ForbiddenFruity FLStudioTutorials I

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FORBIDDENFRUITY
FL Studio Tutorials Part I
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NOISE REDUCTION........................................................................................................................................................3
LAYER YOUR SOUNDS.................................................................................................................................................14
CONVERT YOUR EDISON SAMPLES TO PIANO ROLL SCORES......................................................................21
THE FRUITY GRANULIZER.......................................................................................................................................29
SCALES, MODES, CHORD PROGRESSIONS AND LEAD MELODIES PART I..............................................35
INTERVIEW WITH JON KRASHENNINIKOFF SKARIN......................................................................................41
SIDECHAINING IN FL STUDIO..................................................................................................................................46
FATTENING YOUR BEATS/MAKING YOUR OWN SAMPLES............................................................................54
THE FL STUDIO ARPEGGIATOR...............................................................................................................................64
THE FL STUDIO VOCODEX PLUGIN........................................................................................................................80
HOW TO RECORD EXTERNAL AUDIO SOURCES IN FL STUDIO....................................................................88
MAKING A CHORD PROGRESSION AND LEAD SYNTH...................................................................................102
HOW TO LINK AN EXTERNAL MIDI CONTROLLER.........................................................................................112
RECORDING AUTOMATION EVENTS....................................................................................................................117
FL STUDIO MIXER......................................................................................................................................................125
GATING TECHNIQUES IN FL STUDIO CREATING A GATED SYNTH........................................................134
COMPRESSION EXPLAINED PART I...................................................................................................................142
THE FL STUDIO PIANO ROLL.................................................................................................................................147
WHAT IS AUTOMATION?..........................................................................................................................................158
INSTALLING VSTI PLUGINS....................................................................................................................................166
STEP SEQUENCER, PLAYLIST AND PIANO ROLL.............................................................................................170
NOISE REDUCTION
FL STUDIO TUTORIAL EXPLAINING HOW TO HIDE NOISE.
Hiding background noise from sounds and samples is an important step towards a clean, crisp
sounding mix. Even if you do not or hardly notice the little bit of noise in your sounds, it is simply
good practice to remove it as the problem is quickly magnified when dealing with multiple tracks.
The accumulated noise can go well beyond the audible and turn your mix into a muddy, blurred
blend.
By utilizing so called noise gates, we can manage the noise on a track. The purpose is not to remove
the noise from the sound (once noise is part of a sound it is hard to remove it), but rather to hide it
during quiet sections where the track would otherwise only contribute with unnecessary noise.
Simply put, a noise gate allows a sound to pass when it is above a certain threshold (the noise gate is
open). If the sound is below the threshold, the sound is not let through (the noise gate is closed). See
the illustration below:
The red line represents the input signal. As long as it is below the threshold value (the gray line), the
noise gate is closed (see the green line for the output signal). When the input signal exceeds the
threshold, the noise gate opens. How fast it opens depends on the attack setting. Similarly, when the
input signal falls below the threshold value, the gate closes. How fast it closes, depends on the
release setting.
In FL Studio you have a few options when it comes to noise gates, most notably the Fruity Limiter.
But also the fruity Love Philter can be used for this purpose.
FRUITY LIMITER
To illustrate the Fruity Limiter noise gating capabilities, first add an Audio clip to the Step Sequencer
and load the FLS_OhYeah.wav sample, which you find in your FL Studio folder under
Data\Patches\Packs\Vocals. See below:
Next, place a few clips to the Playlist and play the song.
You will clearly hear a noise at the end of the sample (where you hear the word yeah). Make sure to
listen to it a couple of times so you know what I am referring to.
Now, this is the unwanted noise that we will attempt to suppress using the Fruity Limiter. Go to the
Mixer and add the Fruity Limiter to the first FX slot of the master track. See below:
Note: It is better practice not to use the master track unless you want an effect to be applied to all
sounds in your project (all sounds are routed to the master track). For simplicitys sake, I use the
master track here.
The Fruity Limiter is a compressor, limiter and noise gate in one. What we will focus on is the basic
noise gate functionality that it offers via the controls shown below:
If the Thresh (threshold) control is turned entirely to the left (no threshold), the noise gate function
is effectively switched off. If you play the song, the Fruity Limiter will show something like this:
Note: Make sure the Loudness Gain and Ceil (Ceiling) controls are set to similar levels as in the
screenshot to avoid the limiter function to kick in.
In this state, you will still hear the noise at the end of the yeah. But lets increase the threshold a
bit and play our song again. See below:
Note: Make sure to turn the Noise gate Gain control entirely to the left (as shown above).
If you use a similar threshold as in the above screenshot you should really be able to notice the
reduction in noise at the end of the vocal clip!
The Rel (release) control will also have an effect. As discussed, the release controls how fast the gate
closes when the input signal falls below the threshold. If you set this too high, you will still hear the
noise in the output signal as the gate simply does not close fast enough. If it is low the gate will close
abruptly giving a less smooth transition.
Finally, with the Gain control you can adjust the signal passing through the gate when it is closed,
but for our noise reduction exercise we are not really interested in boosting the signal. We want to
suppress it completely.
FRUITY LOVE PHILTER

The Fruity Love Philter is a feature-rich filter plugin that allows for creating really complex filtering
and gating effects (it has 8 filter units, where each unit can feed its output into the next). What we
will discuss here, however, is how to use the plugin as a basic noise gate.
Add the Fruity Love Philter in the second FX slot of the master track in the Mixer. Also, make sure to
disable FX slot that contains the Fruity Limiter. See below:
Next, select the Basic noise gate preset from the FX slot options menu.
The Fruity Love Philter will show the following:
It would go (far) beyond the scope of this tutorial to discuss every feature and control of the plugin.
Nevertheless, let us have a look at some of the relevant aspects.
First of all, lets talk a bit about the IEF (input envelope follower). IEF is a feature where the input
signal is converted into a controller signal. Simply put, the louder the input signal the bigger the IEF
signal. While not giving any visual feedback (unfortunately), the IEF controller signal moves up and
down the horizontal scale you see at the bottom of the filter. See below:
Now, the interesting thing is that this IEF can function as a modulator source of a modulator target.
In other words, we can let the level of the IEF control a target, such as the volume. See below:
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As you can see in the screenshot above the IEF has been selected as the source and Vol (Volume) as
the target.
But how exactly does the IEF affect the volume? Well, that depends on the graph above the IEF scale.
As you can see, the line starts at 0% (volume of the output signal is reduced to 0) and quickly rises to
100% (volume of the output signal is unaffected). The way to interpret this is that at low input (IEF)
signal levels the output signal is muted. When the input (IEF) signal exceeds a certain level
(threshold), the output signal is unaffected. Sounds familiar, doesnt it? This is a noise gate effect.
See also below:
Listen to the song and determine whether the noise gate has the desired effect. Most likely, you want
to tweak things a bit and for this we have threshold, attack and release at our disposal.
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With respect to the threshold, you can change this in two ways. By changing the graph or by changing
the Envelope Follower Level slider.
Lets first have a look at the graph. The way that you can manipulate it is very similar to the way you
manipulate automation clips. You can move control points, add and delete control points, etc. In the
screenshot shown below you can see that I have moved the threshold up a bit (I also added one
control point to make sure the change in volume is abrupt).
With respect to the Envelope Follower Level slider (the rightmost slider on the plugin labelled IEF),
what this one does is transpose the IEF scale to higher or lower dB ranges. Now, with a fixed graph,
transposing the scale up or down will effectively be the same as changing the threshold (the
threshold in the graph will be at a different dB level if you change the position of the Envelope
Follower Level slider. Try this out while you play the song.
From the introduction you know that attack and release determine how fast the gate opens and
closes. The controls for this can be found on the right side of the plugin. See below:
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The best way to learn how the various settings influence the noise gate is by trying. Unlike the Fruity
Limiter, there is no visual feedback so you have to do it by listening carefully to the output sound
(which is actually the preferred way to work on your sounds).
CONCLUSION
We have seen that removing noise from your sounds is important in order to achieve a clean mix.
Noise gates can help us to do this.
"Both the Fruity Limiter and Fruity Love Philter offer a noise gate.
Which one you want to use is first of all a matter of taste, but
either way, make it a habit to reduce the noise in your
compositions!
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LAYER YOUR SOUNDS

FL STUDIO TUTORIAL EXPLAINING HOW TO LAYER SOUNDS
In a previous tutorial I explained that layering sounds is an effective technique for making fatter,
punchier beats. See Fattening your beats/making your own samples. In this tutorial I will also discuss
layering, but by means of a special layer channel. With this channel we can create complex, rich
sounds by combining individual generator channels. Also, we can achieve some really nice effects by
using a crossfade feature. Lets have a look, shall we?
LAYER CHANNEL
To create a layer, add a Layer channel to your Step Sequencer. See below:
In the screenshot below you see my Step Sequencer. All I have at this stage is the Layer channel:
Now, the Layer channel itself is not a generator. You can hit the keys until dawn, it will not make any
sound. What it can do however is trigger sounds in so called child channels (which are the
generators). To demonstrate this, lets add a few channels. See below:
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The channels that I added can be found in the Browser under Packs Legacy Strings. See below:
Next, we will make our two new channels child channels of our Layer channel. You can do this by first
selecting the Layer channel, right clicking the Channel selectors for the channels you want to assign
and subsequently clicking the Set children button on the Channel settings dialog of the Layer
channel. See below:
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And thats it! You have created your first layer. If you now select the Layer channel and hit some
keys, you will hear the combined sound of the two channels. Also, you can create a pattern in the
Layer channel, see below:
If you play this, you will hear the combined sound of the two channels.
Now, in case you want to adjust the sound you can adjust the indivual child channels including their
channel volume and panning. For example, in the screenshot shown above you can see that I turned
down the channel volume of the String patch 1 channel a bit. If you make changes to the Layer
channel (e.g. the channel volume), then these changes are global and apply to the combined sound.
LAYER CHANNEL SETTINGS
The Layer channel settings dialog is quite simple, yet has a few very interesting features. Via the Set
children button you can assign channels to the Layer channel as explained above. Be careful with
this button however. Each time you will click it the currently selected channels will be made child
channels. Any other channel will not be part of the layer.
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Via the Show children button you can see what channels are currently assigned to the Layer
channel, in case you forgot.
If you select the Random switch only one of the child channels will be triggered at random. This is
especially useful in case you have layered beats to generate a more dynamic result.
Selecting the Crossfade switch allows you to crossfade between the child channels via the
knob.
Fade
To illustrate the latter, add 5 channels with the following samples (you can find them under Packs
Drumkit 3 in the Browser) to the Step Sequencer and assign them to your Layer channel:
Now, select the Crossfade switch as shown below:
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If you now turn the Fade knob one child channel will fade into the other. Turning the knob from left
to right will fade the channels from top to bottom. And because of the samples we have chosen the
sound changes from a closed hi-hat to a more open one. Try this out by turning the knob and hitting
some keys at the same time.
Now, the cool thing is that you can automate this knob as illustrated below:
LAYER PRESETS
FL Studio also comes with a number of layer presets, ready to drop into your projects. You can find
them under Channel presets Layers in the Browser. See below:
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Simpy drag them over to your Step Sequencer and you are ready to go!
EXTRA LAYER FUNCTIONS
There are a few addtional options available in the Extra layer options menu. See below:
When using Split children, child channels are assigned to individual keys on the keyboard, starting
from the root key of the Layer channel. This means that depending on the key you hit, a specific
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child channel will play. This is especially useful for creating drum kits or instruments where you have
a different sample for each key.
When selecting Group children, the child channels will be assigned to a group for which you are
asked to enter a name. I find this quite useful as the group remains even if you happen to mess up
the layer. Via the Step Sequencer you can quickly filter channels to only show those that belong to a
specific group.
Finally, Delete
children will delete the child channels from the Step Sequencer.
" Thats it for today. I hope you appreciate this feature and use it
to your advantage for creating cool sounds. Happy composing!
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CONVERT YOUR EDISON SAMPLES TO PIANO

ROLL SCORES
FL STUDIO TUTORIAL EXPLAINING HOW TO CONVERT EDISON SAMPLES
TO PIANO ROLL SCORES
In my search for useful features I came across one that is not so obvious. If you have a nice melody in
your head (or perhaps you have a cool (vocal) sample) but do not quite know how to program it in the
Piano Roll, let Edison do the job for you.
Now, Ive written another tutorial on how to record audio, which also discusses the Edison tool. If you
do not know how to record audio and/or have never heard of Edison, I suggest you skim through that
tutorial first. You can find it here: How to record external audio sources in FL Studio
USING AN EXISTING (VOCAL) SAMPLE
Lets try it out with one of the vocal samples that comes with FL Studio. First, start a new empty
project and load Edison in the first FX slot of the Mixer. See below:
Choose Load sample in the File menu:
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And navigate to the Vocals folder as shown below:
Select FLS_DontStopMeNow_02.wav and click Open. See below:
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Before we convert this short sample to a score, open the Step Sequencer (F6) and add a channel to
your liking. See below:
I added the Autogun plugin, but any other (non percussion) generator will do. Now, the trick is this.
Go back to Edison and choose Convert to score and dump to Piano Roll in the Tools menu. See
below:
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After this, have a look at the Step Sequencer and the Piano Roll for the channel.
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Play this pattern and you will notice that it resembles the pitch and pitch changes in the sample
fairly good. And now that you have the melody in the Piano Roll, you can manipulate it the way you
like! This is usually necessary as you may want to shift the note events in time and pitch, adjust the
length of indivual note events, etc. But the point is that you now have the raw material to work
with.
RECORDING A SAMPLE
What applies to an existing sample, applies to a newly recorded sample as well. This means that you
can actually hum your melody into Edison after which you can convert it into a Piano Roll score. For
those of us who walk around with melodies in their heads but find it hard to convert them into
scores, this is surely an interesting feature. So lets try it out!
First, we need to setup the Mixer for recording using Edison. See below:
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Select the appropriate input source in the External mixer input drop down box (next to IN) and
select the Edison tool in the first FX slot. As you can see Ive done that for Insert track 1.
Now, make sure you have selected On Input as your recording option and click the Record button.
Edison will now start recording when it detects an input signal.
It is now time to hum or sing (or ta or la) our melody and I suggest you do this slow and fairly loud
(you may need to experiment a bit with this). When you are done, click the Stop button. Not that it
matters, but for the purpose of this tutorial I did a simple do-re-mi backwards.
You can now playback your recording directly from Edison using the Play button. When you are happy,
select Convert to score and dump to piano roll in the Tools menu just like before. See below:
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The sample will now be analyzed and coverted to a score.
I must admit that I have not used the desribed method extensively yet. I am sure it has its flaws and
difficulties. For example, if you have a lot of noise in the input signal it is difficult to get a good
result. But here a noise gate to eliminate noise during quiet sections of the input may offer some
relief.
Regardless, it offers a nice alternative to getting your melody programmed, roughly that is :)
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" I hope you enjoyed this short tutorial and that it is another
building block in your understanding of FL Studio and its richness

in features. Happy composing!
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THE FRUITY GRANULIZER

