the notes don't appear, they probably went into bar 1. Press Ctrl-Z to undo and try again.

AUDIO RECORDING

What about Audio recording? You will need FL Studio Producer edition or higher and to be using an ASIO soundcard driver to record audio directly into FL Studio. Its a huge (but rewarding) area that is carefully covered in the on-line manual. Press F1 in FL Studio and click on the Contents section Recording Audio, Notes & Automation, then the Audio Recording page.
EDISON WAVE EDITOR / RECORDER
IMPORTANT: This guide is a general Getting Started guide for all existing FL Studio Editions. Some features however, are not available in some editions. The FL Studio Fruityloops Edition doesnt have Audio Track or the Integrated Wave Editor capabilities. Please check our site http://www.flstudio.com for upgrade conditions. Edison is a fully integrated audio editor and mixer-track recorder. Edison loads into an effect slot (in any mixer track) and will then record or play audio from that position. You may load as many instances of Edison as you require in any number of Mixer Tracks or Effects slots. To open Edison, press Ctrl+E in a Sampler Channel, or load from the effects menu into mixer track/s. Many powerful tool are available within Edison. Brief descriptions of some tools, and how to open them are provided below.
The Edison Amp Tool works in a similar way to the mixer track controls, including stereo separation, panning, linked and independent L and R channel volume. To open the tool, press Alt+A inside Edison, or use the Tools>Amp>Amp option. The Convolution Reverb engine in Edison works by multiplying two audio signals in the frequency domain as a sort of 'moving average'. A reverb effect is obtained when an 'impulse' file is convolved with the original wave file. Reverb impulse files are created by recording short,
sharp sounds in real spaces or through a reverb/effects unit. The recorded sound is then an acoustic fingerprint of the reverberant space. This technique is equivalent to sampling an instrument and is very powerful, allowing you to 'borrow' impulses from very expensive hardware or real spaces you would never have the chance to record in. A convolution reverb will sound identical to the original space or hardware (with the particular settings used). Of course, the internet is brimming with free impulses for your downloading pleasure (see 'Impulse Resources' below). To open the dialog you can either left-click on the Convolution Reverb button , press Ctrl+R inside Edison, or use the Tools > Spectral > Convolution Reverb option. Once an impulse is loaded you can perform any of Edison's editing functions in the spectral preview window. Rightclick on the spectral preview to open the editing options.

2. Setting Up Your Controller. a. Connect your controller to your PC (USB or MIDI). MIDI connectors are an older format and a bit more complex than USB so we will spend some time on them - Look on the back of your computer. If you see two or three round, 5-pin connectors labeled "MIDI", then you're in business. If not, look for a 15-pin trapezoidal joystick port. If you have the round connectors, you need a cable to go from "MIDI Out" on your controller to "MIDI In" on your computer. If you only have a game controller connection, you'll need a special cable that has two round MIDI plugs at one end and a trapezoidal plug at the other. Both these types of cables should be available at any music store specializing in keyboards and synthesizers (but if you ask for them in a computer store, you may just get blank looks.) b. Turn on the Controller and Start Up FL Studio. Press F10 to open the system settings. Then if you have an Oxygen 8 or U-Control just select Generic Controller in the controller type. Try turning the knobs on your controller. If everything is ok, you should see a little red "Midi" light flash beside the Hint Bar of FL Studio every time you turn a knob. If that works, great! You can skip steps c to e. If not, read on my friend. 1. Click here
2. Then here & Select generic.

3. Then here 4. And here

The Little Red? Light
c. Check the Options menu to see if there is a check mark beside Enable MIDI Remote Control. If not, click on it and see if you get the light now. If not, read on.
Customer: Yo, check it out. I need a keyboard controller for FL Studio. Computer Store Guy: QWERTY or DVORAK?

hERETIC

d. Set Your MIDI Input Device. If the light is still not coming on when you turn knobs on your controller, go into MIDI Settings (from the Options menu or by hitting F10). Check out the Remote Control Input box. If you see the word "none" there, then you've got to select an input. Typically, you will be presented with a number of choices, and you'll just have to try them all to figure out which one is right.

Are you ready to rock?

e. Troubleshooting Checklist. If the red light is still not coming on when you turn the knobs on your controller, here's a list of things you should check. * Did you select the correct controller type in step b? * Did you enable "Enable MIDI Remote Control" in step c? * Did you select the correct MIDI input in step d? * Is your USB controller detected OR are your MIDI In and Out cables reversed? * Did you plug the controller into a power outlet? The fun part - Linking a knob to Your Controller: a. Right-click on the Control You Want to Link to the hardware controller. In this case, we're trying the main volume control on a sampler Channel. Now right-click on the knob and select Link to controller, to pop up the Remote controlling settings window.

