The fact that you're probably listening to music made in every popular, mainstream DAW on a daily basis and (hopefully) loving it is proof enough that it doesn't matter what you use. When I first started using Live on version 4, all my peers were telling me to move to Cubase and/or Logic because that was the "standard" around that time, and apparently Live sounded bad and couldn't "pull a good sound". I sure showed them... (I think)
IMHO, DAWs are kind of like cars. If you can't get to where you want to go with the one you have, you might want to work on your skills. Once you've mastered the one you have, you can think about getting something that is more to your liking.
so true. my friends are trying to tell me that there is something is missing from FL and that FL is the the the reason they cant make great music. I believe that its the person. a sine wave is a sine wave, a saw wave is a saw.
I started in FL, attempted Ableton and deleted that shit asap because I myself did not grow up learning to play various instruments thus not knowing music theory. Fl's piano roll helps me pan all my ideas out without as much musical knowledge as you would expect a producer to have. Still, i'm learning music theory for the heck of it because I think it can be helpful but damn FL is certainly a DAW for those who did not grow up forced to play an instrument.
Monstufpud I usually make most of my track in MS paint and then bring it into photoshop to master it. the saturation in photoshop is beast. RPGMaker has the best stock eq though
I used FL Studio for 3 years and then after learning Ableton last summer I switched and never looked back. Imo the best DAW is the DAW that you as a producer work best in
IntigeeOfficial sorry. I'm afraid that I didn't understand your first comment. And now I feel like an idiot. I'm gonna delete mine. Thx for reply that good for such a wrong comment. I agree what seamless said 100%, as I wanted to switch to reason and even cubase and i feel and work better in fl by far. So excuse me again for my behaviour
I'm 40, I started electronic / midi music creation with an Amiga back in the 1990s while professional studios were using Cubase on the Atari ST but I had and Amiga like most kids my age and the best pro music package on the Amiga was called MusicX. Ever since using MusicX I have been looking for something that worked in a similar way on PC. MusicX allowed you to write tracks and set loop regions and then in a separate arrangement track you could trigger the other tracks, I have tried lots of other DAWs and the linear recording systems that most (if not all) other DAWs use had put me off returning to music creation completely. Only FL now that I have finally been introduced to it has made me feel a similar joy to my days with MusicX. :)
I worked a lot with Reason, and still love it. I have done so many projects with the standalone and got so many refills, that I don't want to get rid of it. Now I see it like the ultimate "plugin". I just connect my DAW, which is REAPER now, via "Rewire", load some other plugins in it, like Amplitube or Native Instruments stuff, and I'm totally happy.
yoyommabulldog he hates him as he hates that kind of easy made-of-presets music. And is kinda true. If you think joel (today) would let garrox enter on one of his cars you'd probably missed the ultra festival video of deadmau5 with a superdupper remix of Animals. Check it out!!
I've been on FL since 8, and it's the wild west of DAW's whatever goes, goes. Ableton, Pro tools, are more static like you mentioned, organized. All of them are awesome, epic and deserve mentioning, but for me FL will just be the go to DAW for multi genre production styles
I think FL would be so much better if they would get rid of some of its clutter and make it more streamline. I hate having to route my instrements to the mixer and the fact that its a separate window from the instrument sequencer thing. I also hate dealing with patterns and wish it was just one long time line like most other daw's. For those two reasons alone i moved to Ableton. I also disagree with your statement that fl has lots of ways to do things and Ableton is more set in its ways. I find Ableton much more flexible while also being straight forward and intuitive. It gives you raw tools like FX, midi and drum racks and lets you chose how to use them together to make your own custom workflow. Ableton also lets you send and receive audio or midi from any track or any individual plugin/rack on said track. Since i moved to Ableton i find myself mixing a lot more too probably because the signal chain is almost always open. What I miss about FL is the piano roll, (probably the best of any daw) the step sequencer and the built in sampler. apologies for my bad spelling and grammer
Phillip Morrison You could, if you wanted, resize and form FL's windows to have everything where you want and open all the time. Especially now with FL 12. You could also setup the playlist to behave like the "one long timeline" concept you described. Course, I get that it's more attractive to just have an app already do that than to have to set that up yourself. I admit I don't actually have any personal experience with Ableton.
I think you should check it out. It was really inspiring finding a new workflow for me. It only took me about an hour to get basic composing and mixing functionality down thanks to a few Sadowick vidz. I still use FL tho because the workflow is different my tracks also sound different also if I get a project file thats more than 80 tracks I normally use cubase because Ableton has no organization features and takes for ever to navigate a big mix.
***** If you right click on a track in the playlist there's an option for "lock to content" where it'll force that track to only allow whatever was in there to be the thing that's in there. Do this for a whole bunch of tracks and you'll be forced to have the "one thing one track" approach that most DAWs implement, turning the playlist into a much more linear environment.
SeamlessR Yes, FL 12 has improved much in my opinion. The whole Magnet-Windows thing was something that REALLY irritated me from the day I started useing it, especially since I have a fairly small screen.
There is no best DAW. FL is good, Logic is good, Pro Tools is cool, etc. For me, Reaper is the best for many reasons. But anyway, you can do things in any good DAW. Focus on learning EQ, Compressor, Reverb, Paning, Mixing etc, and how to use your favourite VSTs, and you will be good in any DAW. I used FL for years and still like it, but Reaper is more fluid for me.
***** For me it's lighter, faster and more stable than ProTools. PT has a large community, better stock plugins and support, but for the price, I can just buy the plugins I need and use on Reaper.
im a 100% reason user. using 8.2 right now and a bunch of RE's. but i have to say i learn from every video i watch from you. it doesnt matter for me that its FL. somethings you do in your process has changed my workflow somehow. thank you for that SeamlessR ! :)
I agree with you. I've only ever used fl really but tried other daws to see the difference but always went back to fl cos I found it easier. I thought a couple of years ago it might of been then the daw what makes the final sound... But it doesn't. Cheers for all of your hard work seamless. I've learned a lot.
I've used Ableton for 3 years, it was actually the DAW i learned everything in. Lately i've been trying out Cubase, and i absolutely love the two. I was using FL Studio a while back, for a week or two. But honestly FL Studio was just a huge mess for me, didn't like the workflow at all. So yeah it's important to experiment with DAWs and figure out what suits you best
dude try bitwig. early days but i think the workflow is awesome.....ive come over to it from Logic and have used ableton a little but just instantly loved bitwig more than anything else. I highly recommend giving it a peek.
Mike Hawk the thing with Ableton, is even if you pay all of the money for the full version, you still don't get many plugins, you get effects but correct me if I'm wrong, I'm pretty sure there's just one instrument plugin that's a simple synth. You have to purchase a bunch of other plugins. FL and especially reason come with great plugins and instruments
I started with Pro Tools then moved to Ableton before getting FL Studio. Have to say FL is the best DAW for me as it's very intuitive and I love the work flow - get's my creativity flowing! FL has come on in leaps and bounds over the years and 12.2 is awesome. That said, these days I think pretty much any DAW will give you a great result - it just comes down to personal preference and what get's yer juices flowing! Having started off recording using a tape recorder I have to pay homage to the software engineers who have given us more power than the Beatles had (though sometimes even that is not enough for us!! ;) Compared to the olden days we are really spoilt for choice, which of course can make things all the more complex - sometimes too much choice isn't a good thing... One thing to bear in mind - a platinum, diamond encrusted hammer won't make you a master craftsman - neither will your DAW... Great vids Seamless - you're an inspiration ;)
My friend has garage band on his ipad and after playing around for about 15 mins i was able to use my production knowledge (gleaned from using ableton)to get some narly bass sounds and dubstep drums out of it...so i guess experience really reigns over everything
What I hate the most is when people don't take ya music serious because you used an "unprofessional" program like Logic and Cubase are 'serious' programs and FL and Reason are joketools
***** Kinda like how any mainstream artistic job somehow requires a MAC :p The kind of people who make those blanket assumptions as the people who's opinions you can safely ignore :D
***** SOUNDGOODIZER is a joke tool. Not FL or Reason. I think the only *reason* people think FL and Reason are "noob DAW's" is because they're inexpensive and their... graphic style? :P anyway by that *logic,* Logic would also be a noob DAW because it's only $200 ;p (DAW puns away lol)
IanStarGem Soundgoodizer isn't actually that much of a joke tool because, as SeamlessR has mentioned about 30 times before. All Soundgoodizer is, is Maximus presets. You can make a preset in maximus specifically for your drums and assign that to a Soundgoodizer preset and load up Soundgoodizer. It even says, as been mentioned about 30 times before, "Powered by Maximus" right on the plugins UI. Soundgoodizer is literally Maximus with one Wet/Dry knob.