FL STUDIO TUTORIAL EXPLAINING THE FRUITY GRANULIZER PLUGIN.
Do you know that? When starting a new project you tend to follow the same route, use the same
(VST) plugins, the same effects, the same stuff that you know how to operate. While this path of
least resistance is often the easiest and quickest way to results, it has a drawback. You forget to
explore unknown territory to develop new skills and insights. Changing your habits and leaving the
road of least resistance may also help cure writers or composers block. We all suffer from that
every now and then, trust me (especially the writer of this article, which would be me).
To make a long story short, I decided to take a detour and have a look at the Fruity Granulizer a
plugin I had ignored for a long time. That was a mistake. It has some really cool features, which I will
explain you a bit about in this tutorial.
WHAT DOES THE FRUITY GRANULIZER DO?
The Fruity Granulizer slices samples into small pieces ('grains', hence the name Granulizer), allowing
for pitch shifting and morphing your sounds.
REAL TIME PITCH SHIFTING
What the Fruity Granulizer can do is shifting the pitch of a sample without changing the tempo
(lengthen or shorten the sample). This is because the Granulizer applies a pitch shift algorithm to
each grain individually. If the grains are played back with proper timing and in the right order, the
length is unaffected yet the sound has changed pitch. To illustrate this I first droppped the vocal clip
FLS_DontStopNow_02 onto the Step Sequencer. See below:
You can find the vocal samples under Packs | Vocals in the Browser. Note that you can use another
vocal sample if you do not happen to have the one I used. This does not affect the tutorial.
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Now, if I play this sample at different pitches the length of the sample changes. Try this yourself
either by hitting some keys on your keyboard (select the channel on the Step Sequencer first) or
opening the Piano Roll and pressing keys on the keyboard. See below:
Ok, lets add the Fruity Granulizer:
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After I added it I just dropped the same vocal sample (FLS_DontStopNow_02) on top of this new
channel. See below:
If you select this channel and play the sample at different pitches you will notice that the length of
the sample stays the same yet the pitch has changed.
NOTE EVENTS
Another cool thing when using the Fruity Granulizer is that the sound plays for a duration that
corresponds to the length of your note events. If you have an ordinary sampler channel, the entire
vocal clip plays when you trigger it by a note event. This is not the case when using the Granulizer.
Try making a note event pattern as shown below and I am sure you will appreciate this feature.
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MORPHING SAMPLES
Most fun can be obtained by morphing your samples. First, lets have a look at the Fruity Granulizer
controls:
Under the section Grains, you find the following controls: Att(ack), Hold, G(rain) Sp(ace) and W(ave)
Sp(ace).
Lets start with grain space and wave space. These 2 knobs operate very much in tandem, one
controlling the space between grains (G. SP) and the other the width of each grain (W.SP). The
smaller the value of the latter the more grains you will have. The smaller the value of the former the
faster the grains will follow eachother (less space between grains). If both are set to the same value
the length of the sample is unchanged.
If I for example reduce the wave space from 100% to 50% (this means I will have double the number
of samples), but keep the distance between samples the same (grain space), I effectively double the
length of the sample. See also the illustration below:
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In the first example the grain space and wave space are the same. The length of the sample will be
unchanged. In the second example, the wave space has been cut in half, so now we have double the
number of samples, but because the grain space is unchanged the length of the sample has been
doubled. In the last example, the opposite happened as the grain space was reduced relative to the
wave space. This compresses the length of the sample.
As usual, the best way to grasp this is by playing around with it. Load a sample of your own and start
turning those knobs! Dont forget to turn Att(ack) and Hold as well. With those you can affect the
attack and length of grains respectively.
With the 4 buttons, you can achieve some amazing effects.
EFFECTS
As if the previous 4 buttons werent enough, you also have an effects section. I am not going too
much in detail, but quote from the FL Studio help file:
Stereo Separation wheel (PAN) - The more you turn it to right, the more even grains are
panned to right, and odd ones panned to left. To disable the effect, turn the wheel maximum
to left.
Effect Depth wheel (FX.D) - This setting determines the amplitude of the LFO applied to the
wave spacing value. Turn to right to increase the amplitude. To turn the LFO off, turn the
wheel maximum to left.
Effect Speed wheel (FX.S) - This wheel determines the speed of the LFO applied to the wave
spacing value. Turning to right makes the LFO faster, while turning it to left makes it slower.
Randomness wheel (RAND) - Applies randomness to grain playback. Turn the wheel to right to
increase the effect. To disable the effect, turn it maximum to left.
KEY TO FEATURE
A very handy feature is the Key to feature in the Time section. Try setting this to Percent as shown
below:
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What this does is that the keys C5-C7 will correspond to 0-100% of the sample. It simply allows you to
start at different positions in the sample. Now, this opens up some possibilities of its own doesnt it?
For example, imagine you loaded a long sample (e.g., I love you baby, wont you come home with
me tonight hmmm I guess you figured out whats on my mind right now). By using the the Key to
Percent feature (and different note event lengths), you can simply play different parts of this sample
(by using different keys). I havent actually tried this myself, but it seems to me that it is an
alternative to creating different samples. And then you can morph every piece individually e.g.
using automation? Wow, the sky seems the limit.
" I hope this tutorial was helpful for you and has given you some
inspiration for exploring this versatile plugin. More in general, I

hope it has shown you that leaving the path of least resistance can
lead to nice discoveries :) Happy composing!
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SCALES, MODES, CHORD PROGRESSIONS AND

LEAD MELODIES PART I
FL STUDIO TUTORIAL ON ASPECTS OF MUSIC THEORY.
For quite some time, Ive been composing (e.g. chord progressions and playing lead melodies over
them) by ear without having any grasp of music theory. There is nothing wrong with that as I see it.
Composing that way is great fun and a technique that is accessible for everyone and to all ages. It
simply is a fun yet challenging way to create music. Also, I know someone who creates amazing
songs without a music theory background. He cannot read notes yet I have tears in my eyes when I
listen to his music. What I am trying to say is that knowledge of music theory is not a must in order to
learn how to compose (great) music.
Having said that, I am beginning to appreciate the fact that some knowledge of music theory is a
great tool when composing. Ive begun to understand what works and what doesnt and for what
reason. Also, Ive started to see what combination of notes can invoke what kind of emotions in
listeners.
In this series of tutorials/articles I will attempt to sum up some of the things I have come across. I
will keep it simple and spice it up with various examples as I would like to show you the practical
applications of the theoretical understanding. I do risk that some people who really have an in-depth
understanding of music theory find flaws in what I will explain. In that case, I invite them to drop
comments so I (and we) can learn and make the necessary corrections.
Lets start our engines.
Id like to suggest you read the tutorial on composing chord progressions and lead synths (if you
havent already done that): Making chord progressions and lead synths. What I am undertaking now
partly overlaps what I already explained in that tutorial (as far as the theory is concerned), but with
this new series of tutorials I will take it a few steps further.
WHAT IS MUSIC THEORY?
Music theory defines the set of conventions (e.g. notations) and rules (mathematical) that are used
to describe how music works, e.g. related to rythm, melody, harmony, etc.
NOTES AND SCALES
The western music scale consists of 12 notes (the so called chromatic scale). These notes are named
after the first seven letters of the alphabet, being A, B, C, D, E, F and G (referred to as the
naturals). Between those notes, except for B-C and E-F, there are sharp/flat notes, which are
designated by the symbols # (sharp) or b (flat). Lets write them all down, starting with C:
C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B, which corresponds to C, Db, D, Eb, E, F, Gb, G, Ab, A, Bb, B.
See also the piano keyboard below:
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Why start with C, you might ask. It is a good question, but music theory really starts with the key of
C so Ill often take that as a starting point.
As you can see, the notes A, B, C, D, E, F and G correspond to the white keys on the keyboard. The
sharps (#) and flats (b) correspond to the black keys. Also, C# is the equivalent of Db. Likewise, D# is
the equivalent of Eb. This double naming of one and the same note is referred to as enharmonics.
Note also that the scale (with the 12 notes) is repeated, where each group is called an octave.
Thats interesting. Why does everything start with C again after one has walked through all the 12
notes in a scale? Well, one thing to realize is that each note has a so-called pitch which is
determined by the fundamental frequency of the sound. Now, in terms of pitch an octave is the
interval between one pitch and another with half or double its frequency. I know it is a bit technical
and not really something you have to remember, but C in a particular octave has double the
frequency of the C-note in the octave before that, but only half the frequency of the C-note in the
next octave. To our ears, they all sound like the note C though. Above all, this is a natural
phenomenon.
Back to earth. In the Piano Role view FL Studio you can easily switch between the piano keyboard
view and the note names using the keyboard view buttons. See below:
So, each note is designated by a letter, either with or without a sharp/flat symbol.
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Another important concept is that of whole-steps (tones) and half-steps (semitones). A halfstep is the distance of any two notes in the scale. So, play a note lets say E and then play either F
or D#. Both these notes are a half-step away from E. It follows that the distance between E and
lets say F# is a whole-step. Check the screenshots shown above.
MORE ON SCALES
Ok, lets think for a moment. We now know that we have a total of 12 notes and that they are halfsteps and whole-steps apart. I know another thing and that is that playing all 12 notes at the same
time sounds horrible. Picking some notes randomly and playing them at the same time sounds
horrible too - usually. But not always. This is where the term scales comes in again.
While a loose definition of scale would be any combination of notes, a more strict definition is that a
scale defines a well-sounding combination of notes (what notes are allowed). Ok, lets think again.
What sounds good and what doesnt is quite a personal or cultural thing isnt it? Well, thats true.
Thats why there are hundreds of them. But some scales are more popular than others, depending on
culture and music style.
MAJOR SCALE
The mother of all scales is the Major scale. As I explained, music theory starts with the key of C
(instead of A) so this is the note we will start with.
If you start on C (root note) and only play the naturals (the white keys) until reaching the next
octave, you will arrive at the notes that make up the C major scale. So this would be:
C major = C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C
And on the piano keyboard:
The major scale is a very popular scale. Compositions based on this scale induce a positive and happy
feeling in the listener. Why? Well, that has something to do with the relative positions of the notes in
the scale (and of course the way our ear/brain perceives them).
Instead of naming the notes that are in the major scale there is a more generic way to describe
major scales. See below:
(W)hole W(hole) H(alf) W(hole) W(hole) W(hole) H(alf) = W W H W W W H
Here the major scale has been described in terms of the whole-steps and half-steps between the
notes. And you know what? With W W H W W W H in your head you can construct any major scale for
any root note (rather than remembering exactly what notes are in what major scale). Lets give it a
try and construct G major. Following the W W H W W W H formula, I get:
G major = G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G
Lets try one more. D major this time:
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D major = D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#, D

Knowing the W W H W W W H formula makes it really easy to construct your major scales.
You may have noticed that C major has only naturals, G major has one sharp (#) and D major has two
sharps. What you may not have noticed though is that I picked the 5th note from the C major scale
(G) to construct my next major scale. Likewise I picked the 5th note of the G major scale (D) to
create the next.
This is also a very interesting phenomenon. If you pick the 5th note from any major scale and
construct a new major scale based on that, you will have one more sharp than in the previous major
scale (#). The number of sharps/flats in a scale is something that is referred to as the key
signature of the scale. The method of taking the 5th note of one major scale to construct the next
major scale is a handy tool to travel from one key signature to another.
Actually, this method is called the circle of 5ths. I guess you understand the 5th in the circle of
5ths. It is called a circle because if you continue taking the 5th note of a major scale to produce the
next, you will eventually arrive at where you started (for example C major if that is where you
started).
Ok, cool down period. Where and how would you use this when composing? Well, this with the circle
of 5ths is not something I use on a daily basis, but one thing you should be aware of is that when you
compose a song it is important you choose your scale (for example C major, C minor, etc.). Whatever
you do next (chord progression, melody), you stick to the notes in this scale. However, it is also
possible to change the scale in the middle of your composition (not sure how common this is
though). The smoothest transitions when you change scale in your composition happen between
scales that differ only one sharp (#) or flat (b). This is where our circle comes in handy. I am not at
all convinced you will use this often, but at least you cannot claim anymore you have never heard of
it ;)
MINOR SCALE
Another important and popular scale is the minor scale. Compositions based on this scale are said to
be more solemn, sad and mysterious than compositions based on the major scale. The reason is that
the notes have a different relationship to eachother than in the major scale.
Now, if I tell you that the formula for minor scales is W H W W H W W, then you should be able to
construct all minor scales. Lets take A minor for example:
A minor = A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A
I will not go through more examples here as I think you get the point, but Id like to make you aware
of one other thing. If you take the 6th note of a major scale and take that as the root note of your
minor scale, then this minor scales uses the exact same notes as the major scale. This is what we call
the relative minor of the major scale. In the example above A minor is the relative minor of C major
(and C major is the relative major of A minor).
In the following screenshots you can see some scales (across two octaves) in the Piano Roll view in FL
Studio.
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C major
G major
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A minor
You can also download a series of major and minor scales (as .fsc files) by following this link: Major and
minor scales for making chord progressions
Whats next
In part II, I will go over intervals, modes, as well the fundamentals of chords and chord progressions. So,
make sure to come back soon!
" I realize this tutorial/article may be somewhat heavy to digest,

but nothing prohibits you from reading through it a couple of
times. Do not forget to compose though! Hope to see you back
soon!
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INTERVIEW WITH JON