graph editor, 18, 19, 20, 53, 62
hERETIC, 74 hint bar, 9, 22, 51, 73, 76 hold, 16 HTML Notebook, 47
NewStuff.flp, 9 notebooks, 47
on-line help, 9, 14, 40, 45, 69 oscillator (OSC), 27
import, 62 initial event, 54 internal controllers, 47, 48, 49, 76, 77
pan, 11, 15, 16, 18, 19, 46, 47, 62 pat/song, 22 pattern selector, 22, 55 phase inversion, 48 phaser, 42, 48 piano roll, 4, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62
keyboard editor, 20 kvr-vst.com, 40
ping pong, 15 pitch, 15, 16, 18, 20, 41, 58, 61, 62 pitch bend (slide), 19, 58, 62 play indicator, 22, 54, 55, 58 play switch, 9, 11 playlist, 22, 23, 50, 53 Plucked!, 25, 26, 34 plugin, 12, 25, 30, 38, 39, 40, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 76 polling, 7 presets, 26, 48, 49, 70 project bones, 70 project data files, 70
Speech Synthesizer, 41 speed (SPD), 16 step sequencer, 12, 21, 22, 26, 41, 58, 62 sustain (SUS), 16 synth channels, 40
TB-303, 36 tick, 51, 57 tool bar, 22, 57, 60 troubleshooting, 75 TS-404, 25, 26, 36, 51, 53, 55, 58, 75 tutorials, 9, 47
release (REL), 16 remote control input, 74 resonance & cutoff, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 46, 51, 53, 62, 71, 76, 77 reverb, 42, 44, 48

undo, 54, 61

velocity (volume), 18, 19, 62 volume, 11, 16, 18, 19, 42, 46, 62, 75 VST plugin, 38, 39, 40
sample browser, 12, 13, 41 samples, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 25, 26, 31, 33, 41, 44, 46, 48, 55, 58, 59, 70 SectionZ.net, 70 shift, 18, 20 shortcuts, 9 SimSynth Live, 25, 26, 35, 40 slide (pitch bend), 19, 58, 62 snap to grid, 57, 60 song/pat, 22 SoundFonts, 25, 26, 33 spectrum analyzer, 27, 48
Wasp, 25, 26, 37 wav export to wav, 69 Windows, 7
zipped loop packages, 70 zoom, 53, 54, 59

FL STUDIO

Getting Started Manual
IMPORTANT write your unique registration code here for safe-keeping:
Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Image Line Software. The software described in this document is furnished under a license agreement or nondisclosure agreement. The software may be used or copied only in accordance of the terms of the agreement. It is illegal to copy this software on any medium except as specifically allowed in the agreement. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, for any purpose without the express written permission of Image Line Software. FL Studio (formerly known as Fruityloops) and Deckadance are registered trademarks of Image Line Software. Other company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners. Image Line Software is a division of Image Line BVBA. Visit Image-Line Software at http://www.image-line.com Visit FL Studio on the web at http://flstudio.image-line.com
Copyright 2002-2011 Image Line Software. FL Studio Copyright 1998-2011 Image Line Software. All rights reserved.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WELCOME TO FL STUDIO.... 5 INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS.... 6 FIRST RUN.... 7 MAKE SOME NOISE.... 10 HELP!.... 10 GETTING STARTED.... 11 THE CHANNEL & STEP SEQUENCER WINDOW... 11 TWEAKING THE CHANNELS.... 14 TWEAKING NOTE PROPERTIES.... 20 THE PIANO ROLL.... 24 THE PLAYLIST.... 29 AUDIO, PATTERNS & AUTOMATION... 31 GENERATORS.... 33 MIXING & EFFECTS.... 53 THE EVENT EDITOR.... 64 AUDIO RECORDING.... 69 INTEGRATED WAVE EDITOR.... 70 SHARING YOUR WORK.... 74 EXTERNAL CONTROLLERS.... 76 CREDITS.... 83 INDEX.... 84
IMPORTANT: This guide is a general Getting Started manual for all FL Studio Editions (Express, Fruity & Producer). Some features are not available all editions. E.g. Express Edition does not have access to the Playlist & Express/Fruity Editions do not have Audio or Automation Clips. Please check our site http://flstudio.image-line.com for upgrade options.

WELCOME TO FL STUDIO

This guide is a general introduction to using FL Studio. Please press F1 while you are running the program to open the in-line manual for detailed help on specific features or functions. Lifetime FREE updates of the edition you own: Did you know that customers who bought FL Studio 2 (way back in 1999) have received FL Studio 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 absolutely free! Thats about $1500 of free updates. If you have the Boxed version, register online to get your Lifetime Free Updates. If you bought FL Studio via Internet download, you are already registered for Lifetime Free Updates. So how has Image-Line stayed in business for over 13 years? You will notice that we include a number of demo plugins in the program and we rely on happy customers purchasing these (Maximus, Poizone, Sawer, Sytrus, Toxic Bio, Vocodex etc) and loop/sample content. Our philosophy is that you should pay only for what you use, and never pay for bug-fixes (hello competitors?!). Visit http://www.image-line.com to see what we have on offer. Here are just a few of the cool features in FL Studio: Recording: Audio (microphones, guitars, synths), automation (knob / mouse movements) and notes (polyphonic melodies) live, then edit the performance. Easy hardware controller linking: Right-click on the FL interface control, select link and tweak the hardware controller knob, done. Piano Roll: The most advanced piano-roll in the industry. Per-note slides for native FL Studio plugins. Complete suite of editing and creative composition tools. Step sequencer: Fast and intuitive pattern-based sequencing, perfect for percussion. Edison wave editor/recorder: Record, analyze, edit and transform audio. With beat slicing. Share: import/export.wav (wave),.mp3 (mpeg layer 3),.ogg (Ogg Vorbis),.mid (MIDI) files and more. Fast: Of course there is the legendary FL Studio workflow, the fastest path from your brain to your speakers!

