# I just got Fruity Loops - How do I use it?



## Artha (Jan 5, 2012)

I want to do some music with Fruityloops, I've heard it's better then Magix (Which I used for my first real track before I got my keyboard, I got it today)
Anyway!  Any good tips/tutorials?  I'm a very visual learner with a short attention span so illustrated step by step for beginners, or a fast-paced video tutorial would be best for me.  (I'm ADHD and have a hard tome focusing for long lmao)

ANY tips would be appreciated!  Thanks!


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## Artha (Jan 5, 2012)

Anybody have anything for me?  I really want to learn! xD (I got some things figured out but I can't figure out how to change instrument - I want to try to make a simple piano song with FL... I know you can cause lots of people have, but I can't seem to figure out how! xD


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## Aidy (Jan 5, 2012)

There isn't any easy or quick way to learn your way around a DAW. FL Studio is a pretty basic one really, if you really want to do music production I strongly suggest saving up to buy a better one, what kind of music are you looking to make?


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## Artha (Jan 5, 2012)

Aidy70060 said:


> There isn't any easy or quick way to learn your way around a DAW. FL Studio is a pretty basic one really, if you really want to do music production I strongly suggest saving up to buy a better one, what kind of music are you looking to make?


  For now I mostly want to just play around and come up with something; I am fond of New age/classical/movie scores - and I want to just start out and see what I can do.  I just got a keyboard that connects to a computer easily; I just gotta figure out the basics of FL Studios.  Once I get the basics down I can probably figure out the rest.
I can't afford anything expensive for now, and I don't plan on doing anything professional sounding unless I end up good at this (Then I MAY open music commissions, but that's some time in the future.)
I do find that I have a talent in music, I've played since I was 3... at 3 I could hear a song and go play it, but I haven't had much of a chance to hone the talent or do anything with it - but now I have a keyboard, and I think with some work and practice I could get as good as I was when I was younger. I used to spend hours at a time playing on my grandparent's piano and was actually pretty good, but I'm rusty after years of no access to any musical instruments for a few years.


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## Aidy (Jan 5, 2012)

Well if you're looking to do something like that then I think FL Studio is a good place to start, then move over to Cubase. Both are pretty easy to figure out once you know the basics (assuming you know about music, which it looks like you do) and understand musical terms. It'll be pretty difficult to do if you don't have a MIDI controller or something, if you don't I suggest buying from M-Audio, I've got all my MIDI controllers from them and they're fantastic quality.


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## Rex Aeterna (Jan 6, 2012)

fl studio and cubase are both good production softwares. none is better than another. just matter of preferences really. i tried cubase,reason,fl studio and Ableton and from all of them fl studio is obviously the easiest to learn from for beginners. it's very simple but can be very complex at the same time when you start advancing with it and get use to it. i would suggest youtube videos if you can force yourself to watch them but if not,maybe can watch like 5 to 10 minutes at a time depending on how bad your attention span actually is. if you do have very short attention span and not very patient you will probably not like producing music cause it does take lot of concentration,pacing,patience and disciple,ect. it's like learning an instrument.

for midi controllers,m-audio is good, but for recording your gonna need a good audio interface as well to prevent latency issues and high quality recording. m-audio is pretty decent at this part but i find Echo products much better. i have a Echo Audiofire 2 interface and it's amazing for how small it is. uses high quality Texas Instrument chip 24-bit/96khz converters for crystal clear playback and recording. balanced inputs and outputs as well which is very useful and amazing. i have my 1985 Class A Yamaha R-9 amp hooked up to it via rca to dual 1/4'' jacks in the outputs and never can be happier with the crystal clear sound i get out of it. thing is it's firewire so you have to find out your motherboard is firewire compatible and what type of firewire controller it uses. i got lucky since my motherboard i have in my rig is a Texas Instrument firewire host,but i decided to install the Legacy drivers suggest by web-site. also it takes time getting it set-up correctly,but worth the effort.

 if not, m-audio usb interfaces work fine and are pretty good and much easier to work with since basically plug N play.


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## DW_ (Jan 6, 2012)

Aidy70060 said:


> Well if you're looking to do something like that then I think FL Studio is a good place to start, *then move over to Cubase*. Both are pretty easy to figure out once you know the basics (assuming you know about music, which it looks like you do) and understand musical terms. It'll be pretty difficult to do if you don't have a MIDI controller or something, if you don't I suggest buying from M-Audio, I've got all my MIDI controllers from them and they're fantastic quality.



ugh cubase. interface confused me immensely AND it wrecked my exports half the time.


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## Aidy (Jan 6, 2012)

TheDW said:


> ugh cubase. interface confused me immensely AND it wrecked my exports half the time.



I know how you feel, I detest Cubase and refuse to use it but it's fairly easy to use once you know the bare basics and I hear a few respected producers use it (Like Deadmau5). Personally, I much prefer Ableton Live and Pro Tools.


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## DW_ (Jan 6, 2012)

Aidy70060 said:


> I know how you feel, I detest Cubase and refuse to use it but it's fairly easy to use once you know the bare basics and I hear a few respected producers use it (Like Deadmau5). Personally, I much prefer Ableton Live and Pro Tools.



also, more than a quarter of its code is related to DRM, which makes me hate it even more.


