Like well-stocked studios of hardware, software has become personal, idiosyncratic, and stuffed with functionality. Computer producers are passionate as always about what works. And that has made FL Studio a kind of subculture all its own. Image-Line has a unique way of encouraging loyalty: while the company still peddles new add-ons to its existing customer base, the expansive functionality of the FL Studio program and all its major instruments and effects are included in lifetime free upgrades. FL Studio is a program you buy once that keeps getting better, without the usual upgrade purchase treadmill.

So, when we talk about everything that’s new in FL Studio 9, or FL Studio 9.1, released last week, those improvements are free to existing users.

You can read my review of FL Studio 9 for Keyboard Magazine:

It’s a strange thing that the word “toy” has come to have negative connotations in music tech. Apparently, we want our music tools to be big and powerful, like a chainsaw, ideally emitting manly gasoline fumes. But when we talk about music, we use the word “play.” FL Studio is nothing if not a toybox. But it’s a toybox in the best sense.

FL Studio 9 Review

FL Studio 9 introduces a number of improvements, including a Riff Machine (pictured above), which can dynamically generate musical ideas if you’re stuck for inspiration. Perhaps more importantly, the upgrade also delivers more intelligent routing and MIDI control, and a really gorgeous vocoder. (Yes, Reason, Live, and FL Studio now all have vocoders; what’s interesting to me is that they’re each quite different, true to the personalities of the three developers.)

FL Studio 9.1 adds still more, as you can see in the video above. There’s a brand-new drum modeling engine called Drumpad, which should couple perfectly with FL’s sequencing features. (It’d even go nicely with that aforementioned Riff Machine, for some complex, generative patterns. Ah, I think I know what I’m doing with my Saturday night now.) There’s also a real-time convolution plug-in, which sounds like a fun feature to abuse.

There are lots of additional videos on the FL forum, though true to form, I find this isn’t necessarily how everyone uses the program:

FL Studio Guru

Tips for Getting Started, with Jim Aikin

Jim Aikin has long been one of my favorite writers in this field; you can find his work in Electronic Musician, Keyboard, and others, including the lesser-known but superb Virtual Instruments. But, since working with him as the technical editor – slash – life coach on my book, I’ve also gotten to enjoy Jim’s emails, which are frequently themselves packed with knowledge, musical ideas, and perspective. Jim is a cellist, and as someone with a classical and compositional background myself, I appreciate that slant on things. (It’s certainly not what people typically associate with FL Studio.)

FL Studio is a deep tool – deeper than I think a lot of people appreciate. But it’s not always clear where to begin. Jim shares his own take on how to get started with the tool, creatively.

He writes:

My #1 tip would be this: Assign every Generator to its own mixer channel. (And name the mixer channels, so as to avoid confusion.) Then automate your levels by right-clicking the mixer faders and creating automation clips. (After selecting the part of the song where you want the gain change, of course.) The reason to do it this way is because then you can use the volume knob next to the Generator itself for _global_ changes in the level of that instrument. You never have to mess with re-editing tons of automation data in order to make a global gain change from one end of the song to the other.

Here’s another tip, which I learned by posting a message on an FL forum: By default, FL does not patch your mod wheel moves or aftertouch through to the 3rd-party Generators (softsynths). If you’ve selected a patch that uses mod wheel or aftertouch and you actually want to play an expressive line, this is annoying. But there’s an easy fix: Open the instrument’s edit window and select Browse Parameters from the menu in the upper left corner of the window. This opens the Browser, with a complete list of parameters. Scroll down. At the bottom of the list you’ll find all 128 MIDI CC’s, and also aftertouch. (The MIDI CC list does not appear with built-in plug-ins such as Sytrus and Slayer.) Right-click on the knob icon beside the mod wheel, select Link To Controller, and wiggle the wheel. Now the plug-in will respond the way you want it to.