KRASHENNINIKOFF SKARIN
INTRODUCTION
Jon Skarin is a 25 year old electronic music composer from Denmark who creates enchanting,
mesmerizing songs, blending a variety of styles such as dance, new age, classical, celtic/irish. He has
no albums out, but wherever you come across his music online, listeners posted reviews that leave no
doubt as to what they think of Jons music. I'm amazed! What a talent... , Jon, this is beautiful ,
Love at first sight , Music soundtrack stuff! Beautiful composition, develops nicely, great piano
playing, This is great stuff! Mastering is awesome, sound are so clean! This song makes me feel
sad and happy at the same time - wonderful job! Absolutely great track Jon! To list a few
Forbidden Fruity wanted to know more about this talented composer and his music, so we asked him
for an interview. So here we go
Jon, to begin with some of the things I wrote in the introduction, how do these positive online
reviews make you feel? Is it important to you that people let you know they like your
compositions?
Most artists (whether they are visual artists or composers) love to receive feedback regarding their
work. But for me it is more a question of being understood. If I only get a little bit of praise or none
at all does not matter, as long as I am satisfied with my own work. Since I have never been strong
verbally or with written language, it is a great pleasure to read that people can understand one's
musical language. That they even write they love my music is absolutely fantastic. For every day that
passes I learn more about myself and at the same time my music keeps developing. And it also means
that I can be understood more clearly through my music. Beethoven once wrote: "Music is a higher
revelation than all wisdom and philosophy." I could not agree more.
So yes, I think it is important because it gives me the courage and the desire/joy to continue, but I
will never stop even if only got negative or no feedback.
What strikes me in many of the reviews is that people refer to emotions. I guess this is what you
as an artist hope to achieve. That people are moved?
I love to be understood. If I've made a track and was maybe a little bitter that day, so will the mood
of the music automatically become a bit bitter. That people then write that they perceive and feel
the joy or pain in the music is quite amazing. This means that I'm on the right track as far as music is
concerned. I have always said that I find it fantastic that we can be influenced by sounds.
We all have a "Favorite track" and the song is often associated with a personal feeling or experience.
Being able to recreate the feeling or experience for a brief moment through some music is absolutely
fantastic.
Music can make us remember, cry, laugh, dance, etc. etc. and that is simply amazing.
So yes, I love that people write what they feel so I can work on becoming even clearer in my
expressions. No musician, visual artist, writer or singer is perfect so you can always evolve. That is
fantastic because I love working with music.
"There is no rule that must not be severed to create something better and prettier."
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I read somewhere that you started to compose/play piano from a very early age, but that you
actually never learned to read music. Is that true?
Music has always had a tremendous impact on me. I have, as far back as I can remember, always
loved music. There were always some special tapes or records my mom or dad would let me listen to
just before bedtime. I've always felt most comfortable when I was "surrounded by sound."
My mother has and had a piano in the living room that I composed music on. I was not very old but
can still remember some of the themes I made back then. Back then I was not aware of what music
would actually come to mean to me but I do remember how much I enjoyed it even though it was
only play. I've never learned to read music, everything I've learned is "learned by ear"
When I was about 13 years old I was involved in an accident which resulted in that I got deaf in my
right ear. It ruined my career as a hockey player (I was on Denmarks youth team). At the same time I
stopped being involved in music. I simply could not tolerate the loud sounds. But after a few years I
slowly developed the desire and joy to make music again. I suddenly discovered one can make music
with a computer, which was the beginning of my musical career.
Have you ever experienced this to be a problem?

On one hand, I really would like to learn how to read music. It can be quite annoying not being able
to write down my ideas as I have 100,000 different melodies in my brain every day. Some days I have
a full orchestra in my head - 24/7 - but cannot write any of it down because I cannot write down
notes. So then I must just hope that I can remember it when I get home.
But on the other hand, I have always had some strange idea that if I was taught music it would
change my view on music and influence my perception and mindset regarding music. It might be
nice, but I am just not interested in it. I like the challenge and the way I perceive music.
An example. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that if you are a film lover and suddenly decide to become
a director or might even produce, that it would change your perception and sense of adventure in the
universe created in a movie. It is not certain but I think you will find it more difficult to relate to
something if you constantly think of it as fiction. Everyone dreams of adventure or has fantasies and
whenever I watch my favorite movies, I enter a completely different world. Sometimes I can relate
so much to a movie that I feel a part of the story (I am exaggerating a bit, but just to make my
point). But if I started to think about how the movie was made and how they are making that special
effect, then I would not get the same kick or enjoyment from the film.
So yes and no.
In connection to the above and in your opinion - is musical training essential to learning how to
produce music in areas such as chord progression?
No, I certainly do not think that musical training is crucial for learning how to compose chord
progressions or for composing in general. No composers are equal and all composers have a different
perception of music. Emotions are crucial for melody or theme. There is no one in the world who will
be able to complete Mozart's unfinished works, because no one can put himself 100% into his
thinking. But one can try to emulate him by sensing emotions, etc. Only one person can finish his
work and that is himself. But these days one can remix without limits and as crazy as you want and
there have been many with proposals for how he possibly could have completed a work or perhaps
could have changed it.
But the question was whether musical training is crucial to be able to compose harmonies and I really
do not think it is. If you go with a melody in your head which you have not really heard before yet
keeps sounding in your head, then perhaps there is little composer hiding inside. Then it is just a
matter of sitting down at the piano and get started. Play, play, play. I am not saying people should
42
not follow musical training. I just think it is not strictly necessary for being able to compose.
Everything is a matter of emotions! Learn to express them and you're well on your way. A music
school, however, can be a very good start to get going.
While many composers stick to a specific style of music, you cover a whole spectrum of musical
styles. As mentioned in the introduction, you produce dance, classical music, music with new age
and celtic influences - and you seem to be really at home in all of them. Can you explain us a bit
about that? How come you have such a broad interest?
I love a wide variety of music genres. I love the hard bass giving me a wild adrenaline-rush, but at
the same time I also love a gentle piano piece that can make you feel like you are floating on a
cloud.
The songs that I composed as Smaasten (Jon Skarins earlier bandname) were more or less play. It was
not 100% serious though I have put many hours into it. Much of it is fun but there are also a few
tracks that are a little gentler. I look at it as an important part in my development.
As Smaasten, I played a lot with mixing trance and classical music, and I think the result of various
songs is pretty good. I do not plan to continue my work as Smaasten, but I am about to start a new
band. I will not reveal the name yet.
I also have a band on www.bandbase.com called "De Frste Flelser" (the first feelings, see
http://www.bandbase.com/Defoerstefoelelser/). Under this name you will find themes I have had in
my head from when I was little until now.
As Jon Skarin (the band), I am much more emotional. I try to really express my feelings and my
world. "Jon Skarin" is a very young band, so there are not so many songs yet, but I assure you there
will many more songs under this name as well as under my other new band. It will be anything from
Celtic to progressive.
Besides some jazz and the genre "noise" I listen to most music styles and think most of it is quite
fascinating. Again, it is matter of expressing yourself, but it is up to each artist to choose the
method/genre to best express his or her "emotions".
Is there any particular style of music you like most? And why?
I love and prefer Celtic music. Irish, Scottish, English medieval music. I think it is because it produces
the greatest joy in me. The sound of the bagpipe has always given me goose bumps and I can never
get enough of a gentle "bagpipe-sonata".
But it depends very much on what mood I am in. Some days I prefer Irish folk music, other days I
want some sixties rock n roll.
Can you tell us a bit about your sources of inspiration? What makes you feel like to make a
particular song in a particular style? Does your local environment and background play a role in
that?
I am never planning ahead to make music. When the desire and the idea are there, I start to produce
or compose. However, I have just had a 2 year break from music.
Inspiration can come from many things, love, joy, sorrow, etc. When I am in some specific mood,
melodies will usually pop up.
The past and my hometown Kastrup on the isle of Amager (near Copenhagen) also play a special role
when we're talking music. It is the place where I grew up and am living today and it is the foundation
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for who I am today. All the good and negative things I've seen around here really are an important
inspiration in my work.
What does your home studio look like in terms of software (sequencer/DAW) and hardware
(computer, keyboards, etc.)? Do you use pure digital synths and sequences, analogue hardware
or a mixture?
I am a Reason 4.0 user. It is installed on my laptop, which is connected to a keyboard and an
amplifier. In addition I have Recycle, Adobe Audition and Melodyne installed, but Im mostly using
Reason as it is in here all the magic happens. I try to create all my sounds using the available
synthesizers, but I also have synths that should be used through a digital sampler. For example, piano
sounds.
Have you ever used FL Studio? Do you consider using it?

I have never used FL Studio but I really consider investing in it because many of my "music-friends"
use this program.
Do you have any favourite synths/VSTs?

I have no VSTs as Reason does not support VST plug-ins. I do have a few refills which I like very
much: "Sonic Reality Volume 1-20. Other than that, I have nothing exciting to mention as most of my
sounds are home made.
How long did it take you to learn your DAW and how to make music with it? I can imagine that
learning all the technicalities of a software program was a hurdle you had to overcome.
I've tried a variety of MIDI sequencers and I found Reason more or less straightforward. I did not
really have anyone who could teach me the basic functions of Reason so I just practiced myself.
There are a lot of techniques that I still dont know how to do, but I am getting more skilled in using
the software for each day that passes. Each Reason user has his or her own method when it comes to
using and utilizing the program. Personally I have learned some tricks via YouTube.
It took me a while to learn but once you understand the basic functions it will not take long before
you are well on your way to produce music.
In connection to that, what was the hardest aspect to learn regarding making music using a
computer?
Hmm, what I struggle with most when it comes to music production, is the overall arrangement of
the song as well as the mastering.
How much time a week do you dedicate to composing?

I have only just started composing music again, after my 2-year break, but normally I would say that I
can use from a few hours a day to an entire day. It differs a lot. But when I really get started I can
easily use a full day.
44
Can you tell us a bit about the mixing and mastering process? Is this something you spend a lot of
time on? Can you say anything about how much time you spend on the actual arrangements on
one hand and the mixing/mastering process on the other hand?
It can range from a day to many weeks of work. Melodies have always been the easiest for me. My
problem is more the arrangement and the mastering.
I am just trying and then suddenly, it is there. Usually, I also do the mastering in Reason.
Do you think there's any disadvantage to composing electronic music rather than playing real
instruments?
Yes and no. I think it depends on the genre. Some of today's greatest composers make their music
using known DAW's. I am sure that many of the big electronica composers easily could sit down and
play an instrument (and many of them certainly do) but it all depends on personality. Who are you as
an artist and what is it you want to express. Many believe that music that has been composed on
computers is silly and too easy. But I found it amazing and I love the endless possibilities to create
your own sound.
Back to these great online responses to your songs, do you ever consider to approach things
more professionally? Do you have the ambition to make music your living?
It's definitely a dream. Right now it is as much play as it is serious. I do not think I am quite ready.
But I do have dreams and they keep me going.
Do you have any words of advice for our readers who want to compose music, but who are
maybe a bit overwhelmed by what the professionals and people like you compose?
Well, play, play, play and practice, practice, practice. You need to start somewhere to find out
whether it is what you want. Record your ideas, write them down, put them into the computer and
go full speed ahead. I wish you all good luck! Believe in yourself and believe that you can become
skilled in the style you want to work with.
Finally, do you have any composing tip/hint to share with our readers (e.g. something related to
arranging, mixing or mastering)?
I could write a lot of ideas and proposals down but no composer/artist is the same and everyone has
his/her own way to compose. Simply keep playing and practicing to find your way. Find your very own
style. Something that works for you.
One possible tip might be to find your favorite song. Try to do an imitation of that track. By doing
this you will already learn a lot.
How has the track been arranged?
What can I do to get a purer sound?
As I said previously, when I started making music on my computer, I did not have much. So how did I
get started? I tried to make an imitation of a song and it was incredibly helpful. It gave me an idea of
what a song meant and what it could contain. I did this until I felt fairly confident. Then I tried to
make an arrangement with my own melodies and have done that ever since.
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SIDECHAINING IN FL STUDIO
FL STUDIO 9 TUTORIAL EXPLAINING SIDECHAINING.
Sidechaining is the technique where one sound is used to affect another. A very common application
is to sidechain a compressor or gate in order to avoid that multiple sounds in the same frequency
range clash, for instance the kick drum and bassline. As such sidechaining is not new, but the
exaggerated effect has become quite popular in Dance music - the characteristic pumping sound is
achieved with this technique.
In this tutorial I will discuss the options you have in FL Studio.
FRUITY PEAK CONTROLLER
The Fruity Peak controller generates an automation signal based on an input sound. This automation
signal can be used to automate virtually any other control, but a very common application is the
sidechaining compression effect.
To illustrate the sidechaining effect using the Fruity Peak Controller I use the following simple setup:
As you can see, I have added a kick drum and created a bassline. When I play this, the bass and the
kick clash. This affects my kick - it is less punchy than I want it to be.
Next, I route my channel with the Kick to Insert channel 1 in the Mixer and add the Fruity Peak
Controller to the first FX slot. See below:
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With the Fruity Peak Controller you can control the automation signal via the controls in the Peak
section and the LFO section. With the former you can control how the input signal maps to the
automation signal. The controls are (and I quote):
Base wheel (BASE) - Sets the base value (offset) of the peak controller.
Volume wheel (VOL) - This wheel sets how the volume peaks affect the peak controller. The
value you can set ranges from -200% (maximum to left) to 200% (maximum to right). When
using positive values for this setting, higher volume means higher value for the peak
controller. Negative values result in the opposite effect.
Tension (TNS) - Drag up and down to alter the shape of the curve used to map the volume
peaks to peak controller values. You can think for this parameter as peak's "tension".
Decay wheel (DEC) - Turn to right for faster decay of the peak. Turn to left for slower decay.
The LFO section allows you to apply an LFO (low frequency oscillator) to the automation signal, but
this is not essential for our sidechaining effect, so we will not bother with that. Make sure, however,
to switch off the Mute switch (lower right corner).
Note also the three meters in the upper right corner, labelled I(nput), P(eak) and L(fo). These show
you the levels of the input signal, the automation signal and the LFO respectively.
Ok, lets move on. What I do next is route my channel with the bassline to Insert track 2 in the Mixer,
right click the level fader and choose Link to controller. See below:
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In the Internal controller menu I choose Peak ctrl (Insert 1) Peak. See below:
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As you can see, the Fruity Peak Controller signal(s) are now available for automation purposes. In the
Mapping formula menu I choose Inverted. See below:
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Click Accept and voila, you have automated the volume of bassline based on the volume level of the
kick! Note that you may need to tweek the Peak controls a bit (in the Fruity Peak Controller) before
you get the desired effect. However, pretty soon you will discover how cool this sidechaining effect
is. The kick has room to breathe and the song gets this nice, characteristic trance groove.
FRUITY LIMITER
The Fruity Limiter (in FL Studio 9) has a sidechain compressor feature. As before, I will start with the
same two channels. One for the kick and one for the bassline.
The channel with the kick is still routed to Insert track 1 in the Mixer, but Ive removed the Fruity
Peak Controller from the previous section. But what I do is select Insert track 1 and then right click
the Enable send switch (the gray arrow above the FX switch) of Insert track 2 and choose Sidechain to
this track. See below:
What this does is route the sound from Insert track 1 to Insert track 2 as a sidechain signal. Next, I
select Insert track 2 and add the Fruity Limiter to the first FX slot. See below:
50
Make sure to select COMP(ressor) as the target. See below:
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As you can see, at the bottom of the plugin is a selector labelled Sidechain. I right click it and select
Insert 1 as the sidechain source:
Note that you can sidechain as many Insert tracks to the Insert track containing the Fruity Limiter,
you can only select one as the sidechain source.
What the above means is that the signal from the kick (Insert track 1) now functions as the input
envelope rather than the signal of the bassline (remember to route that channel to Insert track 2). In
other words, if the volume level of the kick exceeds the threshold, the compressor kicks in and
compresses the sound.of the bassline.
In the screenshot below you can see the sidechaining in action:
52
The bassline sound is compressed only when the kick sounds! Take note of the Thres(hold) and Ratio
as well as the Att(ack) and Rel(ease) controls. The sidechaining effect depends on what you do with
these knobs ;)
" This was all for now. I hope you enjoyed it and are on your way
to do some serious sidechaining. Happy composing!
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FATTENING YOUR BEATS/MAKING YOUR OWN