SeamlessR But among those people are some very talented and experienced producers, whose opinions you obviously wouldn't want to ignore. It boggles my mind that even the best producers / sound engineers fall into this marketing trap sometimes (i.e. that FL sound engine is inferior in terms of quality, etc).
I've been producing music in FL for about 5 years now, my dad also producers music. He has used many daws like cubase, reason, pro tools, ableton etc. He is always asking me to move to ableton because HE thinks its better. He makes bold statements like "Ableton is a Superior Product" or "All of the really good producers use Ableton". I don't know wether to agree with him or not as I like both equally, but he says if I want to get anywhere i need to use ableton. What do you guys think?
I would say it's about the VST's. DAW is just what workflow you like. I like FL 12. But I use a ton of vst's that would work in any DAW. In the end it comes down to you. The person.
I think a lot of the confusion for users new to FL stems from the inconsistent naming. You route a "channel" to an "insert", but the selector to do so is labeled "track", which actually is the default name of a row in the playlist... I also don't understand why Image-Line makes me press Ctrl+L on every new Channel I add.
Seamless, you're the reason I chose FL. Because your channel is like an entire course I can take on it right here available for free. I chose it because I like the look, because savant is a big role model of mine, and because of the teaching resources on TH-cam for FL.
Hey Seamlessr I'm having a problem (probably just me wanting things to happen) but I have had Ableton for a couple months and have had serum for about 4 (I used FL studio for a while) but I cant piece my songs together I have about 9 project files of rubbish unfinished music and I'm really struggling to put my ideas on the screen, help me please.
I like FL in allmost every way, The one thing I'm still looking for is a way to simply humanize or randomize the midi midi info I placed exactly on the grid, but only the velocity and the 'snap' or what you call it: the placement of the (in my case) drums. They should land just a bit early or late in a random manner. It shoud be no hassle to add such a fuction, as if it were an advanced swing function. Am I missing it or is it just not there? I know it's in NI Batery for exaple and I believe Ableton had such a function integrated in the Impulse thingy.
I use FL because your fl basics series. It's not because you convinced me it is just because the resources to learn were there. Not only were they just there they were well done as well. cheers seamless. Great video.
Jumping between Abelton, FL and pro-tools is kinda nice. The different workflow makes you do things you wouldn't otherwise do. But FL is much faster to work with than the others, little things like the keyboard shortcuts and scrolling through menus make a massive difference.
I'm another long-time FL Studio user. ReWired is a fantastic tool. Once you learn to use it well, it's almost like you're using another DAW as a VST. Most often I use ReWired and MIDI Out to control the lovely sounds in Reason's Combinator inside of FL.
I am a Maschine guy, but I love FL's Arrangement and Automation Capabilities. So I tried to incorporate the way I chop samples but that's not really working to my needs. In Maschine I chop samples into 16 pieces and put them on individual sounds/pads. Each of these chops can be triggered individually via the Pads and/or played chromatocally with the keayboard. And everthing can be edited individually (Env, Pitch, Plugins, you name it) I tried to use slicex, but all it does is slice and map to the keyboard. And that's not enought for me. I need control over each individual slices. I guess the only way to get that flexibilty is to create a sampler/channel for each slice. That's the main thin why I always return to Maschine although arranging Songs in there is a P.I.T.A. What yould be your approach to this?
Why do you need a sampler when you can manipulate too many things, lyk pitch, notelength, slide, porta, velocity, pan,.. N heck lott.., in piano roll of slicex plugin???
Sorry SeamlessR, but you mention that FL is harder for new people to learn because there are so many ways to create something. However, I started out in Ableton with just the basic $100 version and I was confused. To me, the workspace felt jumbled and it really wasn't easy to make music. Then I tried FL Studio, and I think that the open-ness of the DAW actually makes it *easier* than Ableton. Once I figured out the whole pattern idea and how to place them onto the playlist, FL seemed so much more user-friendly and intuitive compared to Ableton. This is just my opinion on FL vs. Ableton; but yeah, FL is better because I said so. xD
Same thing with me a long time ago when I was starting out, I first installed ableton as recommended but I couldn't figure it out. And then tried FL and figured it out
That I think is mostly just how much work a producer puts into a track. Every tool is like that. If you just use its basic stuff setup out of the box, it'll sound like that tool. But if you really get into it, then it'll sound like YOU.
callum farley Ableton tracks tend to sound like a few isolated elements, only because organizing a large project is more or less impossible so a lot of producers seem to favour simpler arrangements than in other DAWs. Obviously this isn't a hard and fast limitation but it's interesting to notice.
Man when you brought up FL from 8-9 years ago.. i remember thinking geez how do i live with it as a producer. listened to some of my production from back then, amazing how far we have come from a production standpoint... worked both with Reason and Logic. used to be a Logic guy in version 7/8 but have now jumped over to Logic x. both are strong competitors though. but everything is subjective.
I liked your video comparing DAWs and agree with your philosophy on how people choose DAWs. I am new to recording and am looking for tools that work for me. I got pro tools first, the free version, but of course it has its limits based upon FREE. Now I am looking at others such as Logic Pro because it has ES2 synth that will work with my EWI 4000s as midi input to receive breath control MIDI input. Still looking at other tools based upon budget, music style, and what I want to do with it. Separating the youtube "commercials" from real people evaluation is an interesting task. Thanks for your video.
I use ableton live 9 and I really believe its the best and has help me so much. Anything I wanted to do in FL studio but could not ableton did with ease. But I would not be here without FL studio. You can make a craping drum loop in in your first 10 mins with FL. It was so accessible and I think thats what sets it apart from other DAWs.
Hello. I learned a lot from a few DAWs that I bought. Presently I'm using the ones that are really easy for me to complete my work. I don't have any preference in any, because as long as I'm able to complete a project quickly that's all that matters. What I learned is that they all do the same thing and have the same effects every time. I can't complain. I got one of my DAWs for 14.00 dollars. It was used and they were selling the entire software with all of the disks. I was so happy that day, because I found this on sale. I shop around so this helps.
ive used fl studio since 2006 and nowadays things i can complamne about are: theres no real crossfade (due to automation and audio cliüps relation), no real spectrum cleaner like the one in sequoia, no waveform display while audio recording...and no kind of a small window which gives a clear overwiew about whats going on in the playlist like pro tools have one.
I'm actually new to FL Studio. I started with Cakewalk moved to Cubase and now added FL Studio. I don't see FL Studio replacing my Cubase because Cubase imo is a better recording software than FL Studio. I can record different lanes and every "take" (FL terms) are listed one below the other. And with the composite tool I can select the sections of each take that are the best - no need for cutting it does that in the background. And that is an awesome feature. But I HATE making different drum loops in Cubase, I saw you doing stuff in FL and I was like: "that's the work flow that's missing in Cubase". So I marry the two, I setup my bass and drums in FL (well going to) and do the real time analogue recording in Cubase. I think that there's room for more than one DAW, use the functionality that you need and it's irrelevant from which application it comes. That's so awesome with digital production you can losslessly move between different apps. I do the same with my VFX work, I use different tools all the time -- I despise those religious application users, to me that's a clear signal that they are not as experienced because if they were they would know which application excels in a certain area. I hope to get to feel comfortable with FL Studio fast (I am now still looking and FIGHTING) to get my Roland FA-08 to be controlled from FL Studio. For some reason it only starts playing the demo song and not my channel :D And if eventually I can't get it to work than that;s up to Cubase :D
Interestingly enough FL Studio has a section on this in their manual. If you go to the "Troubleshooting And Other FAQs" and click on "Audio Myths And DAW Wars"
hi, i have a question. i just purchased focusrite scarlett 18i20. i wanted to record one take vocal, guitar and foot percussion. like the shakey graves artist or sea sick steve.. so is that possible to record 3 tracks and adjust volume afterwards on the live performance? ableton live 9 lite came with this interface, it only allows me to record 2 mono or 1 stereo. what should i purchase or do to overcome this. multitracking afterwards is not an option.
