Not everyone agrees with all my raves about FL Studio 8 — including some loyal FL users. Whereas Ableton Live has taken some flak in recent upgrades for catering to requests for more conventional functionality, even some FL lovers are frustrated with the program’s quirkier bits. Evan X. Merz writes a rant on FL Studio and version 8:

FruityLoop’s approach is so unique that it negates the value pricing. If you want to use FruityLoops, you basically have to commit to another DAW. So while you will save money by getting everything you get with FruityLoops, you will still find it necessary to purchase another DAW to streamline your recording … so the final price you pay will end up being about as much as if you had just bought another product in the first place. …

‘

FL Studio 8 is here, more or less — as I write this, Release Candidate 3 is available for download, but the final version appears imminent. So, as other tools have matured, why is it that FL is one of those few programs that seems to attract real love?

The press release for the new FL Studio (known to everyone except developer Image-Line as “Fruity Loops”) keeps using the term “DAW.” I have nothing against that, even though DAW as a term has little do with music. (It is the sound English speakers make when they see a cute little lambie or puppy. You know, “dawwwww!….”) It’s a familiar situation: Ableton Live, whose developers came up with the far more descriptive “live sequencing instrument” for their product, felt (rightfully) that Live could compete with more traditional programs and so adopted an otherwise meaningless name. As in that case, FL’s combination of MIDI and audio tools, plug-in hosting and (cough, Reason!) audio recording means you can produce music end to end with it. (Too bad the acronym “DAW” does nothing to hint at what it means.)

What it means to be Fruity

  So, it’s not that FL isn’t a DAW — it’s that it is something else that other programs may not be. I think it needs its own acronym, especially with FL 8 stronger than ever after nearly a decade of ever-maturing releases, a passionate audience, and a dedication to talented developer Arguru, whom the music software community lost last year.

Some nominations:

Insane Idiosyncratically-Awesome Music Suite — IIAMS! Wait, no, that sounds like dog food. (Dawwwww!)

Toybox of Sonic Wonders — TOWS.

Beat Bonanza Tracker Sequencer Hybrid — pronounced BbbbbTHHS!, which is the sound I suggest you make at anyone who suggests FL isn’t capable of serious music or “sounds bad.” (Try to produce some spittle in the process.)

(your superior idea here)

Why am I making a fuss over this? Let me see if I can boil it down:

• FL’s approach to sequencing is like nothing else. Rich MIDI sequencing tools meet up with a unusually-focused approach to patterns and loops. It’s really a kind of hybrid between conventional sequencers and music trackers, blending some of the best of each. At first, that can make it confusing to use, but once you wrap your head around the combination, it can be very powerful.
• It’s kind of a ridiculous value. US$50-$100 buys you a perfectly usable version of the program — not a stripped-down, crippled version; you even get some extras. The most you can spend is about US$199-299, or $399 if you absolutely have to have it in a box. Opening that collection is like walking into an art museum of plug-in development, from avant-garde oddities to classics, with all the bundled noisemakers. Only it’s a museum where you can lick the paintings. For soft synth lovers, even the $500 Logic Pro bundle or new $1000 Ableton suite can’t compare in sheer value.
• It keeps getting better. Cheap and free upgrades keep you getting new features. FL has gradually matured from a nifty niche tool to one of the most mature programs out there. And download versions have lifetime free upgrades.
• It’s not for everyone. Some people find the interface maddening. Its kitchen-sink approach may frighten away people who don’t have an appetite for synths and sequencing. And it generally seems to attract a special crowd of FL lovers. But that’s why we love it. And go ahead, hate it if you don’t get it — FL lovers won’t care.
• It’s a reason to use Windows. Because of the way it was developed, FL almost certainly won’t be appearing on the Mac any time soon. But FL can make Windows look better, with rock-solid platform support, Vista support on day one when a lot of other things were broken, and rich ASIO support. It even installs ASIO4ALL by default so you can use the headphone jack on your laptop and other non-ASIO hardware. You could do that yourself. But it shows they care.

Fruity Loops, while a long-time underground favorite of PC music makers, seems to be on a roll at the moment. We were lucky enough to get an FL Studio 8 sneak peak with Didier Dambrin, Image-Line’s lead programmer — one of the great music software artists. Since our French was nonexistent and his English was limited, the scene was something like this: Didier silently tweaks his way around his software, we squint at the screen, and magical sound awesomeness happens.

FL Studio 8’s feature set will evidently be set free gradually, starting with a beta build called “7.4″ you’ll be able to download from the forums. The new features are FL’s combination of sublimely powerful tools and oddly superfluous toys. In the toys category: a live audio visualization you can float around your screen. (I’m guessing they’ll be fun to look at when you’re completely stuck creatively in the middle of a project.) In the sublime category: a new beat slicer that takes Edison several leaps further. Beat slices are MIDI assignable, filters and such are already available, and … well, it’s rather hard to describe, but it’s all put together in a Fruity way that makes it compelling.

The other revelation was that the cult-hit SynthMaker VST creation tool is now being licensed by Image-Line for inclusion with FL Studio. It’s not clear yet what if anything will be unique to this version, but the combination of FL’s tools with custom SynthMaker instruments you’ve built yourself sounds lovely. It should give you something to muse on while we wait on Ableton and Cycling ‘74, who are still mum on any product of the partnership they announced last year. No other details yet on FL 8 or FL SynthMaker, but this one’s dead center on our radar.

The UMPC may not have caught on with the masses, but the idea is terrific: a full-featured Windows PC in a space only slightly larger than a smart phone. Loyal followers continue to love their UMPCs, especially when they’re as tiny as the Raon Digital Everun. And as we predicted when Intel first announced the UMPC, this is a workable little music machine. After all, just a few years ago computer musicians would have described these specs as “high-end”, and there’s USB for input.