SAMPLES
FL STUDIO 9 TUTORIAL EXPLAINING HOW TO CREATE FATTER BEATS
Numerous times I have received the constructive criticism that my beats are a bit weak and that I
need to make them fatter and punchier (same goes for my basses). When I started investigating how
this could be done I got a few advices. The one that really stands out is that you should get some
good samples. If you want a fat beat, then get samples of fat beats and start from there. It really
makes things a lot easier. While it is definitely true that you can combine less than perfect samples
into better sounds, having a good set of quality samples in your library allows you to focus more on
the actual composing and arranging. Point taken. Get yourself samples, samples, samples. You are
doing yourself a favor ;)
Then again, knowing how to enhance/fatten your beats and basses is actually very useful knowledge
in my opinion. If not for making the sound fatter, then for simply making new sounds alltogether
(maybe you are bored with using the same sounds over and over again, maybe you do not have that
many samples in the first place).
In this tutorial I will illustrate a few techniques for fattening beats and how to sample them off for
your own library, so you do not have to go through the same process each time.
COMPRESSION
Using compression is one of the most common suggestions when it comes to fattening beats/giving
them more punch. This is understandable. What compression can do is compress volumes above a
certain threshold while preserving (or rather bringing out) the lower volumes and frequencies that
give the kick its thump. I discussed compression in another tutorial by the way. See: Compression
explained - part I
But compression needs to be used with care as you risk affecting too much of the dynamics, resulting
in a duller sound.
LAYERING
A very useful technique is referred to as layering where you for example mix the original (dry) sound
with the same (but processed) sound. This will often results in a better, distinct sound. See the
illustration below where the original sound is mixed with a compressed version:
Doing this will allow you to preserve the original dynamics while also giving the beat more thump.
You know what, lets put it to the test and try to make our beat fatter using this technique.
As the basic kick I use FLS_Kick_07, which you can find in the Browser under Packs | Drum Kit 07.
Maybe not the best sample, but I merely use it for illustration purpose. See below:
54
Note that I added it twice. This is already a decent kick, but lets try to fatten it up a bit. As you can
see in the screenshot, Ive muted the first channel with FLS_Kick_07. This is the original sound that I
will not compress. The second I route to Mixer insert channel 1. See below (the FX box is set to 1):
55
Now, in the Mixer I add the Fruity Compressor to Insert channel 1. I play the sound and tweak the
compressor controls until I am happy. This is quite an individual thing, but what you want to
emphasize is the thump of the kick. As a starting point you can copy my settings. See below:
Next, I listen to both kicks combined. See below:
Note that Ive adjusted the volumes for both channels a bit. I suggest you play around with this a bit.
Listen two both channels individually and combined (also disable/enable the compressor to
understand its effect). Notice the (somewhat subtle) fattening of the sound when you play both kicks
at the same time.
To be honest, I did not really like the combined sound (to my defence, the goal of this tutorial is not
to produce the best beat, but to show you techniques). Anyway, I continued to work a bit on it.
First thing that came to mind was using a noise gate on the original kick to remove some of the
trailing noise I think I was hearing. I routed it to another Mixer Insert track and added the Fruity
Limiter. This plugin has a straightforward noise gate function (a noise gate closes when the input
signal falls below a threshold value). I chose my threshold and release settings (on the right side of
the plugin) until I liked the kick a bit better. See below:
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The effect of the above is already quite remarkable. Simply doubling my kick, one original (ok, I did
add a noise gate) and the other compressed, gave me a better, fatter kick.
ADDING A DELAY
I continued to layer my kick, this time adding one with a (very small) delay. See below:
And again, the sound has been altered. It has more punch, is fatter and fuller than the original sound
I started off with. Now, what this (combined) beat could use is a bit of EQing (using an equalizer to
57
affect the frequencies of the sound). Its a bit too bassy to my liking, but thats a bit beside the
point.
This is the layering technique in a nutshell. The sky is the limit here because you can layer as much
as you want, using the effects that you want. However, it is probably wise to start off with
compression, small delays and tiny reverbs and see where this leads to.
MAKING NEW SAMPLES
Once you have made a good, fat beat you would like to save it for later use, right? I use Edison for
this purpose. If you do not know what it is you can learn a bit about it in this tutorial: How to record
external audio sources in FL Studio
First, add Edison to a free Insert track in the Mixer. In the screenshot below you see Ive added it to
channel 15.
Make sure the On input recording option has been selected (recording starts when an audio signal is
received). Next, click the Recording button. Thats the rightmost button in the row with black
buttons (upper left corner).
58
The next thing we will do is make sure that our sounds that form the layered beat are routed to this
Insert channel. In my example I routed the 3 channels in the Step sequencer to Insert channels 1, 2
and 3. So it is Insert channel 1, 2 and 3 I will need to route to Insert channel 15. The way to do this is
by selecting the Insert channel you want to route (1 in the screenshot below) and subsequently right
clicking the Send track enable switch. Thats that little arrow above the FX (Enable FX slots) button
on the track (15 in the screenshot below).
Do this for all the Insert tracks to which you have routed your layered sounds.
Insert track 1,2 and 3 (in my example) are now routed to Insert track 15 (and not to the Master). The
output of Insert track 15 is routed to the Master track. You may wonder why we dont put Edison in
the Master track instead. Then we wouldnt have to reroute our insert tracks. Of course, this is
possible. However, in that case we must make sure to mute all other sounds (if we have them) and
59
make sure only our layered sounds reach the master track. A second reason is that once you have
routed the Insert tracks with your layered sounds to one and the same Insert track, you can apply
common processing to the combined sound (e.g. EQ).
Anyway, lets continue. We already set Edison to record on input, so the next thing to do is simply
play to song. Edison in Insert track 15 will detect the sound and start recording. After a number of
beats stop the recording in Edison by clicking stop (in Edison The button next to the Record button).
See below:
Ive now recorded my new beat. By clicking in the red area I can select exactly one beat. By using
the Play button I can listen to the area that I have selected. See below:
Once you are happy, select Trim in the Edit menu (button with the pair of scissors). See below:
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Trim deletes the regions outside the selection, which implies we now have a single beat in Edison:
Once you are happy with it you can save the recording as a WAV file using Save sample as option in
the File menu. See below:
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Give the sample a name, click Save and voila we have a sample of our new beat! No need to repeat
the layering again.
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If you want to use it, simply drop an Audio clip channel in your Step sequencer and load this file!
Layering sounds to create richer, deeper, fuller, fatter sounds and the option to record and save them
as new samples gives you endless possibilities. Even if you already have a good set of high quality
samples you can still use layering to create entire new sounds and build a library with your own
personal samples.
" Thats it for now. I hope you found this tutorial useful. Feel free
to drop a comment. Its your feedback that keeps me going ;)

Happy composing!
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THE FL STUDIO ARPEGGIATOR

FL STUDIO TUTORIAL EXPLAINING THE ARPEGGIATOR TOOL.
An arpeggio is a type of broken chord where notes are played in a sequence rather than
simultaneously with notes going up or down along the notes of the chord. It is quite a common
technique in the electronic (trance) music world. Knowing how to create a great arp (short for
arpeggio) will allow you to add wonderful layers to your compositions.
While the standard generators as well as many VST plugins have real time arpeggio features, I always
like to play around with FL Studios arpeggiator. It gives me so much control and flexibility.
Anyway, lets get started. See below:
Here you can see the original chord progression (greyed out note events) and the arpeggiated version
(green note events). While you can always create an arpeggio manually by simply placing, copying
and pasting all necessary note events, FL Studio also offers a neat little tool the arpeggiator - that
you can use to create great arpeggios. Lets have a look.
CHORD PROGRESSIONS
One thing that I usually (not always) start with when composing a song is a chord progression.
Deciding on the scale(s) and the chord progression(s) is an excellent foundation on which you can
build your composition and add the various layers - in our case an arpeggiated melody.
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For this tutorial I use a chord progression based on a D minor scale - which I also used in another
tutorial (see also screenshot above). If you want to know more about how to make chord
progressions, I suggest you read: Making a chord progression and lead synth
First I place the chord progression in two channels. See below:
Next, make sure you switch on Ghost channels in the Piano Roll options. See below:
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If you do this you will see the note patterns of other channels greyed out when working in the piano
roll of some channel (only applies to patterns that are in the same pattern track in the Playlist). This
is what you see in the first screenshot of this tutorial which I will repeat here to make my point.
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Ok, back to our two channels with the chord progressions. To make things even more confusing, lets
add another channel. See below:
THE ARPEGGIATOR
I will use this third channel to make my own arpeggiator pattern. But more about that later. Lets
first have a look at the arpeggiator tool. First you want to make sure to mute the first channel with
the chord progression (I want to see the greyed out notes, but not hear them). Next, simply play the
pattern track. You should now hear the chord progression of the second channel only (reFX Nexus #2
in my example).
What you do now is open the Piano Roll for the second channel with the chord progression and select
Tools | Arpeggiate from the Piano Roll options. See below:
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Beware, this will have an immediate effect on your chord progression. See below:
Your chord progression has been instantly arpeggiated based on some default settings. You may see
another pattern though, dependent on what arpeggiator pattern has been selected. For the sake of
this tutorial I suggest you select the Default pattern under Pattern simply click the folder icon and
load the Default.fsc file.
Its as easy as that. Hmmbut how exactly does it work? To clarify things a bit, have a look at the
illustration below:
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The arpeggiator pattern controls the way the chords are chopped up in terms of the bounderies and
lengths of the individual note events. The pitch is determined by the pitch of the source notes and
the relative pitch of the arpeggiator note, starting from C5. Instead of explaining this in words, have
another look at the illustration above. I believe it is clear how the arpeggiator pattern translates into
the arpeggiated chord.
To illustrate this further, close the Piano Roll Arpeggiator by clicking Accept. In the Step Sequencer
you will now see something like this:
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Next, open the Piano Roll for the third channel and choose File | Open score in the Piano Roll
Options. See below:
You should see the following dialog:
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Open the Arpeggiator folder and select Default.fsc (fsc files are FL Studio score files):
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Click Open. This will load the score into the Piano Roll. See below:
Do you see the arpeggiator pattern (starting at C5)? Moreover, you see the original chord progression
as well as the arpeggiated chord - greyed out. All in one view!
Ok, lets try to arpeggiate our chords with some other pattern to see what the effect is. Go back to
your Step Sequencer and copy the chord progression from the first channel back into the second
channel. See below:
Open the Piano Roll for the second channel and arpeggiate the chord progression with a pattern
called Chemichloe (can be found in the folder Arpeggiator\4 notes). See below:
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Next, load Chemichloe.fsc in the Piano Roll of your third channel. See below:
Now have a good look at how the arpeggiator pattern arpeggiates your chord progression. Take
special note of the relative positions of the notes in the arpeggiator pattern and how they translate
to notes in the arpeggiated chord. Can you see how it works?
There is one interesting thing about this pattern and that is the yellow/orange note event that
stretches from start to finish of the arpeggiator pattern. This note event is used to mark the length
of the pattern handy in case the pattern does not extend to the end of the bar. The color (each
color indicates a separate MIDI channel) makes sure that the Arpeggiator ignores it when chopping up
the chord (changing colors of note events is done by selecting the note events you want to change,
picking a color in the Color group selector and pressing ALT+C).
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MAKING OUR OWN ARPEGGIATOR PATTERNS

Lets make some changes to the pattern to see what effect it has. See below for an example:
Next, I save this pattern as MyFirstArpeggiatorPattern.fsc in a new folder that I created for this
purpose (My patterns):
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I now repeat the procedure, copy my chord progression from the first channel to the second and
arpeggiate the second progression with my own pattern this time. See below for the results:
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The nice thing is that you can apply your new arpeggiator pattern to any chord progression you have
the notes will always be placed where they need to be (on the notes of the chords).
Now, I suggest you try to make some other patterns yourself. Try for example to vary the length of
some note events in the arpeggiator pattern and see how this translates to the arpeggiated chord. It
is really worthwhile to play around with this a bit. Remember, once you have a cool sounding pattern,
you can always use it to arpeggiate any chord progression instantly. Success guaranteed!
ARPEGGIATOR CONTROLS
You may have noticed that I skipped discussing some of the other controls on the Arpeggiator dialog,
but lets have a look at them now.
In addition to the actual arpeggiator pattern, which you can select by clicking the folder icon (FL
Studio comes with a number of predefined arpeggiator patterns), there are a few other controls. I
will discuss them briefly below.
Pattern You can choose between Normal, Flip and Alternate. Normal uses the pattern as
defined, Flip reverses the order of the notes in the pattern and Alternate switches between
them. See below for the pattern when selecting Flip:
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The notes of the pattern have simply been flipped

Time multiplication With this knob you can stretch or compress the arpeggiator pattern
which will affect the speed of your arpeggiated chord. See below for an example (note the
position of the Time mul knob):
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Range The range of the arpeggiator in octaces.
Sync - Selects the event that determines the end of the arpeggiator loop. Your options are
Time, Block and Chord. This setting affects the way the arpeggiator pattern is synced with
you chord progression. In the example above each setting has the same effect because my
arpeggiator pattern has the precise length of one chord and is therefore in sync by definition.
Many times, however, your pattern has a different length, so you need to determine what
controls the end of the arpeggiator loop. In any case, the best way to understand this is to try
out the different options.
Gate - Shortens the length of the arpeggiated notes by the specified amount to create a
gating effect. See below:
Levels - Mixes the per-note levels (pan, volume, pitch, etc.) of the current score with those
of the loaded pattern (turn right to mix more of the levels in the pattern).
Group notes - Groups chopped notes (horizontal grouping chopped pieces). I usually uncheck
this so I do not have to ungroup later.
" I would like to give many more examples, discuss more options,
explain things even more clearly, but I think I call it a day for now.
I am tired and it is already a quite a decent tutorial as it is. I hope
you enjoyed it. Happy composing!
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THE FL STUDIO VOCODEX PLUGIN