I think there is a lot to be said for not sticking to one daw, all of them can basically do the same shit, but the way you approach things can be totally different. the layout of certain daws encourages different ways of working and this can lead to totally different results. i use reaper, bitwig and FL, and i find that if i bring the same basic synth patch in to all of them and start messing with it, i will be guided to different results based on the tools available and the encouraged workflow. though i think often the workflow has a bigger impact on the sound then the actual tools.
IanStarGem Sub.Sound and Brexain streamed some music production in FL, K-391 gives away flp's and makes some videos, where he shows how he creates music in FL
Fl studio is confusing to me, I tried to switch to fl but I can't get anything done lol. What's the point of making the mixer and the playlist two sperate things? There are so many different ways to record an audio clip it's insane but I think once you get used to it it'll be far more rewarding. And working with different time signatures isnt convenient in fl. I think if you're into making electronic music, beats and all that stuff then fl is the best, you can just draw the music. If you're a songwriter and use instruments and want to record things easily then and logic and other daws should do, there's a clear distinction between what's what in other daws, you arm a track and press record and you're done. recording a track in fl is like filling a form, there are bunch of things you need to do before you can actually record
What? The playlist is a song arrangement, you don't do mixing in there. Same as in ableton, reason etc. And there's a thing that most good guides on music production say: RTFM - Read the Fucking Manual. Or watch video tutorials, you can't expect to just jump in and know what you're doing.
Everyone is always going to think their DAW has the most options as it is the DAW in which you know more options, it's gonna be the one with the best workflow because you know it better, as simple as that, don't loose time thinking about DAWs, just demo them all, choose and stick with it.
Same, I used Cubase/Nuendo for 7 or 8 years and I tried FL last year and daaaaaaaaaang FL made everything better and easier and I was like "THIS WAS WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR QAQ"
Nailed it. Totally found my new DAW replacement for Sonar today: *Tracktion* *Waveform* 9. So get this, watched a few videos and in 30 seconds from opening it I have: Keyboard MIDI routed into PluginBoutique Scaler (set for Acid Jazz chords), coming out of that into Kirnu Cream, playing the stock arp it has on opening, and out of that straight into Omnisphere playing a DEMANDING patch (Arp&BPM - "Waiting For The Horizon") and I hold down a "C" on the keyboard, Scaler makes it into a G sharp Minor 11, which Cream arpeggiates and Omnisphere plays with this CPU demanding patch, and guess what: I'm peaking at only 47% CPU on a 6 year old Win 10 AMD quad core at 3.6Ghz!!! Unbelievable! Great engine under the hood! And I wire all that up on ONE TRACK using their Rack, and can save the Rack as a Favorite to re-use with a single click in future projects! THIS is what Reason should DO if they ever decide they want to compete. Mixbus 4 wouldn't even play this Omnisphere patch without getting bogged down! Waveform will even show you a detailed breakdown of how your CPU is being loaded so that you can disable plugins and get what you need done. All they need now is a crazy easy Track FREEZE to render MIDI VSTi tracks so that you don't have to Bounce to a track and they'll have it all. I highly recommend anyone take a look at Waveform 9, just out at NAMM 2018. Yes, it looks different, but the more I learn about it, I keep thinking, HEY, I LIKE IT THAT WAY: 1. Tracks have an INPUT section on their Left (e.g. what MIDI KB I play a VST with), and output section on the RIGHT end of them with the usual Mute and Solo. DUH! - signal flows from LEFT to RIGHT.... THEN, they simply show the VSTi on that right side, and any EFX you chain straight up IN A ROW, exactly as the signal flows on the right side! This is so crazy logical once you see it you wonder about everyone else and their LIST of plugins for a track and Waveform wins out! Of course, drag and drop to change the order! It's uncluttered like Reason's track view, but shows you more information. 2. The signal routing for their Racks lets you straight up set up sidechaining, or crazy parallel or serial Audio or MIDI routing to no end. And it's crazy easy to see what you're building, and save any lash ups as a Favorite for one click re-use! Took me 1/2 hour to figure out the routing above in Sonar, and then I had 3 track folders with a total of 3 Audio and 3 MIDI track in them to do this! Waveform does it ALL IN ONE TRACK! 3. Just roll your mouse wheel and you can either zoom into time, or do it over the MIDI keyboard for a MIDI clip, and zoom in or out on notes, or CTL-Roll and make ALL your tracks taller or shorter. I like it. That's simple and logical. 4. They added a mixer for everyone that wanted one, but their expanding Vol and Pan insert in the track goes BIG when you click on it to make it easy to work from there. 5. It has a crazy number of Temp Sync'd browsers you can open and preview several Loops all sync'd together before adding anything to your project! 6. Several cool tools built in like MIDI Chord Player (ala Scaler) and Chord Progressions on a crazy new level with ALL the chords, a gazillion progressions and rhythms and you can even take any MIDI track, and turn that into a custom rhythm pattern for the chords!: th-cam.com/video/VE1SU-wfKDA/w-d-xo.html 7. Warping, Clip Effects, LFOs (and now 6 total "Modifiers", not just an LFO, but Step, Breakpoint and Envolope Follower! -- all to AUTOMATE any knob you want!), NEW Multi-Sampler, Macros so you can capture any combination of knobs anywhere in any plugin or DAW parameter and MOVE THEM ALL IN UNISON WITH ONE KNOB!, a NEW Chord Track, an awesome Mastering Plugin, and more. Waveform to me is the kid to beat now at $99. That's a LOT of DAW for $99 installed on up to 3 PCs!!... Now if I can just get them to add Track FREEZE! www.tracktion.com/products/waveform
I Would like a how to bass on fractal's bass in the scatman remix I have been trying to make it forever and can never recreate anything similar to the fuzzy metalic overtone he's done
I am a FL12 user but I don't like one thing which I like in logic, pro tools, cubase, nuendo etc.. that while recording through microphone, FL doesn't show the graph that is being recorded, while cubase, nuendo shows the live graph while recording and the best thing is even if u delay punching for recording by mistake, cubase already records the audio in its memory without being shown, and u can extend the graph and holla the audio is already there. I wished FL has live audio recording tracking feature
I tend to look at these DAWs and different instruments. I use FL Studio, Reaper, and Logic. I use all three for making music but Reaper is my go to for recording and mixing.
Used FL years ago and got really used to it. Came back to it recently and felt lost, so I tried out three DAWs at the same time: FL Studio, Ableton Live, and Reaper. Reaper won, and for $60 for the license it feels like a steal.
Love Abelton and Bitwig! Studio one is my "normal" daw but garage band these days is honestly really good and if anyone has it and wants to get into recording you should just use what you have!
I'm a musician first, I play live instruments, piano, bass, percussion and saxophone. I use reason 8 to produce but, pro tools is still king for me. Live recording, mixing and mastering is great with my digidesign command 8 digital mixing console.
I tried other daws but fl's studio drag and drop helped me stay. the only thing i dont like is the vocal recording on fl studio. its either on edison or timeline and its always on latency. so you gotta drag it to place.
reason, now has grown into a full on DAW i mean there are some features that it probably doesn't have, but since rack extensions (reason VSTs) would be cool if FL made some rack extensions for reason that'd be some power
when FL integrates the "group tracks" and "hide tracks" feature like Ableton did years ago, i would use it again. For me it's one of the useful features ever...
It's the music that matters, your DAW is just the tool to get you there. Great points in your video! Been following for about a week now. I know this video is old, but, I'm pretty new to all this but I'm using FL Studio 12.3 and I'm wondering if someone can help me. I'm using a keystation 49e and it's got Octave +/- buttons which should shift the octave on the keyboard they aren't doing anything. I've been poking around for over half an hour now trying to figure out which control to the buttons to but I can't find anything anywhere! I've gone through the Image-Line knowledge base a forum and can't find anything. Any help would be great! Thanks!!!
wait...lemee get this straight..If my song has one bar of say, 5/4, I CAN enter it in via pattern mode on the sequencer and then string the patterns together to make the song (much the same as I did on my mmt8)..correct?
for me studio one 3 best daw of 2015 the only thing is missing is the notation features but due to commercial and marketing choices cos presonus has notion for that purpose
I'm a cubase user because it's what I started on like 15 years ago. I just don't feel like learning anything else. I tried Ableton lite because I got it with a midi controller and it felt so counter intuitive to me that I didn't mess with it for more then 15 minutes.
i too been with fl studio for 11 years but. i hate fl for 1 issure. when u go and buy a " daw surface controller with motorised faders " like the " icon qcon pro X " there is NO DAW MAPPING for FL by any " companys". due to fl being not professional enough
i think one thing to keep in mind when picking a daw is to choose something that people you personally know are using, so it's easier to get personal help with it.