To prove the point, Steve Paine, from UMPCPortal.com writes in with video evidence: a clip from him running a vintage version of Fruity Loops from the late 90s, plus another featuring an M-Audio Ozone keyboard plugged into an Everun hosting a synth and sequencer in the not-very-old Cakewalk SONAR 4.

First up, a little Fruity (now FL Studio):

And thanks to Sophocha from the UMPCPortal forums for this SONAR clip:

Deckadance, from the makers of FL “Fruity Loops” Studio, is now shipping. No word on the Mac version in development, but Windows, at least, is shipping now. We’re excited to try it out for all the reasons we were when we first saw it, and now we have some additional details to flesh in:

FL Studio, better known to PC musicians as “Fruity Loops”, is now available in its version 7 upgrade. (This release was announced last month but wasn’t immediately available.) FL Studio’s lifetime upgrades mean that, unlike your operating system, the upgrade is free if you’re a previous owner. And FL Studio 7 also brings compatibility with Windows Vista — and XP, ME, 2k, 98, and 95. In addition to all the existing tricks, FL7 has new features like a beefed-up, built in audio editor-slicer-dicer and a new effects called the Love Philter that chains together eight filters for delay and sound-shaping effects.

FL may not be for everyone, as we saw in feedback, but for those who adjust to its way of working there’s not much quite like it. There’s a downloadable demo if you want to give it a spin on that new Vista install (or Boot Camp partition, depending on how you roll). New users have some confusing pricing options ranging from US$49 up, depending on which flavor you get; suffice to say you still get lifetime upgrades and the basic version could still be fun.

Hope to get some hands-on time with FL soon; I’ve had the itch ever since I saw Onyx jamming with his monster Ableton Live + FL Studio rig last month at the Backlit Lounge in SF.

Previously: NAMM FL “Fruity Loops” Studio 7 Preview: More Toys and Tools Than Ever

Despite an intensely loyal following, FL Studio is very possibly the most underrated music creation package on the market. It’s the only major music software to offer customers unlimited lifetime upgrades, so you only have to buy it once. It has a freeform approach to workflow, routing, and playlists, and it’s what we call “mad interoperable.” (Okay, no one says that, but imagine VST/VSTi/VST2, DXi, DXi2, Buzz, ReWire, MIDI, MP3, WAV, OGG.)

And I know quite a few musicians going the MacBook route who will boot into Windows for this program alone. (It’s Windows-only, and since it’s built in Delphi, don’t ever expect that to change.) Last week at Macworld, my man Onyx of Backlit Lounge SF was doing crazy things with FL + Ableton. “Boot Camp from day one, baby,” is his plan when he goes Mac, just to get Windows and FL.

The other amazing thing about FL Studio is how much they’ve been able to squeeze into new releases. FL Studio 7 is officially available this week at NAMM, with store availability due next month. While we wait for our full version, the developers at ImageLine have released some of the features that are coming.

First, long-time Windows developer Cakewalk went cross-platform with their soft synth line. Now, FL Studio (Fruity Loops) creators Image Line are developing a Mac plug-in: KVR reports they’ve acquired hybrid FM/subtractive synth Toxic III and are planning a Mac port. As our resident Windows expert Adrian Anders puts it, “I guess hell is starting to get a little bit colder, if you get my drift.”

Toxic III [Image Line]

Before you get your hopes up, though, I don’t think this necessarily means you’ll see a port of Image Line’s flagship FL Studio, nice as that might be. Plug-ins are far easier to port from platform to platform than larger applications; note that cross-platform tools like Reason, Live, Cubase SX, and even Logic (back in the day) all began their life as cross-platform software. If the code is heavily tied to tools on that platform, porting can be near-impossible. (I have one word for why you shouldn’t expect FL Studio for Mac any time soon: Delphi.)

In the meantime, Windows users, Toxic III is US$59 through the end of the month; US$99 after that — but maybe we’ll get lucky and this will find its way into an FL Studio bundle. CDM Interface Verdict: Sick.

Image-Line’s FL Studio is a huge underground “cult” hit for digital music making. It’s Windows-only, and it seems to get more love from the European press than the US writers for some reason (maybe because Image-Line is stingy with free press copies). But it’s got some great pattern-based features for those of you who like making quick-and-dirty dance music, as well as an elegant set of synths that could appeal to just about anyone.

Here’s what new in the long-awaited FL Studio 6:

Integrated synthesis and sequencing software FL Studio 5 has received a
major new upgrade. Unlike most competitive products, FL Studio has
lifetime free upgrades, so this is free for existing users.

Lots of new features, many of which are related to time stretching and
beat slicing (for some, this could even make FL Studio competitive with
programs like Ableton Live and Propellerhead Reason):

• "Elastique" time-stretching and pitch-shifting in audio tracks and tempo-synced stretch previews
• Improved Fruity Slicer, with stretching and REX loops support
• Tempo tapping
• Basic loop recording
• Tempo Detector tool aligns project tempos to songs

The upgrade also features two new plugins (WaveShaper effect, Fruity
Pad Controller), a Collab tool to chat and exchange projects, more MP3
support, a piano roll arpeggiator,and an updated Fruity Granulator with
transient alignment and a new skin, among lots of other goodies (see
the version history below). There's also very cool new envelope
editing. Sounds great to me; this PC-only program is a bargain and a
gem for the Windows platform. Stay tuned for an in-depth report of what
you can do with it.

Full version history
FAQ (including why this won't ever be on Linux or Mac — think Delphi and assembly code!)
Download