FL STUDIO 9 TUTORIAL EXPLAINING THE VOCODEX PLUGIN
Vocoding is the process is letting the frequency spectrum of one sound (the modulator) modulate the
frequency spectrum of another sound (the carrier). In essence, this is done via a series of bandpass
filters - letting through the carrier frequencies that are detected in the modulator and rejecting
those that arent. See also below for a simple illustration of how a bandpass filter operates:
A bandpass filter will only let through frequencies between a lower threshold (f1) and a higher
threshold (f2). Frequencies outside this range are blocked. In a vocoder the series of bandpass filters
are controlled by the modulating signal. If this modulating signal does not contain frequencies in a
specific range, then these frequencies in the carrier are not being let through hence the output
signal will not contain these frequencies.
Originally, this technique was used to encode voice for transmissions (vocoder comes from voice
encoder). In music, it is a technique that is often used to create robot style voices. How this is
achieved? Well, imagine a synthesizer sound as our carrier and our own voice as the modulator. The
vocoder analyzes (real time) the frequency spectrum of our voice and only lets through the
frequencies in the synthesizer sound (the carrier) that are also in our voice. And this creates this
distinctive talking robot sound.
Lets try to do this using the Vocodex plugin.
VOCODEX
FL Studio 9 comes with a brandnew vocoder plugin called the Vocodex. In the Mixer, select an
Insert track of your choice (not the Master track) and place the Vocodex in FX slot one. See below:
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As you can see Ive placed the Vocodex plugin in Insert track 1. To keep things tidy Ive also renamed
and colorized the Insert track. It is always a good idea to do this it is easy to get lost and forget
what Insert track is used for what.
Now, we already know that a vocoder needs a carrier and a modulator. While you can use any sound
as the modulator, I will explain how to setup audio input (e.g. your voice) as the modulating sound.
I select another Insert track and make sure that Ive selected the appropriate soundcard input from
the Audio input source drop down box. See below:
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Ive chosen Insert track 2 to be my modulator. In the upper right corner you see that I have selected
my microphone from the Audio input source drop down box. But we need to do a few more things.
First, we must side chain the modulator track (Insert track 2) to the Vocodex track (Insert track
1). You do this by a) selecting the modulator track (Insert track 2 in my case), b) right-clicking the
Enable send switch on the Vocodex track (Insert track 1 i my case) and choose Side chain to this
track. See below:
Next, make sure you disable the Enable send switch on the Master track (still with the modulatore
track selected) so we do not send the voice to the output. See below:
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Next, select the Vocodex track and click on Vocodex in the FX slot. This will open the plugin. See
below:
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Before we can have our voice sound like a robot, we should tell Vocodex what modulator to use. This
is done via the MOD input. See below:
You can change the value by moving your mouse over the display (the mouse pointer changes). Left
click and - while keeping the mouse button down - move up or down. You can see that Ive selected
1. This does not mean Insert track 1, but it is an offset indicating the first modulator side chained
to the Vocodex track. You can side chain multiple modulater tracks to the Vocodex track, but you can
only choose one in the MOD input (only one modulator can be active).
The cool thing with the Vocodex is that it has an integrated carrier generator for instance fun. To
select a carrier, open the Carrier tone drop down box and select a sound. See below:
You should be all set now. Speak into your microphone and observe (listen) to the way your voice
modulates the sound.
You should see something like this:
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Now, I suggest you play a bit with various presets and controls. For instance, try bringing down the
number of bands (in the screenshot above it shows 47). The lower the number of bands the more
characteristics of your voice will disappear and the more robot like it will sound. Also, try various
integrated carrier tones and lock multiple keys on the keyboard (you can lock/unlock keys by clicking
on them).
USING AN EXTERNAL CARRIER
Naturally, you can use an external carrier as well. To use an external carrier, simply route the
channel with your carrier sound to the Vocodex track on the Mixer. This is done in the Channel
settings dialog. See below:
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Here Ive routed my Trance lead channel to Insert track 1 (which contains the Vocodex plugin). To
hear the result I must make sure that the Carrier tone is set to none and CAR input to 0. See below:
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To hear the Vocoder work, you must actually play the pattern (or the entire song). This is because the
carrier sound is only received if you play the song/pattern. Remember that :)
" This should get you started with using the Vocodex. While it is
not an in-depth explanation of every feature and every control, I
do hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Happy composing!
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HOW TO RECORD EXTERNAL AUDIO SOURCES IN

FL STUDIO
FL STUDIO 9 (AND 8) TUTORIAL EXPLAINING HOW TO RECORD AND
MANIPULATE EXTERNAL AUDIO.
In FL Studio you can record external audio sources that are connected to your soundcard inputs. Ive
never paid too much attention to this as I neither can sing nor play a real instrument. So this
feature of FL Studio was not relevant for me. Until I discovered the fun of recording audio and using
effects to process it in various ways. No longer was my below average voice any problem. Once
recorded I can do almost anything with it and mold it into something really cool. On several occasions
I simply picked a poem and read it out loud then manipulated it and used it for my compositions.
While this tutorial only scratches the surface of recording, it should at least get you started. So lets
have a look.
Recording can be achieved in a number of ways (via the
Mixer). See below:
One option is to specify an external input on an insert track of your choice (but never the master
track) and place the Edison tool (integrated audio recording and editing tool) in one of the effect
slots. In this way audio will be recorded into memory. After recording you can edit and export the
audio (save to disk) via the same Edison tool.
Another option is to record to disk. See below:
Via this option you also specify an external input on an insert track, but instead of using Edison, the
external audio is recorded to disk. After you stop recording FL Studio will automatically place an
audio clip with the recorded audio in your Playlist (this feature is enabled by default, but can be
disabled).
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Before exploring both options, see also the screenshot of the Mixer below and make sure you are
familiar with the view and its controls:
In case you are not really familiar with the Mixer, you may want to read one of my other tutorials: FL
Studio Mixer
AUDIO SETTINGS (F10)
One thing you want to make sure is that you have selected the appropriate Audio settings in the
Setting dialog. You can open this via Options Audit Settings in the main menu (or use F10 and select
Audio Settings). See below:
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One thing you definitely want to do is select your soundcards native ASIO driver in the
Input/output box (or choose ASIO4ALL if there is no native driver ASIO4ALL is a generic driver that
supports most soundcards). ASIO drivers are faster and more efficient (less CPU load) than the
Primary Sound Driver driver.
Check the Auto close device checkbox if you want other applications to be able to use the
soundcard if FL Studio loses focus (e.g. minimized). If you do not check this box FL Studio will keep
using the soundcard even if it does not have focus. Other applications cannot use the soundcard in
that case, which can be annoying.
I will not discuss every aspect here, but one thing that is perhaps worth mentioning is that you do not
want to have too many so called buffer underruns. If you hear popping or clicking sounds when
you play your song, it may be due to the fact that the audio buffer temporarily runs out of audio. A
few occasional underruns are no problem and you should only deal with this if you detect (hear)
problems in the output. By increasing the buffer length you can usually eliminate these issues (click
Show ASIO panel which will bring up the vendor specific ASIO dialog).
RECORDING USING EDISON
Ok, lets get started with recording. The first thing you want to do is open the Mixer (F9) and select
the proper input from the External mixer input drop down box. See below:
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Note that you may have other options available as this depends on what soundcard inputs you have.
Take also note of the fact that I have selected Insert track 1 and not the Master track. In general, you
do not want to use the Master track as all audio from all other tracks is routed to this track.
Now, it may take a little experimentation to figure out what input source to use. To have things setup
quickly, you can right click the External mixer input drop down box. From the menu, select Auto
map. See below:
After youve click OK in the confirmation dialog, the available inputs will be mapped to Insert tracks,
starting from the selected one. See below:
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In the screenshot shown above you see that my three inputs have been mapped to Insert track 1, 2
and 3. By selecting one by one I can quickly determine the appropriate input (if I did not know before
hand).
Note that if you use Auto map, then the Send track enable switch on the Master track is disabled by
default (for the 3 Insert tracks). See below:
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This means that the audio from the insert tracks is not send to the Master track. Hence, you will not
hear the audio in the speakers (which can be an advantage avoiding latency echo). Check the peak
meters instead to detect incoming audio.
To route the audio to the Master track, simply select the Insert track and then enable the Send track
enable switch. In the example above if I want to route all audio to the Master track I will have to
do this for each of the 3 Insert tracks.
My audio comes in via Insert track 2, so I select that one. I now insert the Edison tool in the first FX
slot for this track See below:
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It would go beyond the scope of this tutorial to explain all Edison features, but a few aspects are
worthwhile discussing. See also the screenshot below:
First of all, you can instruct Edison to start recording either:

Now (Recording options) recording starts immediately upon clicking the Record button
(Transport controls);
On input (Recording options) recording starts when an audio signal is received (you still need
to click the record button first);
Input (Recording options) recording pauses during silence and resumes when the audio signal
is received again;
On play (Recording options) recording startes when you playback your composition using the
main transport controls in FL Studio.
For now, lets select On input as the Recording option and click the Record button (Transport
controls). Speak or sing or shout in your microphone and Edison should start the recording as soon as
the audio signal is received. Once youre done click the Stop button. You should now see something
like this:
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You can now playback using the Play/Stop buttons and manipulate the recorded audio using the
various Edit functions (not discussed in this tutorial). If you want to save your sample, click the File
button (Menu buttons) and choose Save sample as See below:
I should add that I often use the On play recording option. The reason is that I usually have a
composition and simply want to overlay the audio while playing the song. On play makes it very
convenient to do that.
MULTIPLE INSTANCES OF EDISON
Now, the interesting thing is that you can have multiple instances of Edison in your FX slots. See
below:
As you can see in the screenshot I have 3 instances of Edison, separated by a Reeverb effect and
Delay effect respectively. If you now record audio, the original signal will be recorded by the first
instance of Edison. The signal then passes the Reeverb effect. The output is recorded by the second
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instance of Edison. Finally, the signal is processed by the Delay effect and is recorded by the last
instance of Edison.
Each sample can be edited and saved separately.
RECORDING TO DISK
Recording to disk does not involve Edison. See the screenshot below:
What I did is arm recording for Insert track 2 by clicking the Track recording switch (at the bottom).
Wheneven you do that the following dialog will open:
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In this dialog you can specify the filename of the sample (or accept the suggested one). Click Save
when youre done and the dialog will close.
To start recording, you must first click the Record button on the main transport controls. See below:
You will most likely see the following dialog when you click this button:
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If you click the second button (Audio, into the playlist as an audio clip) recording will start
immediately. Alternatively, close the dialog (cick the x in the upper right corner) and make sure you
have only selected Audio in the Recording filter menu (right click the Record button).
Were all set now. Press the Play button and wait for the song to start. Scream into your microphone
(depending on the thickness of your walls) and press the Stop button when you are done. FL Studio
will now automatically place an Audio clip in the Playlist (and in the Step Sequencer). See below:
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Note that the length of your recording depends on the length of your song. If you do not have a song
yet you can use the Main automation pattern (Playlist) to make sure the recording doesnt stop
already after a few seconds. See below:
One thing that I have a lot of fun with is using effects while I record my voice (for example). This is
achieved in a similar fashion as what I showed you earlier. Simply place desired effects in the FX slots
for the relevant Insert track. See below:
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This will mean that the audio signal will first be processed by the Reeverb and Delay before being
recorded to disk. You will be amazed what you can do with your voice (for example) using this!
Naturally, you can also record the clean audio signal and simply route the Audio clip to another Insert
track with effects when playing your song.
LATENCY ECHO (HOW TO ELIMINATE)
One thing that can be really irritating is hearing your own (delayed) voice (or instrument) over the
loudspeakers while recording it. This is what is called latency echo and is caused by the fact that it
takes some time to process the incoming audio signal before it is send to the output.
A way to eliminate is to ensure that the Insert track that you use for recording the audio signal is not
routed to the Master track (use the Send track enable switch as discussed earlier in this tutorial).
"Ok, I think I will call it a day. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.
Do not hesitate
composing!
to
leave
comments,
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remarks,
etc.
Happy
MAKING A CHORD PROGRESSION AND LEAD

SYNTH
Chord progressions are series of musical chords (chords are notes that are played simultaneously)
that can give character and mood to a composition. Personally, I find it a great way to get started on
a new song even if I do not actually play the chords in the end. Having a good chord progression is
like having a foundation on which to build your new house (excuse me for the metaphor). In this
tutorial I will try to explain you a bit more about chord progressions and how they can be used to
compose your (lead) melody. It does covers some aspects of music theory - the field of study that
deals with how music works - but dont worry. We will only scratch the surface.
ABOUT SCALES
The western music scale consists of 12 notes, each of them having its own pitch (frequency). The
12 notes are repeated up and down the scale and each instance of such a group of 12 notes is called
an octave. See below:
Each note is denoted by a letter: A, B, C, D, E, F and G. Additionally, you find C# (C-sharp), D#, F#,
G# and A# making a total of 12 notes. Also, in the piano roll illustration above you see 3 octaves
with a root note of C (this root note could be any other note on the scale).
Note also Db (D-flat), Eb, Gb, Ab and Bb, which are equivalents of C#, D#, F#, G# and A# respectively
(so called enharmonic equivalents). Hmmm, why give one note two different names? Good question,
but answering that would require us to dig deeper into music theory. Lets not bother with that now.
Finally, the pitch difference between two adjacent notes is called a semitone (a tone is two
semitones). Following this, the interval between C and D is two semitones (a tone). The interval
between D and D# is one semitone.
MORE ON SCALES
We all know that simply hitting piano keys at random does not create a nice sound usually that is.
And then again, every now and then we may hear something that sounds very pleasing to our ears.
What does this tell us? It means that some patterns of notes within an octave sounded at the same
time - sound well together. Understanding which patterns work and which dont work will be a
great help when composing your songs.
Now, I know we mentioned the term scale already but the term is also used to define well sounding
patterns within an octave (what notes are allowed).
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While there are a number of scales, the most basic ones used in electronic music are called
and Minor (consisting of 7 notes each). See below:
Major
This is a so called a major scale (in the example above it is called C major as the root note is a C).
The major scale is also known as the happy scale compositions based on this scale induce positive
and happy feelings in the listener. Sounds interesting isnt it? So if you want a happy, positive, good
sounding song stick to the notes of this scale (stick to the key) and you are well on your way.
By the way, there is also a more mathematical way (formula) to describe the major scale: Root, M2,
M3, P4, P5, M6, M7. Here the scale is described in intervals but instead of mentioning the number
of semitones, each interval has a name. See below:
So, the formula means: root, 2 semitones from the root, 4 semitones from the root, 5 semitones from
the root, 7 semitones from the root, 9 semitones from the root, 11 semitones from the root.
Regardless of your root note (whether it is C, D, E, etc.) - if you follow the formula mentioned above
you will work in the major scale.C major, D major, E major, etc. Lets try to find out following the
formula what notes are in the D major scale.
That must be: D (root), E (M2 2 semitones), F# (M3 4 semitones), G (P4 5 semitones), A (P5 7
semitones), B (M6 9 semitones), C# (M7 11 semitones). See below:
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Do you get the picture?