Lemon Boy is in the house: Hey Dudes! Having problems? Before you panic and start spamming the FL Studio Tech Support, look for me. I'll pop up here and there with answers to common problems that might save you some trouble. Of course, dont neglect to press F1 inside FL Studio to open the in-line help or visit the on-line forums http://forum.image-line.com/.
INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
The installation procedure for FL Studio differs slightly, depending on whether you purchased the product online, or as a boxed version with a CD and this manual. Read below for what to do: A. If you purchased FL Studio as a boxed version, follow these steps: 1. Run the CD. Insert the install CD-ROM that comes with your box in your CD-ROM drive. If you have auto-run enabled, you will see the CD menu automatically appear. Otherwise, right-click your CD-ROM drive icon in Windows Explorer and select Autorun. 2. Start the Installation. Select the FL Studio installation link. The installation window will appear. Follow the instructions on screen. Check the 'Extra Sample' option if you want to install the additional Generic Sample CD samples. 3. Registration code. During the installation you will be asked to enter a serial number. Write it down for future use and to make a backup of this number. 4. Register On-line. After installation you can register online to gain access to Lifetime FREE Updates, the extra FL Studio website features and community. Go back to the CD-ROM menu (reload as described in step 1 if needed), and click on the link called Click here to register to the FL Studio community or go to this link http://boxregistration.image-line.com. NOTE: This is insurance against lost CDs! You can also get the latest version of FL Studio (as shown below). B. If you purchased FL Studio online, as a download version, follow these steps: 1. Download and Install the Demo. Download and install the demo version of FL Studio. It is recommended NOT to install over previous releases of FL Studio or Fruityloops. The Demo is at http://www.image-line.com/downloads/downloads.html 2. Download a Regcode. Go to http://my.image-line.com and enter your username and password you received by e-mail after your purchase. Your regcode can be downloaded from the My Licenses section to the right. Click on a product link to open it and click Click here to unlock this product. Save the FLRegkey.Reg to disk. 3. Install the FLRegkey.Reg file. Double-click the file or right-click and select Merge. Allow the file to be written to the Windows registry. Problems? See our searchable Knowledge Base http://support.image-line.com/knowledgebase and support forums http://forum.image-line.com. In case of order or registration related support, please create a support ticket at our website http://support.image-line.com.

FIRST RUN

OK, so you just finished the installation and started FL Studio. This section explains what you will see. As soon as you start FL Studio, you may be confronted with strange dialog boxes and messages. Dont forget to check the extensive on-line help that comes with FL Studio (press F1) and check our Getting Started video tutorials: www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A988BD357AA510D1 1. The System Settings Screen. When you first run FL Studio, you should press F10 on your PC keyboard to access it. Use the select boxes to choose your sound card and hardware controllers. At first, you may be looking at the MIDI screen, but for now the most important one is the Audio screen, accessed as shown below.

When programming patterns use PAT mode. FL Studio will then play the selected pattern.
3. How do you use patterns? While its cool to make a bunch of patterns, its not particularly useful to play a single loop over and over (unless you are jamming on a guitar or something). The key is to place these patterns in the Playlist (more on that later). All the note data contained in the stack of instrument Channels in the Channel Window is known as a 'pattern'. You can switch to a new pattern with the Transport Panel 'PAT' selector. When you do this, the note data visible in the current Pattern will change to reflect the selected pattern. To hear only that pattern (rather than the whole Playlist) make sure the button at the front of the Transport Panel is in PAT mode. Once you have made a bunch of Patterns, you can select the pattern using the PAT selector (or the Playlist Clip selector), then left click on a blank area of the Playlist (in pencil mode) to place it in the Playlist as Pattern Clip (upper area) or Pattern block (lower area). 4. Play with the Channel Controls. After you've set up the pattern, try playing with the Channel Controls on the left. The two round knobs control the volume and pan of a single Channel, and the green light switches the Channel on and off. Panning is similar to the balance control on a stereo; turning this knob moves the sound from left to right in the stereo field. To reset a knob to its default position, right-click on it and select reset. 5. Make Your Own Beat. Don't like the beat above? Good, then its time to make your own beat! In the next sections, we'll teach you how to load in new samples, set up melodies, and change the sound of each Channel (and even each step) using Plugin Effects. Learn what Snap does Play here Select pattern to place here using the Clip selector

Pencil or brush mode

Left-click on the blank areas to add the selected pattern More about the Playlist on page 29.