Here’s another one: You can create your own quantization templates. Record a bar of regular 16th notes (or whatever) to a piano-roll, edit it to taste, Open up the piano-roll window’s File menu, and choose Save Score As. Save it in FL Studio > Data > Patches > Scores > Quantization. Now here’s the bonus tip: There’s already a long list in that folder. So that you won’t have to scroll down to find one of yours every time you want to use one, start your file names with an underscore (such as _Shuffle16th_32.fsc). They will appear at the top of the file dialog when you access it from the Quantize box.

And another: Learn the QWERTY key equivalents. When you hover the mouse over a tool button, the key command equivalent is shown as a dark gray (almost invisible) letter at the right end of the info bar, under the word HELP. I’m constantly switching back and forth from Select (E) to Draw (P). Then there’s the scroll lock key (important) and the fact that left Alt is not the same as right Alt.

Jim also shares a bit of how he uses FL in his own workflow:

I clone patterns a lot. But then, I’m a composer, not a loopin’ beatbox guy, if you see what I mean. I lay down a pattern that I like, and then I start to think, “Hmm … I need an extra hi-hat hit on the last beat in every other bar.” So I clone the pattern, delete the hi-hats from version 1 and everything else from version 2, then I put the hi-hat pattern in its own lane in the Playlist and clone it so I can alternate Hat #1 with Hat #2 in the Playlist. That would be a simple example.

The “Jump to next empty” command in the step sequencer is also indispensable, I find. When you’re in song mode and want to record something new, you almost always need to use that command before recording.

The grouping function in the step sequencer is nice. I usually group all of the percussion channels together, just to get them out of the way visually.

After adding a generator, go to the Channel Settings box and give it its own mixer channel routing (“FX”). This is a good habit to get into. With multi-channel VST plug-ins, the MIDI Out generator is absolutely essential — if you can’t figure out how to make this work, let me know, as it’s a little twisty.

Be sure to check out Slicex. It’s a killer plug-in for any type of sampled beat loop. A number of other plug-ins … just go down the Generators list and try them all. Beepmap is cool (it’s a postage-stamp-sized version of [visual/image-based synthesis tool] Metasynth), Slayer rocks, the Drumsynth is stupidly good for analog percussion, Wave Traveller is great for programming scratches, and you can do some fun stuff with the Speech Synthesizer as well. Oh, and SynthMaker … a complete programmable synth, under the hood. Some of the synths that ship with it aren’t that inspired, but SynthMaker is capable of doing many of the kinds of patches that Reaktor does.

The live mode features are not as extensive as those in Live, but they’re usable, I think. Check ‘em out.

And have fun — FL, in my experience, seems to make music fun again.

FL users, got tips we missed?

Has anyone created something with the included version of SynthMaker they’d like to share?

Other questions?

Let us know. And yes, we’ll keep calling it Fruity Loops.

If you’re ready to show your skills creating digital music, we want your work.

UPDATED! New contest entry page, new deadline (10/25):
http://www.renoise.com/competitions/indamixx/
Plus tips, tracks, and more to give you additional inspiration:
More with Less:”Efficient” Renoise Music Tracks and Tips

Renoise, the "bottom-up" music production tool that makes brings modern comforts to the tracker interface, and Indamixx, the turnkey Linux-powered mobile music rig, are working with CDM on a contest to produce a new song. You’ll need Renoise to make your track, but the software now runs natively on Mac, Windows, and Linux, and you can even finish your production on the free demo version if you’d like to give the software a taste before committing to it. (Really – you can even save your file. The demo won’t let you save a wav file, but we’ll judge the xrns, and the only other restrictions are some nags – Renoise is a rare return to the old “shareware” model of development.)

Here on CDM, we’ll also be featuring some tutorials on music production using Renoise, using Linux, and using free and open source software, as well as the commercial offerings. So, this is a chance not only to compete, but to learn some new tools. Rather than just feed off your work, I’m really eager to make this competition a chance for us to work together and share knowledge, to give to you. So I’m pleased to have some of the experts in the Linux audio community and Renoise community helping us do just that.