Now, do I really need to learn this formula in order to compose good music based on a major scale?
Absolutely not. Personally I created those scales in FL Studio and saved them as score files (.fsc). I
just load them whenever I need them and start composing from there without formulas in my head.
But it is good to understand a bit of the background, dont you think? If something does not sound
right - or in fact it does you will better understand why.
The minor scale follows the following formula: Root, M2, m3, P4, P5, m6, m7. Can you based on
what you have learned so far tell me what the notes are in the D minor scale? I suggest you give it a
try.
The minor scale is most common for dance/trance music by the way. Depending on the structure of
your composition, it can sound both uplifting or sad.
WHAT ARE CHORDS?
Chords are three or more notes that sound at the same time. Any combination of notes? Well, that
would be a loose definition, but the point is that not every combination sounds equally well as
weve discussed. More strictly defined, chords are created based on the notes of a specific scale.
Aha. But we already know everything about scales (major, minor) so this should be easy.
Lets give it a try based on the D minor scale. If you have done your homework in the previous section
you will know that the D minor scale contains the following notes: D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C. Why i say Bb
(B flat) instead of A# (A sharp)? Because it is not allowed to have the same note (letter) twice in a
scale (therefore, A and A# cannot occur in the same scale).
Have look at the screenshot below:
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Ive simply drawn the D minor scale across 2 octaves. The reason I am doing this is that it gives me
a good range of notes to work with when creating my chord progression based on this scale. Also, I
have given the note events the length I want my chord progression to have.
Now, make sure to check Helpers Ghost channels in the Piano Roll menu. See below:
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What this does well see in a moment. Go to your step sequencer and turn down the volume
completely.
Next, insert a new generator.
Subsequently, open the piano roll (make sure you are in the same Playlist track). This is what you will
see:
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The greyed-out note events are the note events from your other channel in this Playlist track. You
can now simply create your chord progression by sticking to the grey note events (in this way you
stick to the D minor scale). See below for the chord progression that I created:
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Go ahead and try to make a chord progression yourself. You will see how easy it is with the scale
already on the background.
Now, the next thing I will do is split my Playlist track so the chord progression and the D minor scale
are in different tracks. See the screenshots below:
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reFX Nexus #2 now contains my chord progression. Make sure to select it and add another
generator/channel to the Step Sequencer one for your lead melody. See below:
Now, open the Piano Roll for the new channel. This is what you should see:
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Instead of having the entire D minor scale in the background, I now have my chord progression to
work with. This is an excellent way to determine where to put the notes for my arpeggiated lead.
See below:
As you can see I follow the chord progression to a large extent. Not everywhere as I wanted to
created some nice variations, but if you take a second look you will see that I stick to the D minor
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scale. Obviously, it takes some trying out before you have a good lead. But one thing you do not have
to worry too much about is whether or not the notes sound good together.
I made a little sample based on the chord progression and lead synth shown above. You can listen to
it by using the player below: (refer to the online tutorial)
"Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. There is certainly more to be said
about music theory, chords, melodies, etc. But lets save that for
other tutorials :) Happy composing!
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HOW TO LINK AN EXTERNAL MIDI CONTROLLER

FL STUDIO TUTORIAL EXPLAINING HOW TO USE AN EXTERNAL MIDI CONTROLLER
Via an external MIDI controller (e.g. in the form of a keyboard), you can move FL Studio knobs and
sliders by means of external controller movements and even record these movements in real time
(as event automation). Most commonly, such MID controllers come in various sizes of piano
keyboard, with several knobs and sliders that you can link to your FL Studio controls. Also, they are
usually equiped with USB making connection to your computer a piece of cake.
MIDI controllers are not synthesizers themselves (though more expensive models can generate sounds
stand alone), but act as input for other devices, such as DAW programs like FL Studio. In this tutorial
we will have a look at how to use a standard USB based MIDI controller, linking its external controllers
to controllers on the FL Studio interface.
BEHRINGER UMX25
One of my controllers is the inexpensive Behringer USB/MIDI UMX25, which is compact, portable and
really easy to use. It has velocity sensitive keys, 10 MIDI controllers I can link to FL Studio and some
other nice features, such as a user setting memory (hmmmdoes this sound as a commercial?).
CONNECTING THE MIDI CONTROLLER TO YOUR COMPUTER

Well, this is as simple as it can get. Simply connect the controller to a USB port on your computer
and let your operating system (Windows Vista in my case) figure out the rest (install drivers, etc). it
will recognize it as a MIDI device and voila, you are done.
SETTING UP THE MIDI CONTROLLER AS INPUT DEVICE
Next, you will need to setup the controller as your MIDI input device. Start FL Studio and open the
MIDI Settings dialog via Options | MIDI settings in the main menu (or press F10). See below:
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If all went well, you should see the controller under input in the dialog. If not, try to click the
Rescan MIDI devices button at the bottom of the dialog. Select your MIDI device so that it is
highlighted and check the Enable checkbox to enable it. Note that MIDI activity light on the Main
Panel will blink each time MIDI data is received. This is a way to check whether you have successfully
setup your MIDI controller. See below:
While FL Studio supports all generic MIDI controllers, it also has support for a number of custom MIDI
controllers. If you are using one of those supported devices, you can select the corresponding
controller type from the Controller type drop down box. Most commonly, however, the generic
controller will do.
I wont discuss the other settings on this dialog, except for Auto accept detected controller.
Auto accept detected controller If this box is checked, the Remote Control Settings dialog will
close automatically once an external controller (e.g. a knob) has been mapped to the internal FL
Studio control (this mapping is done by simply tweaking the external control while the Remote
Control Settings dialog is open as we will see a bit further down). If you uncheck it, you will need to
click Accept in the Remote Control Settings dialog to close it.
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LINKING EXTERNAL CONTROLLER

Now that you have setup your MIDI device, you are ready to link controllers to FL Studio knobs and
sliders. Lets have a look at how this is achieved by linking an external controller to the channel
volume knob. See below:
To link an external controller to the channel volume knob (knob to the left of the reFX Nexus channel
button), simply right click it and choose Link to controller in the menu:
The Remote control settings dialog will open. See below:
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Now, to map an external MIDI controller you simply tweak the controller on your MIDI device.
Depending on whether or not you checked Auto accept detected controller on the MIDI settings
dialog, the Remote control settings dialog may close immediately after the controller has been
mapped. Below you see that I mapped controller 91 which happens to be the first knob on my
UMX25.
Thats all folks! I can now move the channel volume by turning the knob on my external controller.
If you want to link a controller to a knob/slider on a VST plugin, then follow the procedure below:
Open the plugin
Tweak the knob/slider to which you want to link an external controller
Choose Last tweaked parameter | Link to controller from the Fruity Wrapper menu. See
below:
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REAL TIME RECORDING

You may wonder how you can record the movement of external controllers? Well, that is a matter of
recording Automation Events, which I explained in the tutorial Recording automation events
"Hope this FL Studio tutorial was helpful to you. Feel free to leave
any comments. Happy composing!
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RECORDING AUTOMATION EVENTS

FL STUDIO TUTORIAL EXPLAINING AUTOMATION EVENTS.
In a previous tutorial (see What is automation?) I mentioned automation clips and automation
events. While automation clips can exist independent of a pattern, automation events are bound to
patterns and do not exist independently. In this tutorial we will have a closer look at the latter type
of automation.
You already know (assuming you have read the mentioned tutorial) that you can move your controls
by linking them to automation clips which you manipulate manually. But wouldnt it be nice if we
could play our song or pattern, change the channel volume (or any other control) while the song is
played and record that movement? This is where (recording) automation events come in.
MOVING CONTROLS
Moving controls in FL studio can be done either via an external controller or with your mouse. We
will keep it simple here and use our mouse, which requires no special setup. In some other tutorial I
will discuss how to link external controllers to controls in FL Studio.
RECORDING AUTOMATION
Lets start with a pattern that I created. See the below screenshot of the Piano Roll view with a
trance lead pattern (Nexus VST plugin):
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Now, what I would like to achieve is to

played. See below:
change the filter cutoff value while this pattern is
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Note that I use the Nexus plugin and the filter cutoff for illustration purposes only. You can choose
any other control, e.g. on one of the generators that come with FL Studio. It does not have to be a
plugin.
Anyway, lets have a look at the Transport Panel below:
The Transport Panel (located in the main FL Studio interface) contains controls for playing, recording
and setting song position and tempo. It is the recording we are interested in. If you right click it you
will see the following menu (Recording filter menu):
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Make sure that only Automation is selected. In this way we make sure that we only record automation
events when we are in record mode.
Next, press the Record button. It will turn red/orange indicating that recording has now been
armed. See below:
If you happen to see the following dialog:
Click the x in the upper corner. If you were to select any of the options in the dialog we would
override our previous setting in the recording filter menu (see above).
Next, make sure that you have selected the appropriate pattern and have the control you want to
move in front of you. See below:
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Note that I have selected pattern 1 in the Playlist view (which happens to have my note pattern) and
have opened the Nexus plugin which has the filter cutoff control. I am now ready to record.
Click the Play button on the Transport Panel. After a few seconds the pattern will begin to be play move your control now. When you are done, click the Stop button on the Transport Panel and
unarm recording by clicking the Record button again (it will turn to grey again). If all went as it
should, you have now recorded the movement of the control.
So how do we check it? Well, a quick way of checking is to play your pattern again (without recording
this time). You should now hear the changes that you introduced while recording. Another way is to
click in the Clip Tracks area of the Playlist view (thats the upper part of the view).
Do you see the graph behind the pattern data? This is the recorded automation event, now being an
integrated part of the pattern.
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EDITING AN AUTOMATION EVENT

If you want to edit the recorded automation event, select the control in the Target control menu
(Piano Roll view). See below:
You will now see the Automation event in the Integrated Event Editor (where you can adjust it using
the drawing tools).
TURNING AN AUTOMATION EVENT INTO AN AUTOMATION CLIP.
If you want to turn an automation event (which is integrated in the pattern) into an automation clip,
then choose Edit | Turn into automation clip in the Piano Roll options (make sure the target control is
set to the control for which you recorded the automation event). See below:
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After selecting this option, the automation event is removed from the pattern and a new automation
channel is added to the Step Sequencer. See below:
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You can also see that I have placed the automation clip in the Playlist (see upper part), which is now
separated from the pattern.
Personally, I prefer to work with automation clips rather than with automation events as automation
events are somewhat hidden. So, after initial recording I usually turn them into clips, zoom in and
adjust where necessary.
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FL STUDIO MIXER
FL STUDIO TUTORIAL EXPLAINING THE MIXER.
In short, the FL Studio Mixer is the place where you can apply effects to the sounds from your
channels. It is an extremely important feature of FL Studio. Understanding the Mixer and more
importantly understanding effects - is paramount to creating professional sounds and compositions.
Now, I wont do an in-depth discussion of effects in this tutorial nor will I teach you the fine art of
mixing. I will leave that for some other tutorials (easy excuse I know). However, I will explain the
basic (not all) Mixer features to you (using some common effects). So after reading this tutorial you
should be well on your way.
See also the illustration below:
You can route your channels to a mixer track (a so called insert track). How we do that I will
show you later, but once you have routed a channel to the Mixer you can insert up to eight effects
per track. Also, you can insert effects in the so called master track those effects will be aplied
to all audio in FL Studio before final output (coming from insert tracks and directly from the
channels, as illustrated above). We will see a bit later that you can actually route the output of one
insert track to another track (which is then called a send track).
But lets not make things too complicated at first. With the above illustration in mind, lets have a
look at the actual Mixer view.
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Wow, thats a lot for such a small window. Indeed, it is, but Ive inserted it here for reference
purpose, so have a look at it but dont stress about it. Ill now go for a more user friendly approach.
ROUTING A CHANNEL TO A MIXER TRACK
If you want to apply effects to your sounds in FL Studio you have a number of options. You can 1)
insert effects in the Master mixer track (all audio passes through this track) and/or 2) you can route
channels to a specific Insert track and insert your effects in that Insert track (in the FX slots).
I often use both. However, I usually start with routing my channels to individual Insert tracks and
take it from there. If I feel I need some final processing of my sound before it blasts through the
loudspeakers, I insert effects in the Master mixer track.
So how to route channels to Insert tracks in the Mixer? Thats easy. Have a look at the
settings dialog:
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Channel
In the Mixer track selector you can set the Insert track the channel (or rather the output of the
channel) will be routed to. Move your mouse over it until it changes into a double-arrowed pointer,
hold down the left mouse button and move your mouse up or down. Below you can see that I selected
Mixer track 1:
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If you now look at your Mixer, youll see that Insert track 1 has been selected (it follows the value in
the Mixer track selector). See below:
Insert track 1 has a slightly different color. Also, you can see in the titel bar of the Mixer that Insert 1
is the currently selected track. So, that is how you route a channel to the Mixer.
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ADDING EFFECTS TO AN INSERT TRACK

Next and that is where the fun starts is an explanation of how to insert effects. This is done in the
FX slots of which you have 8 per track. Simply click the arrow (FX slot options) next to a slot and
take your pick (choose Select in the menu). See below:
I chose the Fruity Reeverb effect. See below:
It has been inserted in the first FX slot of Insert track 1. Whenever you insert an effect, the relevant
effect editor dialog will open as well (see above). You can always reopen it by clicking on the effect
in the FX slot area (in my example, by simply clicking Fruity Reeverb in the first slot I can open the
editor dialog again).
Now, lets have some more fun and add a second effect. See below:
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Ive added the Fruity Delay 2 effect. I am not going to let you listen to it here (as a matter of fact I
suspect it sounds horrible). In this tutorial I am not trying to teach you what effects to use and in
what order. Thats a whole different art class ;) The point I am making here is that you can sequence
effects in FX slots. What would happen in the above scenario is that the sound from my Trance Lead
channel is routed to Insert track 1. It will first be processed by the Fruity Reeverb effect and then by
the Fruity Delay effect. And remember, if I would put some effects in the Master mixer track, the
sound would be processed even further before being send to the loudspeakers.
ENABLING/DISABLING EFFECTS AND CONTROLLING EFFECT (MIX) LEVEL
Use the FX enable/disable switch to switch an effect on/off without removing it from your FX
slot. To control the mix level use the FX level knob. If you have multiple effects you can control how
prominent they are in relation to eachother via this control.
USING EFFECT PRESETS
Many effects have a number of presets that you can play around with. For example, to acces the
presets for the Fruity Reeverb effect, open the FX slot 1 options menu and choose Presets. See
below:
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It is nice to play around with these presets a bit and see how the various controls in the effect editor
are affected. Other than that, learning how effects affect your sounds is mostly a matter of
practicing and listening. The great thing is that the sky is the limit. Even after years of using FL
Studio I still stumble upon new sounds merely by playing with effects!
MUTING, PANNING AND FADING TRACKS
To mute an entire Mixer track, use the Mute switch. The Panning knob and the Level fader can be
used for panning the sound of the track and for controlling the output level.
ARRANGING YOUR TRACKS
Especially when you have many channels that are routed to many different Insert tracks (actually,
there are 64 of them try to use the Mixer track scrollbar), it can be difficult to remember what
Mixer tracks you use for what purpose. However, there are some nice features that can help you to
keep track of your tracks ;)
You can rename tracks and give them a different color. To do this, right click on a track and choose
Rename in the menu. See below:
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A little dialog will popup in which you can type a new name and select a color (to do the latter, click
the little grey box and a color picker dialog will popup).
Below you can see I changed the name (Kickdrum) and color of my Insert track 1:
I will go a step further and select an icon for the track as well (same menu, but choose Set icon):
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Ok, I think I stop for now. Ive not discussed every item that I introduced in the first screenshot (for
example, Send tracks), but I will follow up on that. The purpose of this tutorial was to get you
started ;)
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GATING TECHNIQUES IN FL STUDIO CREATING