TWEAKING THE CHANNELS

In this section, we'll show you how to modify the sound of the samples in each sampler Channel. FL Studio supports so much of this kind of tweaking that it's possible for two people to create loops that sound totally different using exactly the same samples (technically, each Channel contains a Instrument, which could be a sample or a synthesizer plugin). While there are dedicated samplers like FPC (percussion) & DirectWave (instruments), the single Channel sampler is a versatile and useful tool.
Wait! What's a "sample"? A sample is a recorded sound stored in a file. Each Channel in FL Studio, by default, uses a single sample, usually containing a single note (like a snare drum hit or a single bass note), but they can also contain entire beats (loops) or tunes. Samples are usually ".wav" files but FL Studio supports ".mp3" and.ogg sound files too.

1. Load a New Sample. Check out the Browser. One way to load samples is to use the Browser (that's the other window you see when you first opened FL Studio in the "First Run" section above.) This is a special browser for selecting and loading samples, loops and presets files. To find a Kick sound, click on Packs, and then Dance. Left-clicking on a sample in the list will play it, right clicking will open it into the selected Channel. You can also drag and drop into the Step Sequencer. Select a Channel by clicking on the green Channel Selector light to the right of the Channel name as shown above.

Click Here

Lost the Browser? No problem. The five big buttons on the tool bar shown below will open and close various windows for you, including the Browser & Step Sequencer. (The will become clear in the fullness of time )

Then Here

Then Here Open Browser
2. Open the Channel Settings Window (left-click on a Channel button). OK, let's modify the kick drum sample. Load a Kick sound (shown below) and open the Channel Settings window for that Channel by left-clicking on the name button. You can also change samples using the Open file icon to the left of the Sample Name window (as shown below) - this will open a browser on the directory containing kick drum samples. As you click on them, FL Studio will automatically play the sounds. Try opening some of the other samples and listening to the effect a new kick drum has on the sound of the loop.
Click Here Channel Selector Sample File Name

Open file

Save! If youve created a masterpiece and you want to keep it, dont forget to save. Theres a cool Save new version that will add a 1,2,3 etc on the end of the FLP name, so you can keep all your old versions.
3. Play with the Sampler Channel Effects. Its worth noting that FL Studio can add audio effects on Mixer tracks (set by the FX selector), but this section is to show you the power of Channel sampler effects. Ok, at this point the best advice is to start the pattern looping, then play with the controls in the sample (SMP) panel of the Channel Settings Dialog and listen to the difference in sound. Here's a short description of what some of them do. For more info see the on-line help.
Vol, Pan: Volume and panning wheels that also appear on the main screen for each Channel. Turning these will also makes the knobs on the Channel Window move to match. Fade In (IN): Applies a quick fade in to the sample (turn maximum to left to disable). Fade Out (OUT): Applies a quick fade out to the sample (turn maximum to left to disable). Pitch bend (POGO): Applies pitch bend to the sample. Useful with drum samples. Crossfade Loop (CRF): Allows you to crossfade the sample for the creation of smooth loop sections (turn maximum to left to disable). Trim Threshold (TRIM): FL Studio trims the silence at the end of the samples, as this frees up RAM and does not alter the resulting sound. This control allows you to raise the volume threshold below which FL Studio detects "silence".

Remove DC Offset: Use this option to fix vertical offset in the samples (see Wave View below). Reverse Polarity: "Flips" the waveform vertically. Normalize: Maximizes the sample volume without distortion. Fade Stereo: Creates a stereo fade from the left to the right Channel of the sample. Reverse: Reverses the sample. Swap Stereo: Switches left and right Channel of the sample.
Wave View Window: Shows the shape of the sound sample. Click here to hear the sample with all the effects. Also a drag and drop window for loading samples. Right-click too!
Can't hear the difference? If you press a button or turn a knob and you can't hear any difference in the sound, try making the same change on another Channel. For example, sometimes a change that doesn't affect a kick drum much will make a huge difference to the sound of a snare. If you still can't hear the difference, stop the loop from playing and listen the sounds separately by clicking on the wave view window. You might be able to hear the effect better without the other instruments.
4. Add Some Echo. Open a_Kick Channel settings and click the FUNC tab to get the view shown below. The controls in the top section (Echo delay / fat mode) can be used to set up a cool echo effect for a single instrument. Start by turning up the FEED about a quarter of the way, and listen to what happens to the kick drum sound Try playing with the other controls to change the sound of the echo You can also toggle between various echo and fat modes by clicking the title bar of the Echo Delay section (the default is Classic Echo). More on these different effects can be found in the on-line manual. Note: You can also achieve the same result with an Audio Effect loaded in the Mixer. More on that later.
Feed: Echo volume (sets how quickly the echo dies out). Ping Pong: Makes the echo flip back and forth from left to right (sounds cool on headphones). Arpeggiator: This gets explained in the Generators section of this guide.
Pan, Cut, and Res do the same job as on the sample panel, but the effects build up as the echo dies out. Pitch controls the pitch of the echo. If you turn this knob right, the echo will get higher as it dies out. Ech: Number of times the instrument will echo before it stops. Time: Controls the amount of time (in dots) between each echo. Maximum delay time is 16 steps.
Getting Echo Time Just Right: The "Time" control is fine-grained to get you just the exact echo you want. But if you want to echo on the beat, you will have to look at the Hint Bar while you turn the dial. If you want the echo every three dots, just turn the dial until the hint bar shows "3:00".
5. Play With the Instrument Settings. Let's take a quick look at the INS panel before we move on (There's also stuff you should read about in the MISC, check the FL Help). Click on the INS tab and you'll get to the Instrument Settings. Here you can add Envelopes and LFO to your sample for the Volume, Pan, Cutoff, Resonance, and Pitch settings. Select this switch to activate the envelope Effect Selector