The competition will also be fully Creative Commons-licensed, to make sure you’re free to use our tips and tutorials, and that the track you make is free for others to remix – without abusing your work. (This is not officially CC-affiliated; we’re just making use of their license.)

Aside from the prizes, I’ll be thrilled to have the chance to promote your best work here on CDM, and the winner will become a demo song available via Renoise and on the Indamixx Linux-powered USB flash drive and pre-configured netbooks. (The USB stick means that if you already have a netbook, you can get a stable, pre-configured Linux rig on your existing machine.)

Above: The grand prize, the Indamixx Netbook. I’ve just gotten one in the mail from Indamixx to try, and I’m already hooked on the thing. Based on the MSI Wind, the rig is pre-configured with Linux software, set up in advance for you, with energy XT, Renoise, and ArdourXchange for converting sessions from software like Pro Tools – plus lots of free and open source software, of course. Win the contest, and you get one of your own – and your track will ship as the Renoise demo on this laptop and on the Renoise site.

How to enter:

Here’s how the competition will work:

1. You’ll make your track in Renoise, saving as an .xrns file. (Don’t want to start from scratch? Renoise imports MIDI files and many tracker formats, so you could, for instance, bang out some beats on your PSP using LittleGPTracker, then finish up in Renoise.) You can use any samples you like, but make sure they’re your own recordings or samples you’ve cleared for this purpose, and that you properly attribute them.

2. Make sure your track will play on a netbook – so go easy. For reference, here’s a file used for benchmarking systems. Figure that your track should have a similar task on your CPU.

CPUBenchmark21.xrns (nothing special musically – for testing only!)

3. Post your music somewhere (audio + xrns) – put it on your blog, use drop.io, sign up for CDM’s own in-development blog platform noisepages.com, or whatever you like. If you put the sound somewhere like SoundCloud, of course, you get an instantly-embeddable player.

4. Be sure to apply a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license. I’ll be doing the same with CDM’s tutorials and such. This leaves others free to share your work and to remix it, while ensuring they can only do so if they attribute you properly and if their work is just as free to share. (It does not preclude you from selling it later on, either.) See the details of the license, then sign up.

About the license

License your work 

Choose “yes” for commercial uses – because any commercial use must still share alike, which discourages commercial abuse. Select “yes, as long as others share alike” for modifications. Choose “unported” for jurisdiction. And make use of the other fields to attach metadata to your work.You should get a CC-BY-SA license as a result, which allows maximum flexibility for your work while protecting you from people exploiting your work without also sharing the results.

5. Tell us about it! Point CDM, Indamixx, Renoise, and the contest judges to your track by signing up here:

Contest entry form [Google Docs]

6. Judging will evaluate whether tracks are relatively CPU efficient xrns files, but – most importantly – are original, terrific music. There will be categories judged by producer/remix artist/DJ Ron Stewart of Indamixx and Peter Kirn of CDM, and a user’s choice judged by you via public voting.

Prizes:

An Indamixx Netbook MK II SE, to the Indamixx choice

A registered version of Renoise, to the CDM choice

4 Indamixx USB stick versions, to the user choices

DEADLINE:

October 15

We’ll have updates through the competition.

Stay tuned for more tips and tutorials on Renoise and Linux audio alike, plus a look at the Indamixx Linux-powered netbook rig (I’ve just gotten one for testing – it’s deliciously compact).

Questions? Thoughts? Shout out in comments below.

Given the passion of the debate, it’s easy to forget that Propellerheads’ Record has been firing up discussion from many people who haven’t actually seen it. Record is to audio recording, mixing, and mastering what Reason is to synthesized sound, and for Reason lovers, it finally delivers that holy grail – multiple racks. Record is a bit like Reason Studio, taking those instruments and giving them a full production context.