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## Fiesta_Jack (Jan 6, 2012)

Your first few months, compose everything like Bach. Grandiose chords with every third and fifth, and noodling up and down tonic scales. :V


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## Aidy (Jan 6, 2012)

TheDW said:


> also, more than a quarter of its code is related to DRM, which makes me hate it even more.



Also it's overpriced, and isn't it Steinberg that make Cubase users pay to upgrade to the next version?


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## DW_ (Jan 6, 2012)

Aidy70060 said:


> Also it's overpriced, and isn't it Steinberg that make Cubase users pay to upgrade to the next version?



yep.gif


I'd take my free upgrades or cheap upgrades any day.


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## Artha (Jan 7, 2012)

I'll stick with FL for now, there's no way I could afford Cubase (A friend who has Fruityloops helped me get it, since they don't play music, that's how I got ahold of it ^^)


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## Rex Aeterna (Jan 13, 2012)

sticking with fl studio is fine. if anyone try to tell you, you can't make a professional quality recording off of it clearly don't know what they're saying. i heard top recordings off from fl studio users. most people don't know how to properly analyze music and don't know what a proper mastered final project sounds like anyways. most electronic music produced even on things like popular programs like cubase and reason turns out sounding like junk with bad compression skills and improper mastering techniques. it don't matter on the program. it comes down to the user.


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## Bittertooth (Jan 14, 2012)

I use FL, it's pretty legit if you have some nice plug-ins.  Just mess around with the program a lot, see what happens when you do certain stuff.  Don't attempt anything serious just yet.


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## Greg (Jan 17, 2012)

this seems very obvius but try reading the official help file. it'll help a buttload. then move up to youtube tutorials. fuck around the whole time while getting new info and try out new techniques for old things, you'll often find better and/or easier ways to do things before.once you've established yourself, mess around with some vst and dx plugins. when you feel that you're ready to start seriously producing, go ahead and have fun!oh yeah, if anyone says you can't make proffesional tracks on fl, remember peeps like deadmau5, afrojack, basshunter, silvahound and theblackparrot. then commence countertrolling measures!best of luck in your future EMP endeavours and don't forget to post your tracks on the forum.


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## OnekiNekai (Jan 20, 2012)

Eh, poke me about the end of next week and I'll help you out. Maybe we can even do a Livestream. FL Studio isn't hard to use once you learn where everything is. Those who call it a basic DAW definitely haven't seen the in depth features. This is assuming you're using the Producer Edition.

The major difference is that it's a pattern based DAW rather than a linear one. In a linear DAW such as Sonar your project is composed as one long track from beginning to end with FX and controllers applied as you go. This is the traditional PC/Mac way of doing it.

FL Studio uses patterns which are short to medium clips and sequences. They can be grouped or each pattern can be a single instrument. You then arrange your patterns together in the main mixer window. You'll apply real time controllers and such there too. In this sense it works a lot like an Amiga tracker.

Despite some shortcomings FL Studio is the one I always stick with. I used to be proficient, though not an expert, in Sonar but they keep changing the UI with every version.

The major catch with FL Studio is that the DAW itself is great but almost every single plugin that ships with it is total ass. Starting off you'll be OK using the FL Soundfont Player, SFZ+ or VSTSynFon and free soundfonts. When you want better libraries you'll want to upgrade to VSTs.


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## DW_ (Jan 21, 2012)

OnekiNekai said:


> When you want better libraries you'll want to upgrade to VSTs.



And when this happens, I can't recommend Synth1 enough. That plugin _kicks _total ass.


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## Demensa (Jan 21, 2012)

Watching youtube tutorials is one of the best things you can do to get started.  Just play around with the different sounds and start off with some simple patterns before moving on to more complex settings. I love FL studio, simply because it's easy to get started and because it has more depth than a lot of people give it credit for. In my opinion, FL studio is very user friendly and easy to use (drag and drop) although it'll probably be worth getting some extra plugins.


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## Greg (Jan 22, 2012)

Read the Manual.srsly.


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## chakatforestrain (Feb 11, 2012)

Click "Help>FL studio tutorials". That should help you get started,  then try to explore any interface options they didn't cover.

The basic workflow is to create *patterns* using the *square switches in the sequencer* or *by using the piano roll*, then queue them in the *playlist editor*. The *patterns* tell the the *instrument*, *plugin*, or *sampler* when to create a sound and at what pitch, etc. The *playlist* makes it easy to to repeat and layer *patterns* as needed to create the final song. You can switch between playing a selected *pattern* or playing the entire *song* by clicking the *pat/song radio boxes(buttons)* near the *play button*.
_*
Image here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7383674/*_

Check the *record button* and then hit *play* to record *midi and automation*.  Uncheck it again before reviewing your saved midi (to avoid  adding/overriding -- Hint! use ctrl+z to undo if you accidentally  record).

Tip: (on windows) If you go into your plugin settings  directory "ex: C:\Program Files (x86)\Image-Line\FL Studio  10\Data\Patches\Plugin database\[whatever plugin category]" and mark  files as "hidden" they will not show up in your plugin picker or plugin  browser. (you can also right click them in the plugin browser and  "windows shell menu>properties" to mark as hidden). This is a good  way to hide demo plugins and make the plugin picker less  crowded/confusing.


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