Well said. I personally like fl studio because its what I am familiar with and it can do what I want it to do. I have worked a little bit with logic, but trying to use a different DAW just seems pointless at this time.
I totally agree with you about choosing whichever DAW suites you best. Having done the whole music education thang I got a chance to use almost all of them. I HATE Protools. I am completely indifferent about Cubase, though I prefer it's feel. I really vibe with Studio One and will purchase at some point. You can swing the sequencer grid and strip silence on the transport, which are two features that no other DAW has and literally are like the best functions of any DAW, ever. These are what I would call the "proper" DAW's... Traditionally the industry standards. I don't fuck with software that doesn't come on windows platform, so Logic is out, but I do recognise it is a great DAW - it takes the elements of Protools and makes them far more user friendly. I group Ableton, Reason, Bitwig and FL into the producer DAW's. They are far more focused towards Sound Design and Music Creation, where the previous ones I mentioned are focused at Recording and Mixing. My way of thinking now is actually to choose 2 (one from each catagory) and learn them inside out if you intend to do this as a career, for a number of reasons. Though I hate it, if you want a chance at a top tier industry job in a Studio, TV, Film blah blah, you need to know one of the biggies, it's as simple as that. Secondly, they all have much the same functionality, but each has its own little advantages so choosing two gives you more control over your process. Personally I am an Ableton boy through and through, 7 years. I will be buying Studio One soon as my secondary DAW which I will be using as my mixing software. This has far less to do with any percievable sound quality or bullshit like that, it is just healthy to find multiple environments that you like - no matter how much you love it, one will stiffle your creative flow eventually. Even if you keep your output high, you will probably fit into a really comfortable workflow and thusly your music may suffer through not trying out new things (this is a generalisation I know, but true for some). But yeah, essentially you can make great music and sound design using any of them, just learn what you have as in depth as you can and you will be all good! Really happy to see a thread about DAWs that hasn't decended into "Logic sounds better than Ableton" fucking nonsense looool.
Nyc vid Seamlessr as usual.. :-) I think the only way that decides which is the best DAW is.."its features till date",, nothing else.. nothing else.. nothing else.. For now, for me, its FLStudio. I admit that if any DAW has more features n functionality than FL in 20-30-40 years from now.. I would opt it as the BEST!! Just what I think...
I REALLY wish logic would have automation like Fl Studio.... Logic's Automation is chunky and looking for the right aspect to automate can take forever with a complex plug in or vst.
I have a lot of my own plugins, and hardware, and after almost ten years, I just switched over to Bitwig. I just like it. Of course I still have a lot of projects in Live, but I have yet to be deterred from using Bitiwg. Bitwig's native plugs aren't really that strong imo, but if you bring your own tools, it's great.
We still don't even have curved automation in Sonar, except for fixed slow or fast shapes, it's so horrible. I pretty much have to use MidiShaper to make interesting automation which is a huge hassle but on the plus side that thing makes the best envelopes I know of. Everything else is rather great though, except the piano roll of course, as every piano roll sucks compared to the FL one.
I use REAPER for all my production. I use Ableton for live performance. I want to switch to FL and/or have Reason as a ReWire slave because the stock plugins in those DAWs are just better.... but I'm so comfortable with a pure REAPER production workflow that it probably isn't worth it.
I've always been a proponent of the idea that if you know enough about what you're doing then you can do anything with anything. It's only very rare cases where a particular thing can only be done with one particular thing.
I can do everything in REAPER, but I like the sound/mathematical precision of the Imageline stuff more. That's a legitimate reason, isn't it? Of course, I have to wait for a stable mac port first :P
***** I'd trial reason as a rewire slave, just to see how you like it. I was sold on REAPER when I found out how well it interfaced with reason, because reason + vst(i) support is incredible.
That's so true with the track thing. I've used abletone and logic, and yeah you can make good stuff, I just hate how limited you are. With FL you can make a pattern and drag it into track 10. Then oh wait no you want it in track 1 for easier visualisation or whatever drag and drop bam. You can't do that in any other DAW. Seamless is right when he says that it has so many workflow capabilities that you can't get any where else. FL Studio uses tracks and patterns as slots for holding information, that can be cloned, renamed, deleted, whatever. They're basically folders that you can put 2 or 3 different MIDI information in one pattern. You could make an entire song in one pattern, limiting you to only MIDI but regardless. Whereas Ableton and Logic treat each as that particular instrument itself, which limits the a: organization capabilities and b: the general amount of stuff you can see on the screen at one particular point of the track.
what the consciousness becomes accustomed to becomes the instrument that births realities... or am i just high? great job! good luck, we're all counting on you
I produce Classical Music with Photoshop.
I produce photoshop with classical music.
IanStarGem i like beef
UND1FIN3D wow that's very good for you. here have some beef *throws beef at u*
IanStarGem Oh thank u so much!!! *Eats beef like a dog killing something"
L
The fact that you're probably listening to music made in every popular, mainstream DAW on a daily basis and (hopefully) loving it is proof enough that it doesn't matter what you use. When I first started using Live on version 4, all my peers were telling me to move to Cubase and/or Logic because that was the "standard" around that time, and apparently Live sounded bad and couldn't "pull a good sound". I sure showed them... (I think)
Mr. Bill You definitely showed them ;p
IMHO, DAWs are kind of like cars. If you can't get to where you want to go with the one you have, you might want to work on your skills. Once you've mastered the one you have, you can think about getting something that is more to your liking.
Mr. Bill ^^^^ listen to this man, he REALLY knows what he's doing!
***** if I didn't make it clear I mean Mr Bill ;)
so true. my friends are trying to tell me that there is something is missing from FL and that FL is the the the reason they cant make great music. I believe that its the person. a sine wave is a sine wave, a saw wave is a saw.
DNB MATE! the only real difference between DAWs at this point in time is workflow. FL can do everything any other DAW can do.
Both of you guys are right. There still altra noobs so im not shure if they even know what the really want yet
i'm tiesto's ghost producer and i produce dubstep on a gamecube
Gud for you.. :-P
+Bollog Nyessy you are a fucking badass
(gamecube is my childhood)
Music 2000 for PSX... anybody?
Yes. The PC version.
Mtv Music generator in Playstation 1 where all start!!!
I started in FL, attempted Ableton and deleted that shit asap because I myself did not grow up learning to play various instruments thus not knowing music theory. Fl's piano roll helps me pan all my ideas out without as much musical knowledge as you would expect a producer to have. Still, i'm learning music theory for the heck of it because I think it can be helpful but damn FL is certainly a DAW for those who did not grow up forced to play an instrument.
Jake Lille yeah, you need to learn a bit of music theory, scales and chords etc. to advance
I produce music using audacity.
Monstufpud I use MS Paint
Rofl not sure if I should find this funny
Fuck you I use photoshop.
Movie Maker bitch!
Monstufpud I usually make most of my track in MS paint and then bring it into photoshop to master it. the saturation in photoshop is beast. RPGMaker has the best stock eq though
I used FL Studio for 3 years and then after learning Ableton last summer I switched and never looked back. Imo the best DAW is the DAW that you as a producer work best in
Nope.
Edit: As I cannot delete this stupid comment I'm gonna write this lines to explain a little.
IntigeeOfficial sorry. I'm afraid that I didn't understand your first comment. And now I feel like an idiot. I'm gonna delete mine. Thx for reply that good for such a wrong comment. I agree what seamless said 100%, as I wanted to switch to reason and even cubase and i feel and work better in fl by far. So excuse me again for my behaviour
I'm 40, I started electronic / midi music creation with an Amiga back in the 1990s while professional studios were using Cubase on the Atari ST but I had and Amiga like most kids my age and the best pro music package on the Amiga was called MusicX. Ever since using MusicX I have been looking for something that worked in a similar way on PC. MusicX allowed you to write tracks and set loop regions and then in a separate arrangement track you could trigger the other tracks, I have tried lots of other DAWs and the linear recording systems that most (if not all) other DAWs use had put me off returning to music creation completely. Only FL now that I have finally been introduced to it has made me feel a similar joy to my days with MusicX. :)
I worked a lot with Reason, and still love it. I have done so many projects with the standalone and got so many refills, that I don't want to get rid of it. Now I see it like the ultimate "plugin". I just connect my DAW, which is REAPER now, via "Rewire", load some other plugins in it, like Amplitube or Native Instruments stuff, and I'm totally happy.