A GATED SYNTH
FL STUDIO TUTORIAL EXPLAINING HOW TO CREATE A GATED SYNTH.
Gating is a technique often used in dance music - of fragmenting sounds in shorter, percussive bits
by means of rapid and continual changes in volume. Another application of gating is the noise gate,
but here the purpose is to eliminate noise problems by muting the audio signal entirely when it is at
the noise level. In this tutorial we will not discuss noise gating, but go over some common techniques
for creating a gated synth sound in FL Studio.
LFO TOOL IN THE PIANO ROLL
Before moving on, if you are not familiar with the piano roll, I recommend you first read the
following tutorials:
Step Sequencer, Playlist and Piano Roll
FL Studio Piano Roll
LFO stands for Low Frequency Oscillator. Such oscillators are used to modulate properties in a
synthesizer (or effects). In the Integrated Event Editor in the Piano Roll we can enable the LFO for
the following channel properties: Volume, Panning and Pitch. Lets have a look at the Piano Roll.
In the screenshot shown above, the Target Control menu offers access to the controls that you can
access in the Integrated Event Editor. If you select Channel volume, for example, then Target Control
will say Channel volume as indicated above (this sounds obvious, but it took me some time to figure
out how to know what I was looking at in the Integrated Event Editor). See also the screenshot
below:
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After you have selected Channel volume, choose the LFO option in the Quick Tools menu. See below:
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When you choose this option, the following will appear:
What you see in the event editor is the LFO for the Channel volume control which we can
manipulate via the Events LFO dialog. Actually, what appeared here by default is already something
that gives us the gated sound. Try it out below:
The Events LFO dialog has the following controls:

Start Value The value (amplitude) of the LFO. The higher the pink bars, the higher the
channel volume will be when the gate is open.
Start Range This controls the difference between maximum and minimum values of the LFO
which is the difference in maximum and minimum channel volume.
Start Speed Controls the frequency of the LFO and allows you to control how rapid the
channel volume changes.
See below screenshot, where I changed the start range and the start speed of the LFO.
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Now, the dialog also has the End Value, End Range and End Speed of the LFO. Those will only be
active if you mark the checkbox in front of End on the dialog. By using these controls the LFO will
shift over time from the start values to the end values. Have a look at the screenshot below where I
used the End controls.
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What I did is using a different End Speed setting, which causes the gating effect to change for the
duration of my pattern. You can listen to it below (refer to the online tutorial):
Finally, with the Shape setting and Phase control you can affect the shape of the LFO as well as shift
it in time (to the left or right).
A final remark: You can also draw in the Integrated Event Editor and adjust the LFO shape (creating
and integrated automation event), but this will overrule the LFO settings in the dialog. Once you
have drawn in the Integrated Event Editor, then you can return to the original LFO shape by choosing
the LFO option in the Quick Tools menu again.
LFO MODULATION
Now that we discussed the LFO tool in the Piano Roll, many generators (including VST plugins) offer
LFO settings that will allow you to achieve such gating effects. For example, have a look at the
standard 3XOscillator generator that comes with FL Studio.
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By tweaking the LFO controls, I can quickly generate a gating effect very similar to the effect
created with the LFO tool in the Piano Roll. And by automating the SPD (Speed) control I can change
the gating speed over time.
AUTOMATION
For a basic tutorial covering automation in FL Studio, read: What is Automation?
An obvious way to achieve gating is to create automation clips for the Channel volume. See below:
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Here I created an automation clip for the Channel volume knob (Trance lead) channel. An automation
clip has been created spanning the length of my entire pattern. Now, by using the automation clip
manipulation tools (see mentioned tutorial covering Automation) I can create a gated effect. Or
much easier - I can use one of the predefined automation clips in the Browser (also explained in the
tutorial covering Automation). See the clip below:
GATING ON VSTS
Many VSTi plugins allow me to gate my sounds without having to draw automation clips. This,
however, is beyond the scope of this tutorial.
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COMPRESSION EXPLAINED PART I

FL STUDIO TUTORIAL EXPLAINING COMPRESSION
It happened more than once to me when letting others listen to my compositions that i get the
(fair) criticism that my beats and bass are too weak, that the song lacks groove or whatever other
terminolgy is used. For instance, read the harsh judgement below:
the atmosphere is nice most of the time, but the beat is just a turnoff. it seems very incoherent,
overpowered, and out of place. and u use only kick+2 hats? not enough, get some rythmics to it to
make a groove not just that pif-pof beat
To be honest, I love feedback like this. People who try to improve their composing skills really need
such input and I always take the effort to thank people for the time and effort of listening and
writing a few words.
"My advice is therefore to expose your work and get some of the more skilled people to review it. Do
not be upset if the verdict is not as positive as you maybe hoped for. Instead, look for constructive
criticism and learn from it.
"
Anyway, back to compression. I am often advised to use compression to fix the problem with weak
beats, lacking groove or to improve the overall sound landscape of the composition. Sounds cool and I
know where to find FL Studios Fruity Compressor effect, so thats easy. See below:
But while I often just tweak away and listen to the results (without actually understanding the
technicalities of how my sounds are transformed), I sensed it would be really beneficial to
understand more about compression now that so many people seem to refer to it as the way to
salvage my compositions.
So I started researching a bit and came across the following:
The only thing that'll glue together pulsing drums, gnarly synths, gargantuan bass lines and your
favorite spatial ear-candy tricks into a perfectly balanced, ready-for-prime-time mix is compression.
Although in the wrong hands it'll suck the life out of your song, compression can be a psychoacoustic
elixir that magically smooths out janky sounds, and it will even bring forth texture and harmonic
richness from a track that was previously unfixable with EQ, reverb or any other effects article
from remixmag.com by Peter Wetherbee, June 1st, 2007.
When I read this I was convinced. Compression really deserves some more attention! This
article/tutorial is my attempt to tell you a bit about what I have learned sofar.
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THEORY
Simply put, a compressor is an automatic volume control. Sounds that exceed a certain threshold are
reduced in volume. Sounds below the threshold are not being reduced. See the diagram below:
The horizontal axis shows the input level and the vertical axis the output level after compression. As
you can see only loud sounds exceeding the threshold are reduced, but not the quieter sounds below
the threshold. This can make both the quieter and loud sounds to co-exist in better harmony.
Actually, the compressor reduces the gain (level) of the signal by means of a ratio setting. For
instance, a ratio setting of 4:1 implies that if the input level is 4 dB above the threshold level, then
the output level will be 1 dB above the threshold level (gain reduction of 3 dB). Similarly, a ratio of
8:1 means that if the input level is 8 dB above the threshold level, then the output level is 2 dB
above the threshold level (gain reduction of 6 dB). See also the illustration below:
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Now, I mentioned the threshold and the ratio. These are two important parameters to keep in mind.
Other important parameters are:
Attack and Release determines how quickly the compressor reacts if the input level exceeds the
threshold (attack) and falls below the threshold (release). This is best explained via an illustration.
See below:
The blue line represents the input level and the red line the output level. As you can see, total
reduction in output level is only achieved after some time (attack). Similarly, after the input level
falls below the threshold, the gain reduction is removed only after some time (release).
Soft/Hard Knees controls the bend in the curve representing the output level. Again, this is best
explained vi an illustration.
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A soft knee slowly increases the compression ratio when the input approaches the threshold, a hard
knee implies the compression ratio is applied in full when the input level reaches the threshold
value.
Make-up Gain finally, the make-up gain will increase the output level with a fixed value once the
threshold is exceeded.
Read also the below excerpt from an online article - a bit more amusing to read:
Unless you are a trained audio engineer, you probably don't really know what compressors do, and
plenty of people who actually understand their function still don't know what to do with them. The
paradox is that compression is a subtle signal processor as opposed to reverb, distortion, a filter
sweep, etc. that is nevertheless more powerful psychoacoustically than just about any other single
type of gear you can use on a track. It is likely that a vast majority of the sounds that make up the
music you listen to are significantly compressed often multiple times to make them throb
smoothly in your earholes.
To say that a compressor generally works by reducing an audio signal's level by a certain ratio above a
specified threshold would be to reduce its magic to a simple truth that doesn't even begin to tell the
story. For one thing, the most interesting elements of that gain reduction occur in its attack and
release stages, the slopes of which are rarely consistent. Without getting hung up on largely
irrelevant technical details, let's just start by saying that compressors lower the levels of peaks and
allow us to bring up the overall level of a signal without clipping.
Imagine a guy listening to a track with his finger on a fader, lowering the fader a little when the
signal gets too loud, and bringing it back up when the signal gets quieter. How fast he lowers the
fader for hot signals would be the attack of his gain-reduction process, and how quickly he returns
the fader to unity after the signal gets quieter again would be the release time of his compression.
The personality of this guy moving the fader, and how smoothly he moves it, determines the
musicality of the compressor. If the dude has had too much coffee, he might be a little jerky, perhaps
even anticipating what's coming musically; if he's been drinking cold medicine and brandy, or if he's
never heard the track before, he might be a little slower to respond overall.
Either scenario could be musically pleasing or might cause an unpleasant pumping that feels
unrelated to the program material. Conventional wisdom says that to avoid pumping or other
undesirable artifacts (in other words, for the compression to be as effective yet transparent as
possible), the attack should not be fast enough to swallow the natural rise of the signal, and the
release should fall most of the way back before the next signal peak. And both should be as
consistent as possible. article from remixmag.com by Peter Wetherbee, June 1st, 2007.
APPLICATION
Ok, so now that we have laid the theoretical foundations, lets see how we can use compression in
our compositions. This is really where the problem started for me ;) While the theory makes
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perfectly sense, figuring out when and where to use compression is not so easy. I found only few
resources that go beyond the theorical explanation and only in vague terms describe when
compression should be used.
once you get the hang of it, things'll simply sound better: punchier, solid, smooth and fat. While
tasteful compression lets you pull disparate tracks together into a cohesive relationship in a mix, too
much of this good thing will make your track sound dull and will take the vibe right out of even the
best performance. So at first, be careful and try to err on the side of subtlety because compression is
like distortion: Once it's there, it's pretty hard to get rid of, but you can always add more later.
article from remixmag.com by Peter Wetherbee, June 1st, 2007
Get the point?
About a punchier sound, compression can really help making your beat sound punchier. To illustrate,
listen to the following two sound snippets. One without compression and one where I used
compression to create a more punchy, profound beat.
Sample 1 No compression
Sample 2 - Compression
Do you hear the difference? It is the same DNC_Kick in both samples and I really didnt just turn up
the volume. Take a look at the Fruity Compressor dialog below:
These are the settings I used to pump up my DNC_Kick. Take note of the slow attack and fast release.
The slow attack will make sure the very first part of the beat sound passes through uncompressed
after which compression will kick in and lower the remainder of the sound. This gives the punchy
character to the output. The threshold is low, making sure compression really kicks in. The high ratio
makes sure that once the compression will kick in, it will kick in hard (adding this punchy edge to
it). Ive added some gain to increase overall volume of the beat (compensating for the loss of dB
level by compression).
I will continue this topic in a next article/tutorial. First of all, this article is long enough as it is and
second, I need to do some more research ;)
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THE FL STUDIO PIANO ROLL

FL STUDIO TUTORIAL EXPLAINING THE PIANO ROLL VIEW.
The Piano Roll is one of the central views in FL Studio. If you are not at all familiar with this view and
other important views (such as Step Sequencer and Playlist), I recommend you first check out the
tutorial listed below:
Recommended reading: Step Sequencer, Playlist and Piano Roll
Now, assuming that you have a clue what the Piano Roll is about, we will have a closer look at the
most common features it has to offer. While not discussing every cool feature, after this tutorial you
should be able to create complex note event patterns quickly.
Lets start with some concepts. Have a look at the screenshot below:
You may think holy cow, that is a lot of stuff. Can I not just start drawing or something?. Well come
to that in a minute, but for the sake of understanding and making sure we speak the same
language, Ill first explain the concepts shown above.
Note events this is what it is all about, to create patterns of note events. Each note event
represents a note for the channel in question and controls when a sound will be played.
Keyboard This is what it says it is, a keyboard. Helps you to place your note events.
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Piano Roll options Via this menu you can access various options for managing, arranging and
editing your note event patterns.
Quick tools A quicker way to get access to often used tools (also accessible via the Piano Roll
options).
Toolbar Has a set of buttons that determine the drawing mode you are in. Your possible
options are Draw, Paint, Delete, Slice, Select, Zoom, Playback and Snap to Grid.
Target Channel This shows the channel to which the Piano Roll applies. You can switch
between channels in this drop down box.
Target Control This shows the control that is currently displayed in the Integrated Event
Editor (lower part of the screen). You can switch between controls in this drop down box.
Zoom time Allows you to zoom in and out (horizontally, which represents the time).
Integrated Event Editor The place where you can edit a number of note event properties,
such as velocity, panning, etc.
Now that we can name and identify the main aspects, lets approach it a bit differently. In essence,
what we want to do in the Piano Roll is create a pattern of note events, for instance for our lead
melody, bass line or drum beats. Have a look at the arpeggiated trance lead that I created:
"Arpeggio is a broken chord where notes are spread out and played after eachother in a sequence
rather than simultaneously. This is quite a common technique to which I will quite definitely dedicate
some other tutorial. I use it here for the purpose of illustrating how to use the various tools in the
Piano Roll.
"
In the toolbar, click the Draw or Paint button. Then place a note event by left-clicking. Subsequently,
move the mouse pointer over the right-edge of the note event until it changes. See below:
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Left click and hold the mouse button down while you drag the pointer to the right. Release when the
note event has the appropriate length. See below:
This is the how you change the length of a note event . Note that your selection in the
Snap to Grid menu (in the toolbar) influences the increments in note event length. Try to play
around with this a bit (e.g. choosing cell, line, 1/6 step, 1/2 step in the Snap to Grid menu) so you
understand what Snap to Grid does.
Now, the Piano Roll remembers the properties of the last note event you worked with, so the
following is a piece of cake.
147
I simply clicked the grid where I wanted my note events to start. If you happen to wonder how come I
can see the entire progression, then that is because I used the Zoom time control to zoom out a
little. Check out the first screenshot to find its location. You can zoom in and out by right clinking
and while you hold down the mouse button use PgUp and PagDown. Alternatively, you can left click
and while you hold down the mouse button you move the mouse up or down. Try this out because you
will need it as your patterns become longer and more complex.
By the way, you will hardly place every single note event exactly where you want it upon first click,
so moving note events around is one of the most common operations. Moving note events is
done by placing your mouse pointer on top of the note event (having the Draw or Paint button
selected), left click and while you hold down the mouse button move the note event. See below:
OK, so now we have the basic progression. What I did next is chop the note events using the
very handy Chop tool. To do this, you must first select all four note events. To select note
events, you must first click the Select button in the toolbar. After that you can simply draw a box
around the note events that you want to select (hold down the left mouse button and draw the box).
An alternative method is to left click the note events while you hold down the SHIFT key.
With the note events selected you can now apply operations to them simultaneously. What we will do
is open the Quick tools menu and select Chop (or use ALT-U). This will have the following effect:
148
Cool isnt it? You an tweak the Time mul knob on the chopper dialog so your new note events have
the appropriate length. See below:
Now, select every second note event (hold down SHIFT key while you click on the note events)
starting from the second note event. See below:
Now I move the selected events one octave up by holding down the CTRL key and pressing the arrow
up key on your keyboard. The whole selection moves up.
149
Play around a bit with these combinations: SHIFT ArrowUp/ArrowDown and CTRL
ArrowUp/ArrowDown. You will see how easy it is to move your note events. Naturally, you can always
move note events around as explained earlier, by simply dragging them to a new position.
The remainder I did by moving one or more note events at a time, so no magic features here.
Is this all? Well, no. But these are the basic operations that you will be using a lot. Lets have a look
at some of the other features.
You can copy existing note events by using the Edit | Copy and Edit | Paste options in the
Piano Roll options menu (or use CTRL-C and CTRL-V). First, select the note events you want to copy
and then choose copy. See below:
150
Now that we have the Edit menu open, have a look at the other options (Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete,
Delete all, Shift left, Shift right, Transpose up, etc.). We already tried the Transpose one octave up,
remember? Well this is where these operations are hidden in the menus ;)
Ok, back to copying. After you have selected Copy, you can go back to the menu and select Paste.
See below:
151
Now, be a bit careful. The copied note events are sometimes pasted on top of existing note events.
See below:
Lets transpose them up a bit (SHIFT ArrowUp).
152
Of course, I can move the note events to any place I want.