Since its release, Propellerhead has amplified polarized opinions about this tool. It doesn’t support plug-ins (though you can use other ReWire clients), it doesn’t do things like film scoring, and thus its singular focus on recording means I think it’s fair for Propellerhead to say it’s not a DAW. Of course, going so far as tell blogs they can’t label it as such is going a bit far, and it only made some people protest more. And the focus on those features hasn’t pleased users who want everything and a kitchen sink on their feature list. Users were divided over the Ignition Key and online authorization scheme (see full explanation), of course.

But it is something about which everyone seems to have an opinion, and for that alone, I love it. That’d be a little more fair if you’ve actually gotten to use it, however. So, now’s your chance to try Record for yourself:

http://www.propellerheads.se/products/record/

The beta is a full-featured, open-and-save-capable version, through its expiration date on September 9.

If you’re impatient, we can get you the beta key right now. Just leave a comment, say something intelligent, say “+1 beta,” and be sure to leave your real email address. (Emails are not published on the site; I’ll just see them in my inbox.) If you’d like to be on the CDM Notes mailing list (no other marketing or spam), say “+1 email.”

All out! Thanks to everyone; hopefully we’ve gotten everyone a code who wanted one. Follow comments for some little glitches with their Website…

Once you’ve got a reply from me, download Record by entering your code at http://recordyou.com. You’ll also get two codes to pass along to friends.

Update on registration: I talked to Propellerhead’s web developer – when you get the confirmation email for recordyou.com, go ahead and log in! You’ll be confirmed automatically. Some people saw this login page following the confirmation email and thought something was wrong. Don’t worry, log in, and everything will be fine.

We’ll give out keys until we run out. Propellerhead shared some with us, but then composer Josh Mobley, whose work is featured in Record and has been an advocate of the software from the beginning, reached out. Josh gave us half his stash of keys to share with CDM readers, because he’s devoted to Propellerhead’s stuff. How devoted? He has a Reason tattoo. And it’s nice to hear that Record is pleasing a Reason fan, as that to me remains the big test. Josh has done some significant commercial work, ranging from NBC’s The Office to Ford Motors to the US Department of Defense, with scoring, music, sound design, remix, and environmental projects.

http://www.joshmobley.com/

And he’s a superfan in the best way. I asked him why Record matters in his work:

I love me some Reason. In fact, I love it so much, I got a tattoo on my wrist of the Reason logo. Most people thought I was out of my mind but I love it. Why? Things really didn’t start taking off for me until I started using Reason. I took one look at the program and thought, they made this for me. I started busting out tunes faster than I ever had before. And people were snatching them right up. It dawned on me right then and there that this self-contained environment had freed me up and allowed me to be creative without scrolling through a bunch of plug-ins and whatnot. The distractions of making music were gone. A limited tool set that can be routed and combined in an infinite number of ways. One needs only to look at the patches and music that [Reason user] peff is making to see that reason is the most powerful music instrument in the world.

And now, we have Record: Audio+Reason+SSL Mixer. Having used it since the early alphas, I can honestly say that Record is every bit as musical and easy to use as Reason. The time stretching is, frankly, jaw-dropping. The new mixer sounds like the SSL at my old studio. You can easily do a whole song in Record without any other software. However, Record+Reason is a lethal Combination.

I could go on and on, but at the end of the day, you really need to spend some time with this program and see what’s possible. I can almost certainly guarantee that you will be making music faster than you ever did.

Now, a superfan is not a fanboy. Fanboys, as we know, are the folks who get defensive even in the face of some obvious shortcoming, who spend lots of their time talking down other people’s choices. The superfans I’m guessing are generally too busy actually using their software – in this case, making music.

And if you do find software you love enough to tattoo on your wrist (see also our friend Jo with Reaktor), you don’t need any reviewer or forum commenter or expert or anyone else to tell you what to think. You’ll know.

Do tell us what you think of Record as you use it, and good luck snagging a code.