THE PLAYLIST (from Patterns to Songs)
Now you've seen the basics of what can be done with sampled sounds in a single pattern. In this section we'll show you how to program more than one pattern and link them together into a longer loop. 1. The Pattern Selector. FL Studio lets you create 999 different patterns of any length. In the previous sections, we've just been working with pattern 1, but we can access the other patterns by changing the number in the Pattern Number box. Use your mouse to drag in the Pattern Selector or use numeric 1 till 9 or + and -). Youll find these controls somewhere on the tool bar at the top of the main FL Studio window. Right-click the pattern selector to show all patterns with data in them. Pattern/Song mode selector Pattern number box
Play position indicator 2. Check out the Playlist. This screen can be opened either using the button under the hint bar, by hitting F5, or by right-clicking the song/pat button on the main screen (see above). Try it, and you should get a new window that looks something like the one shown below. This window is similar to the pattern view, except that the steps operate on whole patterns rather than single Channels, and the bar lengths here vary to reflect the pattern length. Make sure Song is selected and press Play. You should see the Play Indicator on the Playlist start to move, and hear the patterns it is playing (use the NewStuff.flp). When the indicator reaches the end of the steps, it will jump back to the Song loop point and continue playing. Try moving the loop point (right-click where you want it to go) and see what happens. (If you press the Pat button, FL Studio will just repeatedly play the current pattern in the Step Sequencer.)

Groovy.

To add Clips to the Playlist use the Pattern selector & then click on empty Playlist tracks. 3.
What's the Point? Now you can assemble a number of patterns together to make a song. This lets you alter melodies, change beats, insert fills, and reuse some of the early parts of the song later. The clip tracks show information about the data patterns & clips contain. The Its up to you how you want to work but many composers use separate patterns for drums, bass, lead, etc. so they can work on them separately at first, and then piece the song together in the Playlist. A good way to see the Playlist used full-on is to see the NewStuff.flp or flps in the Cool Stuff folder in the browser.
4. Data types: Each Clip track can hold unlimited number of Automation Clips, Pattern Clips and Audio clips. To add a new instance of a clip select the clip to paste using the Clip Pattern selector and then click in an empty place inside the tracks. Try moving the waves or cutting them with the slice tool. You can find more tutorial projects explaining how to use them and also plenty of information in the on-line help (focus FL Studio and press F1). See more info in the chapter Audio Tracks. You can apply automation envelopes (e.g. to fade the volume in/out on an audio clip) on top of these audio clips.

2. What to Expect. The new Channel will appear in the Step Sequencer and the Instrument's Configuration Screen will appear. If the Configuration Screen is small, it will appear inside a Channel Settings window (3xOsc, BeepMap, Fruit Kick, Fruity SoundFont Player, Plucked!). Otherwise, it will appear as a standalone window (Autogun, BooBass, Buzz Generator, FPC, Fruity DrumSynth Live, Fruity DX10, Ogun, SimSynth Live, Wasp, Sytrus, Poizone, Sawer, Toxic Biohazard). 3. How Do I Use them? It's important to know that most Instruments have their own help available. If the Configuration Screen for the Instrument is embedded in a Channel Settings window, click on the Channel name. If it's in a standalone window, click on the menu in the top left corner. Preset Sounds
Help 4. Preset Sounds. Most synthesizer instruments (BeepMap, Buzz Generator, Fruit Kick, Fruity DrumSynth Live, Fruity DX10, SimSynth Live, Wasp) have preset sounds available. In most cases, you can get to them from the Presets section of the menu shown above, or by clicking on the little arrows in the top right (see picture above-right). Right-click to see the big list. 5. Channel Settings. All these instruments have a Channel Settings window that you get by clicking on the Channel name, just like for Sample Instrument Channels. But since each instrument is different, they may not all have the same panels as the Sample Instruments do. For instance, the TS404 has the SMP, MISC, and FUNC panels, while the BeepMap instrument has INS, MISC, and FUNC. 6. What do these Instruments Do? OK, here's the skinny on the Instruments. Please note that some of these Instruments need to be purchased separately. If you havent bought them, youll only have the demo version of the Instrument that will allow you to play and listen to
their sounds, but these Channels will not be saved in your FL Studio project. Some demo instruments (and effects) may make a soft hissing sound every so often. If you can hear something that sounds like the ocean, you probably have a demo loaded somewhere in your project. a. 3xOsc (included). This is a plain instrument that allows you to mix three Oscillators, each of which generates a tone. The sounds on their own are not exciting, but they are good raw material to be combined with INS panel effects and other plugin effects (explained in a later chapter) and its a great place to start if you are new to synthesis.