I chose FL Studio because it was the first one I had ever heard of. I'm still more than satisfied with it.
A livestream of him messing with Live would be more valuable than a deadmau5 coffee run with Martin Garrix.
NativeAUS *"a deadmau5 coffee run with Martin Garrix."* must be pretty goddamn valuble then
Joel doesn't hate Martin. He says he's a good kid, just not really a fan of his music.
IanStarGem Indeed.
yoyommabulldog he hates him as he hates that kind of easy made-of-presets music. And is kinda true. If you think joel (today) would let garrox enter on one of his cars you'd probably missed the ultra festival video of deadmau5 with a superdupper remix of Animals. Check it out!!
NativeAUS more valuable than Celldweller's studio? ;p
I've been on FL since 8, and it's the wild west of DAW's whatever goes, goes. Ableton, Pro tools, are more static like you mentioned, organized. All of them are awesome, epic and deserve mentioning, but for me FL will just be the go to DAW for multi genre production styles
I think FL would be so much better if they would get rid of some of its clutter and make it more streamline. I hate having to route my instrements to the mixer and the fact that its a separate window from the instrument sequencer thing. I also hate dealing with patterns and wish it was just one long time line like most other daw's. For those two reasons alone i moved to Ableton. I also disagree with your statement that fl has lots of ways to do things and Ableton is more set in its ways. I find Ableton much more flexible while also being straight forward and intuitive. It gives you raw tools like FX, midi and drum racks and lets you chose how to use them together to make your own custom workflow. Ableton also lets you send and receive audio or midi from any track or any individual plugin/rack on said track. Since i moved to Ableton i find myself mixing a lot more too probably because the signal chain is almost always open. What I miss about FL is the piano roll, (probably the best of any daw) the step sequencer and the built in sampler.
apologies for my bad spelling and grammer
Phillip Morrison You could, if you wanted, resize and form FL's windows to have everything where you want and open all the time. Especially now with FL 12. You could also setup the playlist to behave like the "one long timeline" concept you described.
Course, I get that it's more attractive to just have an app already do that than to have to set that up yourself.
I admit I don't actually have any personal experience with Ableton.
I think you should check it out. It was really inspiring finding a new workflow for me. It only took me about an hour to get basic composing and mixing functionality down thanks to a few Sadowick vidz. I still use FL tho because the workflow is different my tracks also sound different also if I get a project file thats more than 80 tracks I normally use cubase because Ableton has no organization features and takes for ever to navigate a big mix.
***** If you right click on a track in the playlist there's an option for "lock to content" where it'll force that track to only allow whatever was in there to be the thing that's in there. Do this for a whole bunch of tracks and you'll be forced to have the "one thing one track" approach that most DAWs implement, turning the playlist into a much more linear environment.
Phillip Morrison You don't like making patterns?
SeamlessR Yes, FL 12 has improved much in my opinion. The whole Magnet-Windows thing was something that REALLY irritated me from the day I started useing it, especially since I have a fairly small screen.
There is no best DAW. FL is good, Logic is good, Pro Tools is cool, etc. For me, Reaper is the best for many reasons. But anyway, you can do things in any good DAW. Focus on learning EQ, Compressor, Reverb, Paning, Mixing etc, and how to use your favourite VSTs, and you will be good in any DAW.
I used FL for years and still like it, but Reaper is more fluid for me.
***** For me it's lighter, faster and more stable than ProTools. PT has a large community, better stock plugins and support, but for the price, I can just buy the plugins I need and use on Reaper.
danieltv123 I wish I had have done that years ago PT is money pit.
im a 100% reason user. using 8.2 right now and a bunch of RE's. but i have to say i learn from every video i watch from you. it doesnt matter for me that its FL. somethings you do in your process has changed my workflow somehow. thank you for that SeamlessR ! :)
"FL Studio is not the DAW we deserve but the one we need"
D3MON SOUL
For u not for Us
quality from daw to daw differ?
I agree with you. I've only ever used fl really but tried other daws to see the difference but always went back to fl cos I found it easier. I thought a couple of years ago it might of been then the daw what makes the final sound... But it doesn't. Cheers for all of your hard work seamless. I've learned a lot.
I've used Ableton for 3 years, it was actually the DAW i learned everything in. Lately i've been trying out Cubase, and i absolutely love the two.
I was using FL Studio a while back, for a week or two. But honestly FL Studio was just a huge mess for me, didn't like the workflow at all. So yeah it's important to experiment with DAWs and figure out what suits you best
dude try bitwig. early days but i think the workflow is awesome.....ive come over to it from Logic and have used ableton a little but just instantly loved bitwig more than anything else. I highly recommend giving it a peek.
i think the people who made it actually used to be ableton developers who decided to go their own way.
Mike Hawk the thing with Ableton, is even if you pay all of the money for the full version, you still don't get many plugins, you get effects but correct me if I'm wrong, I'm pretty sure there's just one instrument plugin that's a simple synth. You have to purchase a bunch of other plugins. FL and especially reason come with great plugins and instruments
I started with Pro Tools then moved to Ableton before getting FL Studio. Have to say FL is the best DAW for me as it's very intuitive and I love the work flow - get's my creativity flowing! FL has come on in leaps and bounds over the years and 12.2 is awesome. That said, these days I think pretty much any DAW will give you a great result - it just comes down to personal preference and what get's yer juices flowing! Having started off recording using a tape recorder I have to pay homage to the software engineers who have given us more power than the Beatles had (though sometimes even that is not enough for us!! ;) Compared to the olden days we are really spoilt for choice, which of course can make things all the more complex - sometimes too much choice isn't a good thing... One thing to bear in mind - a platinum, diamond encrusted hammer won't make you a master craftsman - neither will your DAW... Great vids Seamless - you're an inspiration ;)
My friend has garage band on his ipad and after playing around for about 15 mins i was able to use my production knowledge (gleaned from using ableton)to get some narly bass sounds and dubstep drums out of it...so i guess experience really reigns over everything
What I hate the most is when people don't take ya music serious because you used an "unprofessional" program like Logic and Cubase are 'serious' programs and FL and Reason are joketools
***** Kinda like how any mainstream artistic job somehow requires a MAC :p
The kind of people who make those blanket assumptions as the people who's opinions you can safely ignore :D
***** SOUNDGOODIZER is a joke tool. Not FL or Reason. I think the only *reason* people think FL and Reason are "noob DAW's" is because they're inexpensive and their... graphic style? :P anyway by that *logic,* Logic would also be a noob DAW because it's only $200 ;p (DAW puns away lol)
IanStarGem Soundgoodizer isn't actually that much of a joke tool because, as SeamlessR has mentioned about 30 times before. All Soundgoodizer is, is Maximus presets. You can make a preset in maximus specifically for your drums and assign that to a Soundgoodizer preset and load up Soundgoodizer. It even says, as been mentioned about 30 times before, "Powered by Maximus" right on the plugins UI. Soundgoodizer is literally Maximus with one Wet/Dry knob.
SeamlessR But among those people are some very talented and experienced producers, whose opinions you obviously wouldn't want to ignore. It boggles my mind that even the best producers / sound engineers fall into this marketing trap sometimes (i.e. that FL sound engine is inferior in terms of quality, etc).
Dmitry Pugachev An opinion is an opinion. everyone is entitled to one, but you're entitled to ignore anyone elses opinion also.
9:50 Cubase still is missing curved automation :(
I've been producing music in FL for about 5 years now, my dad also producers music. He has used many daws like cubase, reason, pro tools, ableton etc. He is always asking me to move to ableton because HE thinks its better. He makes bold statements like "Ableton is a Superior Product" or "All of the really good producers use Ableton". I don't know wether to agree with him or not as I like both equally, but he says if I want to get anywhere i need to use ableton. What do you guys think?