Previously:
Propellerhead Record In-Depth Preview: Recording, Reason-Style; Beta Test Now
Propellerhead Record: New Getting Started Video Tutorial, Blog
How Propellerhead’s New “Ignition Key” Authorization for Record Works

Welcome to the alt-DAW scene. Last week, not only did Renoise continue its rebirth of the forgotten “tracker” genre of music making software with ReWire support, but we saw a big new version of REAPER, the beloved lightweight audio production tool from the original creator of Winamp.

What makes an “alt DAW”, or “indie” production software? To me, it’s:

• small development teams of a few people
• tightly-integrated communities directly involved in feature requests
• trusting users instead of adding significant DRM, returning to the traditional “shareware” business model of old
• affordable pricing

That’s not to take away from some of the bigger players – I was struck this week with the (unsurprising) ubiquity of Ableton Live at MUTEK; it’s a real testament to what they have accomplished. But choice is essential, and looking at the history of music technology, it’s in the periods of real choice that the most interesting things have happened. It makes everything better when developers really have to compete.

Cockos REAPER has spread almost virally as an underground DAW, partly because you can download the thing and get started with without any restrictions, then buy it for as little as US$60 for personal use.

http://www.reaper.fm/index.php

It’s not just for Windows people any more, either – the Mac version is now officially supported. You can run on Windows 7 or Windows 2000 or even 98 (with limited support). You can run on 10.4 Macs, or even PowerPC (though Intel is recommended). You can even run on Linux with official WINE support, though I’d still like to see a native Linux version, especially as Linux on netbooks is getting so lovely.

Version 3.0 came out this week. There are a huge number of improvements:

• MIDI editing with inline editing, event filtering, Sysex, controller automation – finally, REAPER is getting as good with MIDI as it is with audio
• Automation lanes
• Unlimited folder nesting
• Multichannel audio support
• User-created track and mixer control panels and macros
• Game controller support, including joysticks and even Guitar Hero controllers, which you can integrate with existing MIDI and macro facilities
• New graphics engine, new theming

And that’s just a few examples; see the full changelog:

http://www.reaper.fm/whatsnew-300.txt

You can script your own audio and MIDI plug-ins using JS, and use 64-bit plug-ins included with the package. And all of this is a 4MB download. And there’s no DRM.

While some software increases memory and resource consumption with new versions, REAPER reverses the trend: it’s getting more lightweight and faster as it develops. That’s something we need more of; it’s absolutely possible with the right development approach, and is a welcome change from the “get fatter as computers get faster” approach that infected decades of software development.

Upgrades are $149 if you bought Reaper after September 1, $199 otherwise, or EUR249 for Europe, or $99 if your favorite color is blue, or $123.5 * PI / 2 if you had LE, or $999 for REAPER Suite, or $699 for a Grande REAPERccino Latte, unless you don’t want all the plug-ins, in which case you can get Tall as an upgrade for $119.3587 plus a $150 fuel surcharge, unless you bought your license on a full moon…

Oh, okay, actually, upgrades are free for two major upgrades – meaning if you buy now, you’re covered through 4.99. And there’s one version, called REAPER, which includes… REAPER.

You’re seeing what this hype is about, right? And, if you’re like me, you’re wondering why, you know, other things can’t be a little more like this?

Updated: Sorry, I lost my mind and wrote “JavaScript” instead of the unrelated scripting language JS. Here’s a good explanation from the JS Programming Reference to what this is.

JS is a scripting language which is compiled on the fly and allows you to modify and/or generate audio and MIDI, as well as draw custom vector based UI and analysis displays.
JS effects are simple text files, which when loaded in REAPER become full featured plug-ins. You can try loading existing JS effects and since they are distributed in source form, you can also edit existing effects to suit your needs (we recommend if editing an existing effect you save it as something with a new name–if you do not you may lose your changes when upgrading REAPER).

JS Programming Guide

There’s also an extensions SDK in C++ and an LGPL-licensed SDK for control surfaces. You can contrast this with Ableton, which will charge extra for its Max for Live runtime and has no officially supported or documented API for control surfaces, which means that support for more exotic devices routinely breaks, and trying it yourself is harder.