Favorite list Favorite switch

New plugin

8. VST and DX Plugins. You may have noticed the Fruity Wrapper in the above list of plugins. The wrapper is not strictly an instrument but provides the interface between FL Studio and VST or DXi plugins. If you double-click on one of the VST Plugins, it will automatically open the Wrapper for you. You may notice that some plugin instruments (and effects) dont have their own interface, see the DX10 freeware plugin below. This uses the generic wrapper interface. Others have a more professional looking interface, like Poizone.
Generic interface (DX10).
Custom interface (PoiZone).
9. The Other VST Plugins. What about all the other VST Plugins in the list? VST plugins are either synthesizers or effects (FX), we explain how to use the FX in the Mixing & Effects section below. VSTs are held by the FL Studio Wrapper. 1 = Wrapper menu. 2 = Plugin settings (useful to set multiple outputs or whip misbehaving plugins into shape!). 3 = Preset selector. 4 = Close interface. Unfortunately, there is just no way for FL Studio to tell the difference between FX and Synth plugins, so youll just have to remember which is which. If you try to open a VST Plugin and all you get is an error message and the empty wrapper, then it was probably an FX plugin.
10. Do I have to demo plugins to use them? We fund the lifetime free updates program by selling some additional plugins to our loyal customers, so yes in some cases you do have to register them to unlock their full capabilities. By doing so you support not only Image Line Software but the whole FL Studio community. Go to http://flstudio.image-line.com for more information on where to send your hard-earned cash. 11. Where Can I Get More? There are literally thousands of synth plugins out there to download. Some of them are free, and some you have to pay for. Search the web and http://flstudio.image-line.com or http://www.image-line.com for good deals. A place you should definitely bookmark is http://www.kvraudio.com - a huge site with details about every VST plugin you could possibly want (new VST Plugins should go in the shared Program Files\Image-Line\ VST directory on your hard drive). 12. The Arpeggiator. Now that we've introduced the Synth instruments, we can tell you more about the Arpeggiator section in the Channel Settings window. Open one of the synth Channels (SimSynth Live, for instance) and go to the FUNC panel of the Channel settings box. Now click the up arrow and select a chord. Now go to a new pattern and place a single SimSynth note and press play. Instead of a single note, you get a repeating arpeggio. Cool, huh? Read more about this in the on-line help.

This is the source track and is sending audio to 2 other tracks, tracks (a regular & send track). Dedicated Send tracks.
These two tracks receive input, note the knob positions that show the input signal volume, click on the up-arrow to make send knobs appear/disappear. Changing Plugin Order. The order in which you add effects plugins decided in what order the FX are applied to the signal. Think of it this way the signal enters the top of the FX stack and leaves the bottom. So Delay above a reverb would mean the delay sits in a wash of reverb. Reverb above delay means the reverb tail is chopped up and delayed. To make it easier to experiment with effects order, FL Studio has a simple function to move an effect up or down in the effects chain. A quick way is to place your mouse cursor over the FX slot and scroll your mouse wheel. No wheel? Click the FX menu and press u or d on your keyboard to move the selected FX. Place your mouse pointer over the FX name and scroll the wheel OR Left-click and press u or d
What do the Plugins Do? As mentioned, you can get on-line help for all of the FL Studio Plugins, but here's a quick rundown on what they all do
Buzz Effect Adapter. Lets you load in any Buzz Machine effect. FL Studio comes with a few installed already, but you can get more at http://www.BuzzMachines.com. Edison. A fully integrated audio editing and recording tool. Edison loads into an effect slot
(in any Mixer track) and will then record or play audio from that position (see page 069 for more info). EQUO. Is a bank of 8 Graphic Equalizers with between-bank morphing, particularly suited to automation. Fruity 7 Band EQ (included). Equalizes your sound (just like on your Dad's stereo at home.) Fruity Balance (included). Lets you change the pan and volume while live recording. Fruity Bass Boost (included). Boost that bass for a super-phat sound. Fruity Big Clock (included). Pops up a huge timer to tell you how long the songs been playing. Fruity Blood Overdrive (included). Use this to distort Channels. Fruity Center (included). Use for real time DC offset removal. Fruity Chorus (included). Adds a smooth chorus effect. Fruity Compressor (included). Use this to flatten out the dynamics of the sound. Many producers today use massive compression to get their drums to sound the way they do. Fruity dB Meter (included). Pops up a big levels meter. Fruity Delay (included). Use for a true echo (not just repeated samples like the Channel echo). Fruity Delay 2 (included). The next generation Fruity Delay. Adds panning and other effects. Fruity Delay Bank (included). Consists of a bank of 8 identical banks, each is able to be feed to the next bank in the chain in order to create complex delay and filtering effects. Fruity Fast LP (included). Use for low pass filtering that's CPU friendly (cutoff and resonance). Fruity Fast Dist (included). A great little distortion effect that uses almost no CPU. Fruity Filter (included). More cutoff and resonance filtering thats not so CPU friendly.