I would say it's about the VST's. DAW is just what workflow you like. I like FL 12. But I use a ton of vst's that would work in any DAW. In the end it comes down to you. The person.
in the words of FrankJavCee " I'm poor an ethnic " and that's why i use fl studio
Jose Salinas except he pirates, so he could really get any raw he wants
I think a lot of the confusion for users new to FL stems from the inconsistent naming. You route a "channel" to an "insert", but the selector to do so is labeled "track", which actually is the default name of a row in the playlist...
I also don't understand why Image-Line makes me press Ctrl+L on every new Channel I add.
Seamless, you're the reason I chose FL. Because your channel is like an entire course I can take on it right here available for free. I chose it because I like the look, because savant is a big role model of mine, and because of the teaching resources on TH-cam for FL.
The more komplex your Work get, the better the Workflow of FL Studio comes out to you, if you can handle it ;) i love it.
Hey Seamlessr I'm having a problem (probably just me wanting things to happen) but I have had Ableton for a couple months and have had serum for about 4 (I used FL studio for a while) but I cant piece my songs together I have about 9 project files of rubbish unfinished music and I'm really struggling to put my ideas on the screen, help me please.
I like FL in allmost every way, The one thing I'm still looking for is a way to simply humanize or randomize the midi midi info I placed exactly on the grid, but only the velocity and the 'snap' or what you call it: the placement of the (in my case) drums. They should land just a bit early or late in a random manner. It shoud be no hassle to add such a fuction, as if it were an advanced swing function. Am I missing it or is it just not there? I know it's in NI Batery for exaple and I believe Ableton had such a function integrated in the Impulse thingy.
Best way in FL: In piano roll, set snap to 'none' and select a bunch of random notes n shift them lightly crazy... :-)
I use FL because your fl basics series. It's not because you convinced me it is just because the resources to learn were there. Not only were they just there they were well done as well. cheers seamless. Great video.
Jumping between Abelton, FL and pro-tools is kinda nice. The different workflow makes you do things you wouldn't otherwise do. But FL is much faster to work with than the others, little things like the keyboard shortcuts and scrolling through menus make a massive difference.
I've only just got into FL which is my first DAW. Which of ur tutorials do you recommend to me the most? I really want to get good at using it.
I'm another long-time FL Studio user. ReWired is a fantastic tool. Once you learn to use it well, it's almost like you're using another DAW as a VST. Most often I use ReWired and MIDI Out to control the lovely sounds in Reason's Combinator inside of FL.
There should be a vst bridge rack extension inside Reason. With the possibility to map CV signals to midi CCs.
I am a Maschine guy, but I love FL's Arrangement and Automation Capabilities. So I tried to incorporate the way I chop samples but that's not really working to my needs.
In Maschine I chop samples into 16 pieces and put them on individual sounds/pads. Each of these chops can be triggered individually via the Pads and/or played chromatocally with the keayboard. And everthing can be edited individually (Env, Pitch, Plugins, you name it)
I tried to use slicex, but all it does is slice and map to the keyboard. And that's not enought for me. I need control over each individual slices. I guess the only way to get that flexibilty is to create a sampler/channel for each slice. That's the main thin why I always return to Maschine although arranging Songs in there is a P.I.T.A.
What yould be your approach to this?
Why do you need a sampler when you can manipulate too many things, lyk pitch, notelength, slide, porta, velocity, pan,.. N heck lott.., in piano roll of slicex plugin???
Sorry SeamlessR, but you mention that FL is harder for new people to learn because there are so many ways to create something. However, I started out in Ableton with just the basic $100 version and I was confused. To me, the workspace felt jumbled and it really wasn't easy to make music. Then I tried FL Studio, and I think that the open-ness of the DAW actually makes it *easier* than Ableton. Once I figured out the whole pattern idea and how to place them onto the playlist, FL seemed so much more user-friendly and intuitive compared to Ableton. This is just my opinion on FL vs. Ableton; but yeah, FL is better because I said so. xD
I also use fl. I love the interface and the workflow. I consider it better than other DAW software
Same thing with me a long time ago when I was starting out, I first installed ableton as recommended but I couldn't figure it out. And then tried FL and figured it out
I think you can hear the daw that's been used for some music. It must be a combination of hearing the built in plugins, processes and style
That I think is mostly just how much work a producer puts into a track. Every tool is like that. If you just use its basic stuff setup out of the box, it'll sound like that tool. But if you really get into it, then it'll sound like YOU.
SeamlessR SeamlessR - Break2
callum farley Ableton tracks tend to sound like a few isolated elements, only because organizing a large project is more or less impossible so a lot of producers seem to favour simpler arrangements than in other DAWs. Obviously this isn't a hard and fast limitation but it's interesting to notice.
IanStarGem That track is very much an example of using basic stuff that was setup out of the box ;p
***** .......lol......
Man when you brought up FL from 8-9 years ago.. i remember thinking geez how do i live with it as a producer. listened to some of my production from back then, amazing how far we have come from a production standpoint... worked both with Reason and Logic. used to be a Logic guy in version 7/8 but have now jumped over to Logic x. both are strong competitors though. but everything is subjective.
I liked your video comparing DAWs and agree with your philosophy on how people choose DAWs. I am new to recording and am looking for tools that work for me. I got pro tools first, the free version, but of course it has its limits based upon FREE. Now I am looking at others such as Logic Pro because it has ES2 synth that will work with my EWI 4000s as midi input to receive breath control MIDI input. Still looking at other tools based upon budget, music style, and what I want to do with it.
Separating the youtube "commercials" from real people evaluation is an interesting task. Thanks for your video.
I use ableton live 9 and I really believe its the best and has help me so much. Anything I wanted to do in FL studio but could not ableton did with ease. But I would not be here without FL studio. You can make a craping drum loop in in your first 10 mins with FL. It was so accessible and I think thats what sets it apart from other DAWs.
Hello. I learned a lot from a few DAWs that I bought. Presently I'm using the ones that are really easy for me to complete my work. I don't have any preference in any, because as long as I'm able to complete a project quickly that's all that matters. What I learned is that they all do the same thing and have the same effects every time. I can't complain. I got one of my DAWs for 14.00 dollars. It was used and they were selling the entire software with all of the disks. I was so happy that day, because I found this on sale. I shop around so this helps.
LOL'd so hard when he said Cool Edit Pro...that was bought out and made into Adobe Audition LONG ago. XD
ive used fl studio since 2006 and nowadays things i can complamne about are: theres no real crossfade (due to automation and audio cliüps relation), no real spectrum cleaner like the one in sequoia, no waveform display while audio recording...and no kind of a small window which gives a clear overwiew about whats going on in the playlist like pro tools have one.
I'm actually new to FL Studio. I started with Cakewalk moved to Cubase and now added FL Studio. I don't see FL Studio replacing my Cubase because Cubase imo is a better recording software than FL Studio. I can record different lanes and every "take" (FL terms) are listed one below the other. And with the composite tool I can select the sections of each take that are the best - no need for cutting it does that in the background. And that is an awesome feature.
But I HATE making different drum loops in Cubase, I saw you doing stuff in FL and I was like: "that's the work flow that's missing in Cubase". So I marry the two, I setup my bass and drums in FL (well going to) and do the real time analogue recording in Cubase.
I think that there's room for more than one DAW, use the functionality that you need and it's irrelevant from which application it comes. That's so awesome with digital production you can losslessly move between different apps. I do the same with my VFX work, I use different tools all the time -- I despise those religious application users, to me that's a clear signal that they are not as experienced because if they were they would know which application excels in a certain area.
I hope to get to feel comfortable with FL Studio fast (I am now still looking and FIGHTING) to get my Roland FA-08 to be controlled from FL Studio. For some reason it only starts playing the demo song and not my channel :D And if eventually I can't get it to work than that;s up to Cubase :D
Interestingly enough FL Studio has a section on this in their manual. If you go to the "Troubleshooting And Other FAQs" and click on "Audio Myths And DAW Wars"
you should make some comparison videos, for like fm synths, reverb plug ins, ect
hi, i have a question. i just purchased focusrite scarlett 18i20.
i wanted to record one take vocal, guitar and foot percussion. like the shakey graves artist or sea sick steve..
so is that possible to record 3 tracks and adjust volume afterwards on the live performance?
ableton live 9 lite came with this interface, it only allows me to record 2 mono or 1 stereo.
what should i purchase or do to overcome this. multitracking afterwards is not an option.