Fruity Flanger (included). If you have to ask, you haven't heard it yet. Real popular among guitar players, this LFO-type effect can add a cool feel to any song. Fruity Flangus (included). A very useful effect, which allows you to enrich the stereo panorama of your instruments, add high quality chorus and simulate unison synthesis. Fruity Formula Controller (included). This is a fancy internal controller that you can link to other knobs and sliders inside FL Studio. Wait until the Live Recording section for more info. Fruity Free Filter (included). Yet another filter - a classical 12db instead of a state variable filter like the Fruity Filter (whatever that means?) Fruity HTML Notebook (included). Add some notes to your loop in html format, or add your own web page! Fruity Love Philter (included). The most powerful filter plugin in FL Studio. Consists of 8 identical filter units, each able to be feed to the next one in the chain. Creates complex delay, gating and filtering effects. Fruity LSD (included). Enables FL Studio to access the DirectMusic Software Synthesizer bundled with DirectX 8. Note that you must have DirectX 8.0 or later installed on your machine. The LSD acts like an external MIDI device, which can be controlled from a MIDI Out Generator Channel (see section on Instruments above). Fruity Limiter (included). Single band Maximizer, Compressor & Limiter. Fruity Multiband Compressor (included). A 3-band stereo compressor using ButterWorth IIR or LinearPhase FIR filters to separate the incoming signal into three bands for processing. Limiter functionality is also included. Fruity Mute 2 (included). Use this to mute (silence) Channels while live recording. Fruity Notebook (included). Keep your song notes here! This is the plugin used in the Tutorial Loops that came with your package. Fruity PanOMatic (included). Useful for panning the sound back and forth smoothly. Fruity Parametric EQ (included). A parametric equalizer built for FL Studio. Regular equalizers only let you set the levels for preset frequency bands, but with a parametric equalizer you choose the frequency bands to equalize.
Fruity Parametric EQ 2 (included). An advanced 7-band parametric equalizer plugin with spectral analysis. The frequency and width of each band is adjustable, along with the band type. Useful for when you need precise control over EQ. Fruity Peak Controller (included). This is another internal controller. More on controllers in the Live Recording section below. Fruity Phase Inverter (included). Use to reverse the stereo phase (left and right). Fruity Phaser (included). Like the Flanger, but even cooler. Fruity Reeverb (included). Use for a much nicer reverb than you can get on the Channel Settings dialog. Fruity Reverb 2 (included). New and improved Reverb plugin with higher quality sound and more controls than the original reverb. Fruity Scratcher (included). Load up a sample and scratch the hell out of it. This plugin is actually more like a instrument, since it produces sound on its own rather than modifying a Channel. Fruity Send (included). Place this plugin between two other plugins to split the signal and send it to one of the four Send FX Channels. Fruity Soft Clipper (included). This is a CPU friendly soft limiter filter. It allows you to avoid clipping and distortion by applying soft compression to the input signal. Fruity Spectroman (included). Pops up a spectrum analyzer so you can view the spectral distribution of the sounds in your track. Fruity Squeeze (included). Is a bit reducing, distortion and filtering plugin. Fruity Squeeze will add a gritty tonal character to input sounds and is particularly effective when applied to drum loops. Fruity Stereo Enhancer (included). Adds some really nice stereo separation and other effects. Fruity Stereo Shaper (included). More sophisticated version of the Stereo Enhancer with MID/SIDE decoding (warning this one will bend your mind!) Fruity Vocoder (included). An advanced vocoder with a wide range of adjustable

Global snap resolution.

Time for some snappy tips

*groan*

* The SNAP shown above is the global snap, there is a local snap for the Event Editor, Piano Roll and the Play List so these may be set independently. * You can undo an LFO with Ctrl-Z.

AUDIO RECORDING

What about Audio recording? You will need FL Studio Producer edition or higher plus use an ASIO soundcard driver selected from the Audio Options (Press F10 on your keyboard to open them). Its a huge (but rewarding) area that is carefully covered in the on-line manual. Press F1 in FL Studio and click on the Contents section Recording Audio, Notes & Automation, then the Audio Recording page. However we will tell you now that external audio inputs come into FL Studio through the Mixer IN menus. There is one on each track, so get that sorted and you are on your way!
External audio inputs are selected from the FL Studio mixer INPUT menu. The 'IN' menu shows a drop-down list of the available soundcard inputs (mic, line etc). The screenshot above shows (none) as no input is selected yet (each mixer track has it's own external input options menu). Input options will only be visible if an ASIO soundcard driver is active. Note: The input names shown in the drop-down menu are provided by the soundcard driver and are often given strange names, so experimentation may be required to find the correct input. Time to go buy some MICROPHONES!!!!!!
EDISON WAVE EDITOR / RECORDER
IMPORTANT: This guide is a general Getting Started guide for all existing FL Studio Editions. Some features however, are not available in some editions. The FL Studio Fruity Edition doesnt have Audio Track or the Integrated Wave Editor capabilities. Please check our site http://flstudio.image-line.com for upgrade conditions. Edison is a fully integrated audio editor and Mixer-track recorder. Edison loads into an effect slot (in any Mixer track) and will then record or play audio from that position. You may load as many instances of Edison as you require in any number of Mixer Tracks or Effects slots. To open Edison, press Ctrl+E in a Sampler Channel, or load from the effects menu into Mixer track/s. Many powerful tool are available within Edison. Brief descriptions of some tools, and how to open them are provided below.

Additive synthesis, 41 Amount (AMT), 18, 19 Aphex Twin, 36 Arpeggiator, 17, 50 ASIO4ALL, 7 Attack (ATT), 18 Audio based automation, 59 Audio editor, 70 Audio saving, 74 Audio Settings, 7, 62, 80 Audio Tracks, 30 Autogun, 35 Automation, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62 Knobs, 81 Automation clips, 30 Auto-smoothing, 65
Background rendering, 75 Balance, 13, 57 Bass, 30, 36, 46, 57 BeatSlicer, 42, 51 BeepMap, 33, 34, 36 Bit depth, 74 Bit rate, 74 BooBass, 33, 34, 36 Boxed user, 6 Browser, 14, 51 Buffer length, 8, 60, 62, 80 buffer underrun, 8 Buzz Effects, 56 Buzz Generators, 33, 34

cuts off, 23

Decay (DEC), 18 Delay (DEL), 18 Delay (echo), 17, 18, 21, 53, 55, 57, 62 Demo plugins, 50 DirectMusic Software Synthesizer, 58 DirectSound streaming buffer, 8 DirectX, 43, 58 Discussion forum, 10 Distortion, 57, 59
Download user, 6 DX Plugin, 48
Glitch effect, 60 Graph editor, 20, 21, 22, 64 Gross beat, 60
Echo (delay), 17, 18, 21, 53, 55, 57, 62 Edison, 70 Effects, 13, 49 Effects plugins, 56 Effects tracks, 55 Envelope, 18, 19 Equalizer, 53, 55, 57, 58 Event editor, 26, 27, 28, 62, 64, 65, 66 Event LFO, 66 Events (initial), 65 Export, 74, 75 Export audio, 74
Hint bar, 10, 29, 62, 81 MIDI, 78 MIDI indicator, 81 Hold, 18 HTML Notebook, 58
Import, 28 Initial event, 65 Internal controllers, 58, 59, 60, 81, 82 introduction, 5
FAQ, 6 Fat mode, 17 Feed, 17 Filters, 20, 22, 57, 58, 59 Flanger, 53, 58, 59 Flooper, 79 flstudio.com, 10, 49, 50 Force Feedback File, 43 Fruit Kick, 33, 34, 38, 39 Fruity DrumSynth Live, 33, 34, 39 Fruity DX10, 33, 34, 39 Fruity effects, 35 Fruity Granulizer, 40, 51 Fruity Scratcher, 51, 59 Fruity Send, 59 Fruity Slicer, 42, 51 Fruity Soft Clipper, 59 Fruity SoundFont Player, 33, 34, 43 Fruity Vibrator, 43 Fruity Wrapper, 48, 49 Fruity X-Y Controller, 60, 81, 82 FruityLoops.com, 2 FX plugins, 56 FX Tracks, 53
Keyboard controller, 77 Keyboard editor, 22 kick drum, 15 Knob controller, 77 Knowledge base, 6 kvraudio.com, 50
Layer channel, 46, 47, 48 Lemon Boy, 11, 14, 17, 52, 62, 76, 77, 79, 82, 83 LFO, 18, 19, 58, 66, 67 depth, 66 Lifetime free updates, 5 Limiter, 58 Live recording, 57, 58, 64, 66 Loop point, 25, 29

Main screen, 9

Main window, 10 Menu bar, 10 MIDI controllers, 48, 76, 79, 80 drivers, 7 files, 28 MIDI Out channel, 48, 58 settings, 79 Mixer tracks, 55 Morphine, 41 MP3, 74, 75 mp3.com, 75 Mute plugin, 58