Hi Seamless,, does your position on DAW hold good in 2022 😀
I noticed that almost every Demo Song for FL uses the playlist with locked tracks such as in every other DAW - exept for yours of course
I think there is a lot to be said for not sticking to one daw, all of them can basically do the same shit, but the way you approach things can be totally different. the layout of certain daws encourages different ways of working and this can lead to totally different results. i use reaper, bitwig and FL, and i find that if i bring the same basic synth patch in to all of them and start messing with it, i will be guided to different results based on the tools available and the encouraged workflow. though i think often the workflow has a bigger impact on the sound then the actual tools.
Madeon and Porter Robinson both use FL
If that doesn't objectively prove it's the best then idk what will
(Obviously kidding)
Jordan Schor WRLD, Nanobii, K-391, Sub.Sound, Volant, Avicii, Brexain
***** Nanobii uses Reason. not sure about anyone else except Volant, Avicii and WRLD.
IanStarGem Sub.Sound and Brexain streamed some music production in FL, K-391 gives away flp's and makes some videos, where he shows how he creates music in FL
Jordan Schor camo&krooked also use fl studio
haywyre uses FL iirc :>
Fl studio is confusing to me, I tried to switch to fl but I can't get anything done lol. What's the point of making the mixer and the playlist two sperate things? There are so many different ways to record an audio clip it's insane but I think once you get used to it it'll be far more rewarding. And working with different time signatures isnt convenient in fl. I think if you're into making electronic music, beats and all that stuff then fl is the best, you can just draw the music. If you're a songwriter and use instruments and want to record things easily then and logic and other daws should do, there's a clear distinction between what's what in other daws, you arm a track and press record and you're done. recording a track in fl is like filling a form, there are bunch of things you need to do before you can actually record
What? The playlist is a song arrangement, you don't do mixing in there. Same as in ableton, reason etc. And there's a thing that most good guides on music production say: RTFM - Read the Fucking Manual. Or watch video tutorials, you can't expect to just jump in and know what you're doing.
Everyone is always going to think their DAW has the most options as it is the DAW in which you know more options, it's gonna be the one with the best workflow because you know it better, as simple as that, don't loose time thinking about DAWs, just demo them all, choose and stick with it.
I like Cubase & FL (I like FL better) but with Ableton and logic, I just find those piano rolls unusable.
Same, I used Cubase/Nuendo for 7 or 8 years and I tried FL last year and daaaaaaaaaang FL made everything better and easier and I was like "THIS WAS WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR QAQ"
You can never beat FL's piano roll
The only piano roll that is even remotely as good as FL's is the much lower end LMMS piano roll.
Nailed it. Totally found my new DAW replacement for Sonar today: *Tracktion* *Waveform* 9. So get this, watched a few videos and in 30 seconds from opening it I have:
Keyboard MIDI routed into PluginBoutique Scaler (set for Acid Jazz chords), coming out of that into Kirnu Cream, playing the stock arp it has on opening, and out of that straight into Omnisphere playing a DEMANDING patch (Arp&BPM - "Waiting For The Horizon") and I hold down a "C" on the keyboard, Scaler makes it into a G sharp Minor 11, which Cream arpeggiates and Omnisphere plays with this CPU demanding patch, and guess what: I'm peaking at only 47% CPU on a 6 year old Win 10 AMD quad core at 3.6Ghz!!! Unbelievable! Great engine under the hood!
And I wire all that up on ONE TRACK using their Rack, and can save the Rack as a Favorite to re-use with a single click in future projects! THIS is what Reason should DO if they ever decide they want to compete.
Mixbus 4 wouldn't even play this Omnisphere patch without getting bogged down! Waveform will even show you a detailed breakdown of how your CPU is being loaded so that you can disable plugins and get what you need done. All they need now is a crazy easy Track FREEZE to render MIDI VSTi tracks so that you don't have to Bounce to a track and they'll have it all.
I highly recommend anyone take a look at Waveform 9, just out at NAMM 2018. Yes, it looks different, but the more I learn about it, I keep thinking, HEY, I LIKE IT THAT WAY:
1. Tracks have an INPUT section on their Left (e.g. what MIDI KB I play a VST with), and output section on the RIGHT end of them with the usual Mute and Solo. DUH! - signal flows from LEFT to RIGHT.... THEN, they simply show the VSTi on that right side, and any EFX you chain straight up IN A ROW, exactly as the signal flows on the right side! This is so crazy logical once you see it you wonder about everyone else and their LIST of plugins for a track and Waveform wins out! Of course, drag and drop to change the order! It's uncluttered like Reason's track view, but shows you more information.
2. The signal routing for their Racks lets you straight up set up sidechaining, or crazy parallel or serial Audio or MIDI routing to no end. And it's crazy easy to see what you're building, and save any lash ups as a Favorite for one click re-use! Took me 1/2 hour to figure out the routing above in Sonar, and then I had 3 track folders with a total of 3 Audio and 3 MIDI track in them to do this! Waveform does it ALL IN ONE TRACK!
3. Just roll your mouse wheel and you can either zoom into time, or do it over the MIDI keyboard for a MIDI clip, and zoom in or out on notes, or CTL-Roll and make ALL your tracks taller or shorter. I like it. That's simple and logical.
4. They added a mixer for everyone that wanted one, but their expanding Vol and Pan insert in the track goes BIG when you click on it to make it easy to work from there.
5. It has a crazy number of Temp Sync'd browsers you can open and preview several Loops all sync'd together before adding anything to your project!
6. Several cool tools built in like MIDI Chord Player (ala Scaler) and Chord Progressions on a crazy new level with ALL the chords, a gazillion progressions and rhythms and you can even take any MIDI track, and turn that into a custom rhythm pattern for the chords!:
th-cam.com/video/VE1SU-wfKDA/w-d-xo.html
7. Warping, Clip Effects, LFOs (and now 6 total "Modifiers", not just an LFO, but Step, Breakpoint and Envolope Follower! -- all to AUTOMATE any knob you want!), NEW Multi-Sampler, Macros so you can capture any combination of knobs anywhere in any plugin or DAW parameter and MOVE THEM ALL IN UNISON WITH ONE KNOB!, a NEW Chord Track, an awesome Mastering Plugin, and more.
Waveform to me is the kid to beat now at $99. That's a LOT of DAW for $99 installed on up to 3 PCs!!...
Now if I can just get them to add Track FREEZE!
www.tracktion.com/products/waveform
I Would like a how to bass on fractal's bass in the scatman remix I have been trying to make it forever and can never recreate anything similar to the fuzzy metalic overtone he's done
The best thing about FL studio, is that you can use FL studio, as a VST plugin, in any other DAW that loads VSTs
+Uberphat A thousand thank you´s for this information...Really made my the month....
Reaper + FL Studio here....
+abdellism Rock on!
Is ther actually another DAW besides FL Studio where the playlist tracks are not locked to their corresponding instruments?
They used to be locked back in the early versions of fl, and you can lock them. But it just adds more flexibility if they aren't locked.
I am a FL12 user but I don't like one thing which I like in logic, pro tools, cubase, nuendo etc.. that while recording through microphone, FL doesn't show the graph that is being recorded, while cubase, nuendo shows the live graph while recording and the best thing is even if u delay punching for recording by mistake, cubase already records the audio in its memory without being shown, and u can extend the graph and holla the audio is already there. I wished FL has live audio recording tracking feature
They've added that in fl 20!
I tend to look at these DAWs and different instruments. I use FL Studio, Reaper, and Logic. I use all three for making music but Reaper is my go to for recording and mixing.
Used FL years ago and got really used to it. Came back to it recently and felt lost, so I tried out three DAWs at the same time: FL Studio, Ableton Live, and Reaper. Reaper won, and for $60 for the license it feels like a steal.
hey seamless can you do build and break tutorials. I don't see you have any.
Love Abelton and Bitwig! Studio one is my "normal" daw but garage band these days is honestly really good and if anyone has it and wants to get into recording you should just use what you have!
I really like these "chats" Plz keep them coming!!!! :)
I'm a musician first, I play live instruments, piano, bass, percussion and saxophone. I use reason 8 to produce but, pro tools is still king for me. Live recording, mixing and mastering is great with my digidesign command 8 digital mixing console.
sitting at the lower end of your largest demographic in shame. i turned 14 last week :/
well at least you write/speak far better than your average internet 'adult.' go you.
synthion I turned 16 about 3 months ago, so I guess I am there with you... :|
synthion I'm 17 now ;)
Well now you are 16 and I'm 14 :(
Alma The Labrador yo this just blew my mind, time goes by so fast
I used to use cool edit pro and a Yamaha RM1x to make tracks back in the day LOL
Now I use Reason, fuck the haters.
I tried other daws but fl's studio drag and drop helped me stay. the only thing i dont like is the vocal recording on fl studio. its either on edison or timeline and its always on latency. so you gotta drag it to place.
reason, now has grown into a full on DAW i mean there are some features that it probably doesn't have, but since rack extensions (reason VSTs) would be cool if FL made some rack extensions for reason that'd be some power
when FL integrates the "group tracks" and "hide tracks" feature like Ableton did years ago, i would use it again. For me it's one of the useful features ever...
It's the music that matters, your DAW is just the tool to get you there. Great points in your video! Been following for about a week now.
I know this video is old, but, I'm pretty new to all this but I'm using FL Studio 12.3 and I'm wondering if someone can help me. I'm using a keystation 49e and it's got Octave +/- buttons which should shift the octave on the keyboard they aren't doing anything. I've been poking around for over half an hour now trying to figure out which control to the buttons to but I can't find anything anywhere! I've gone through the Image-Line knowledge base a forum and can't find anything.
Any help would be great! Thanks!!!
wait...lemee get this straight..If my song has one bar of say, 5/4, I CAN enter it in via pattern mode on the sequencer and then string the patterns together to make the song (much the same as I did on my mmt8)..correct?
pretty much yeah
What about Studio One 3 :)?
for me studio one 3 best daw of 2015 the only thing is missing is the notation features but due to commercial and marketing choices cos presonus has notion for that purpose
I began my production 'career' with hammerhead and rebirth. Those were the days .....
I'm a cubase user because it's what I started on like 15 years ago. I just don't feel like learning anything else. I tried Ableton lite because I got it with a midi controller and it felt so counter intuitive to me that I didn't mess with it for more then 15 minutes.
imo its all about which is more suitable,comfortable for you
depends on how you use DAWs too
i too been with fl studio for 11 years but. i hate fl for 1 issure. when u go and buy a " daw surface controller with motorised faders "
like the " icon qcon pro X "
there is NO DAW MAPPING for FL by any " companys". due to fl being not professional enough
Is there a way to do warping like in ableton? i've been using fl for years now as well, and I don't feel like changing daws now.
I use Ableton 9. I wanted to try Studio One 3, it's a great DAW, the problem is a CPU hog.........
i think one thing to keep in mind when picking a daw is to choose something that people you personally know are using, so it's easier to get personal help with it.
Well said. I personally like fl studio because its what I am familiar with and it can do what I want it to do. I have worked a little bit with logic, but trying to use a different DAW just seems pointless at this time.
I totally agree with you about choosing whichever DAW suites you best. Having done the whole music education thang I got a chance to use almost all of them. I HATE Protools. I am completely indifferent about Cubase, though I prefer it's feel. I really vibe with Studio One and will purchase at some point. You can swing the sequencer grid and strip silence on the transport, which are two features that no other DAW has and literally are like the best functions of any DAW, ever. These are what I would call the "proper" DAW's... Traditionally the industry standards. I don't fuck with software that doesn't come on windows platform, so Logic is out, but I do recognise it is a great DAW - it takes the elements of Protools and makes them far more user friendly. I group Ableton, Reason, Bitwig and FL into the producer DAW's. They are far more focused towards Sound Design and Music Creation, where the previous ones I mentioned are focused at Recording and Mixing.
My way of thinking now is actually to choose 2 (one from each catagory) and learn them inside out if you intend to do this as a career, for a number of reasons. Though I hate it, if you want a chance at a top tier industry job in a Studio, TV, Film blah blah, you need to know one of the biggies, it's as simple as that. Secondly, they all have much the same functionality, but each has its own little advantages so choosing two gives you more control over your process. Personally I am an Ableton boy through and through, 7 years. I will be buying Studio One soon as my secondary DAW which I will be using as my mixing software. This has far less to do with any percievable sound quality or bullshit like that, it is just healthy to find multiple environments that you like - no matter how much you love it, one will stiffle your creative flow eventually. Even if you keep your output high, you will probably fit into a really comfortable workflow and thusly your music may suffer through not trying out new things (this is a generalisation I know, but true for some).
But yeah, essentially you can make great music and sound design using any of them, just learn what you have as in depth as you can and you will be all good! Really happy to see a thread about DAWs that hasn't decended into "Logic sounds better than Ableton" fucking nonsense looool.
Thank you very much man, for all this priceless info...You are a legend!
excellent stuff rational unbiased and relevant thanks sensei
Nyc vid Seamlessr as usual.. :-)
I think the only way that decides which is the best DAW is.."its features till date",, nothing else.. nothing else.. nothing else..
For now, for me, its FLStudio.
I admit that if any DAW has more features n functionality than FL in 20-30-40 years from now.. I would opt it as the BEST!!
Just what I think...
I REALLY wish logic would have automation like Fl Studio.... Logic's Automation is chunky and looking for the right aspect to automate can take forever with a complex plug in or vst.
I have a lot of my own plugins, and hardware, and after almost ten years, I just switched over to Bitwig. I just like it. Of course I still have a lot of projects in Live, but I have yet to be deterred from using Bitiwg. Bitwig's native plugs aren't really that strong imo, but if you bring your own tools, it's great.
i love fl studio. a big fan
We still don't even have curved automation in Sonar, except for fixed slow or fast shapes, it's so horrible. I pretty much have to use MidiShaper to make interesting automation which is a huge hassle but on the plus side that thing makes the best envelopes I know of. Everything else is rather great though, except the piano roll of course, as every piano roll sucks compared to the FL one.
I use Fl the work flow is amazing
Some guy once told me he scored a movie using garage band :/
***** Actually, if you consider Logic Pro X, I think it's safe to say that it's a higher budget Garageband now...
***** Put it this way, after trying LPX i went straight back to trusty LP9
Im just now coming out of a 3 tab deep acid trip and your profile picture sent me into a mild panic thinking it wasn't over yet
Only thing really bugging me with FL Studio lately is the messy Automation clips. I just wish they had their own playlist somehow
You can minimize playlist clips that the automation is in to clean thing up a little. Personally I like how the automation clips are.
I use REAPER for all my production. I use Ableton for live performance. I want to switch to FL and/or have Reason as a ReWire slave because the stock plugins in those DAWs are just better.... but I'm so comfortable with a pure REAPER production workflow that it probably isn't worth it.
I've always been a proponent of the idea that if you know enough about what you're doing then you can do anything with anything. It's only very rare cases where a particular thing can only be done with one particular thing.
I can do everything in REAPER, but I like the sound/mathematical precision of the Imageline stuff more. That's a legitimate reason, isn't it? Of course, I have to wait for a stable mac port first :P
***** I'd trial reason as a rewire slave, just to see how you like it. I was sold on REAPER when I found out how well it interfaced with reason, because reason + vst(i) support is incredible.
I have said it a lot and i will say it again.
"It's not what you use, it's how you use"
That's so true with the track thing. I've used abletone and logic, and yeah you can make good stuff, I just hate how limited you are. With FL you can make a pattern and drag it into track 10. Then oh wait no you want it in track 1 for easier visualisation or whatever drag and drop bam. You can't do that in any other DAW. Seamless is right when he says that it has so many workflow capabilities that you can't get any where else.
FL Studio uses tracks and patterns as slots for holding information, that can be cloned, renamed, deleted, whatever. They're basically folders that you can put 2 or 3 different MIDI information in one pattern. You could make an entire song in one pattern, limiting you to only MIDI but regardless. Whereas Ableton and Logic treat each as that particular instrument itself, which limits the a: organization capabilities and b: the general amount of stuff you can see on the screen at one particular point of the track.
FL Studio is the most helpful DAW. You can open up FL Studio inside of FL Studio so you can Bass while you're Bassing. I kinda like that.
what the consciousness becomes accustomed to becomes the instrument that births realities... or am i just high? great job! good luck, we're all counting on you