I mentioned it a bit earlier, note events have properties. More precisely, a note event has a a start
time, a duration and settings for panning, velocity, note release, note filter cutoff frequency, note
filter resonance and fine pitch. Start time and duration are determined by where you draw your
note event and how long it is, so do not worry about that. I do work with panning and velocity quite
regularly, however, and these properties only get a default (or last used) value whenever you draw a
note event.
There are two ways to edit note event properties: Either in the Integrated Event editor or in
the Note properties dialog. Go ahead and double-click a note event (having the Draw or Paint
button in the toolbar selected).
I rarely use this dialog though as it is cumbersome to set properties one note event at a time. Have a
look at the screenshot below:
153
The lower part of the screen (with the vertical green bars) is the Integrated Event editor. Each bar
reflects the velocity of the corresponding note event (the bar is placed directly under the note
event). Why velocity? Well, have a look at the top of the screenshot. The Target control says
Velocity. So now you understand the relation between the Target control and the Integrated Event
editor.
The cool thing with the Integrated Event editor is that I can draw in it. See below:
154
Simply left click at the left most bar and move the mouse to the right while holding down the mouse
button. You will see how you can quickly alter the velocity for a whole range of note events.
Naturally, you can also click one bar at a time to adjust its height thereby adjusting the velocity for
one note event.
Well, the latter statement requires some more elaboration. If you have multiple note events that
start at the same time (but with different pitch) then you cannot distinguish one bar from the other
as the bars are placed directly below the note events. This implies you cannot manipulate them
individually. Thats where the Note properties dialog comes in handy. So, while I typically use the
Integrated Event editor, I do use the Note properties dialog sometimes in case note events overlap
and I want to manipulate their properties individually.
I think I call it a day for now. There is much more to tell about the Piano Roll view, but I am sure I
will cover them in other tutorials one way or another. I already promised you something on
arpeggiating, didnt I?
155
WHAT IS AUTOMATION?
FL STUDIO TUTORIAL EXPLAINING AUTOMATION
Automation is the automatic moving of controls in FL Studio such as the channel volume knob based on automation clips or automation events. It is like someone turns FL Studios knobs
while you play your song.
To understand the relation between an automation clip/event and a control, see the simple
illustration below. The upper part is the automation clip which varies in time (check points 1,2 and
3). If this automation clip would be linked to the volume knob, the knob will turn corresponding to
the automation clip (see point 1,2 and 3).
You may wonder why you would use such a feature. Simply put, the opposite of a boring, dull trance
composition is a song with variety, variety, variety and automation is one way to achieve variety. This
article will explain you the basics of automation (advanced topics will follow, I promise).
First of all, in FL Studio we distinguish between automation clips and automation events. Automation
clip are specific type of generators and are loaded into channels (just like your instruments). They
can exist independent of a pattern. Automation events on the other hand are bound to patterns and
do not exist independently. This will become more clear further down the article.
AUTOMATION CLIPS
There are several ways to create automation clips. The easiest way is to right-click on the control
you wish to automate and then choose Create automation clip. See the below screenshot where I
create an automation clip for the channel volume control (Trance lead channel):
156
Note that this method can only be used for native FL Studio controls. For controls on VST plugins you
can first manually tweak the control you want to automate and then select Last tweaked parameter
| Create automation clip from the Fruity Wrapper menu. See below for an example with the Nexus
plugin:
Regardless whether you automate a native control or one on a VST plugin, the result is the same: An
automation clip is created for the control in question (it is already linked to the control) in the upper
part of the playlist view (where all clip tracks are placed). See below:
157
An automation clip created in this way spans the entire length of your playlist. In the example above,
I have not yet begun to place any pattern blocks and the automation clip therefore assumes the
default length. However, I can now start to manipulate the clip. See the screenshot below:
Initially, the automation clip only has one (last) control point. To increase the length of the clip,
simply left-click it and drag to the right. Release the mouse button when done. Make sure that you
have selected the middle focus button and checked Slide and unchecked Step (see picture above).
To give the clip a shape, add control points. To add a control point hold down the Ctrl-key and move
your mouse pointer to the position where you want to add a control point. The mouse pointer
changes and shows a plus (+). Then, left-click and voila, you have an new control point. You can pick
up control points by moving over them (the mouse pointer changes into a hand), holding down the
left mouse button and dragging the point to another position. Release the mouse button when you
are done.
158
To change the shape of the spline between to control points, use the tension handle. Simpy left
click a tension handle and move your mouse up or down (holding the mouse button down). Release
the mouse button when you are done.
To remove a control point, right-click it and choose Delete in the menu. Also, experiment a bit with
the menu options Single Curve, Double Curve, Hold, Stairs and Smooth Stairs. You will see you can
manipulate the shape of the spline ending in the selected control point by using these options.
Make sure to play around a bit and create various shapes. Being able to create clips precisely the way
you want it will defintely benefit you further down the road.
Now, listen to the way the automation clip influences the Trance lead sound.
Ok, not very spectacular, I admit. However, this is so fundamental that once you have learned how
to use it you will wonder how you ever could have lived without it.
AUTOMATION CLIP PRESETS

FL Studio comes with a number of automation clip presets that I suggest you check out. You find
them in the Browser view (F8) under Channel Presets, Automation Clips. See below:
159
You can simply drag and drop them into the playlist (the same place where our own automation clip
is located). See the screenshot below:
Ive dropped BasicGate1 from presets into the playlist. Note that I have zoomed in a bit to make it a
bit easier to work with the short clip. Zooming in and out can be done using the Zoom time control in
the upper right corner of the playlist. See below:
Left click the zoom time control and move the mouse up or down to zoom in or out.
Subsequently I sequenced the same clip to match the length of my playlist. See below (note that I
zoomed out again):
160
The easiest way to achieve this is to use the Paint button. Make sure it is selected and then simply
draw the clips by left clicking and moving the mouse pointer to the right.
OK, so now we have made a nice sequence of a predefined automation clip. Bit how can we use it?
The difference with this clip is that it has not yet been linked to a controller. When we made our own
automation clip it was automatically linked when we chose Create automation clip so we did not
have to consider this.
To link an automation clip to the channel volume knob (of our Lead trance channel), right click the
knob and choose Link to controller.
161
In the Remote control settings dialog, select the BasicGate1 automation clip from the Internal
Controller drop down box (replace our automation clip with the BasicGate1 clip). See below:
When you have done this, click Accept. The new automation clip has now been linked to the channel
volume knob.
Lets hear the results once again.
162
Now this already sounds like something we may consider using, isnt it? By automating the channel
volume using a predefined automation clip we created a gated lead sound. Cool!
By the way, if you look at the Step Sequencer view (F6) you will notice that every automation clip is
loaded into its own (automation) channel. Removing all clips from the Playlist will not remove the
automation channel in the Step Sequencer (so dont worry if you accidently delete your automation
clips from the Playlist). Via the Step Sequencer you can access them again. See below:
This was only a simple example where we linked an automation clip to the channel volume knob, but
the same technique can be used to automate any control both native and in any VST plugin. To
illustrate, listen to the following trance intro which relies quite heavily on automation.
The intro starts with a Nexus VSTi lead with automated volume, filter cutoff and reverb mix (Ill
discuss effects in other articles). Both the beat (DNC_Kick) and the bass (Nexus) channels are routed
through mixer channel one in which I have place the Fruity Filter effect. What I automated is the
cutoff frequency of the effect (and thereby affecting both channels in the same way) it is like they
are dropping into the song. You will also hear a rolling snare drum coming in done by automating
the volume. At some stage you also hear a rolling kick going from the left speaker to the right. This
was done by automating the channel panning control.
As far as I am concerned, there are no golden rules with respect to automation. The best way to
master it is to experiment, experiment and experiment.
AUTOMATION EVENTS
You know what? I will dedicate a separate article to that.
163
INSTALLING VSTI PLUGINS

You may have heard of the terms VST and VSTi and that FL Studio willingly accepts plugins adhering
to this standard. Wow, sounds great, but how exactly does that work? Where do I find such plugins
and how do I make sure FL Studio recognizes them? This article will show you how.
VST is a standard allowing digital audio workstations like FL Studio to be extended with
instruments and effects. There are both commercial and freeware plugins. I advise you to scan the
market for free plugins and try some of them before moving on to the commercial ones. While many
freeware plugins do not produce acceptable sounds (this is somewhat subjective as the line between
what is acceptable and what is not will shift as you go along, believe me), some free plugins are
really good and truly add rich sounds and sound tweaking capabilities to FL Studio.
Go ahead, search google by clicking the following link: http://www.google.dk/search?
hl=da&q=free+VST+plugins&meta=&aq=f&oq=
You see, there is a lot out there. I continued and had a look at VST 4 Free and tried to find some nice
plugin I could use for this article and who knows for my compositions.
To make your life easy, you can download the plugin I found by clicking here: Prova VSTi plugin
This plugin offers a Grand Piano sound. One visitor said:
Probably the best free piano module available. Obviously lacks overtones or sympathetic resonance
like resource hungry multi-gig samples but sounds more realistic than mda, 4front piano, or most
soundfonts
It sounded interesting to me, so I downloaded it.
Ok, weve got the file, so what do we do now? Well, as this is a compressed file (zip), you will need
to unzip it first. When I did this it gave me the following file: Prova.dll. Cool, so now we have a file
with a .dll extension.
The next thing to do is place it in an appropriate place so FL Studio will be able to recognize it. The
default location for VST plugins is C:\Program Files\VstPlugins. Your folder may be located somewhere
else. If you do not know where it is, just search for the folder name VstPlugins.
164
You now simply place the Prova.dll file in this folder.
Next, start FL Studio and choose Channels, Add one, More in the menu.
This will open the following dialog:
165
Do you see the little Refresh-button in the lower right corner? Click it and choose Fast scan
(recommended).
You should now see the new plugin (Prova) appear in red. Check the checkbox in from of it and close
the dialog by clicking the [x] in the upper right corner. This should do the trick. Lets check it.
166
Cool, its there! To complete the story I added it and clicked on the channel. This is what the Prova
plugin will show you. If you see the same you should be in business.
"Hope
this tutorial was helpful to you. Feel free to leave

comments. Happy composing!
167
STEP SEQUENCER, PLAYLIST AND PIANO ROLL

FL STUDIO TUTORIAL EXPLAINING THE STEP SEQUENCER, PLAYLIST AND
PIANO ROLL
Before diving deep into the FL Studio UI with its zillion buttons, knobs and menus (dont get scared),
I would like to explain you a bit about three central views in FL Studio. Once you grasp those, you
already understand much about how to arrange a song. Sure, it may be more fun to start with
producing sounds, but trust me; if you do not know how to arrange your sounds and create
compositions, FL Studio will merely turn into a funny sound generator for you.
Some friends of mine started playing with FL Studio after they had heard some of my work very
energetically i should add. Unfortunately, after a while they gave up because they did not get beyond
the initial stage, which was to just click around and generate sounds. Familiarizing yourself with
some basic concepts before actually starting to compose will add to the fun, I assure you.
Anyway, back to the three views Step Sequencer, Playlist and Piano Roll.
The Step Sequencer (or Channel) view (press F6 to open it) is the view in which you place your
instruments, one below the other. These are also referred to as the channels. One instrument = one
channel. Have a look at the screenshot below:
This is the Step Sequencer/Channel view. It has six channels/instruments. Why? Because I added
them. Some channels for the beat (DNC_Kick, DNC_Snare, DNC_Hat), one for the bass line (Pure bass
3), for the strings (Smooth strings) and a channel for the lead melody (Trance Lead). So what more
do we have on this dialog? Lets have a closer look.
168
The channel panning and volume knobs allow you to control the panning and volume. In short,
the channel panning controls the spread of the sound across your left and right loudspeakers. If you
turn it all the way to the left, the sound will only come from your left loudspeaker. Turn it to the
right and only your right loudspeaker has the honour. By default, the panning knob is centered and so
will the sound for the channel be (not coming from one particular loudspeaker). I did not bother with
this too much until later when I discovered you can articulate a sound and create a sense of
movement in compositions by automating the panning (dont worry about this last sentence as I will
dedicate some other article to automating controls in FL Studio).
channel buttons give access to a number of items. First of all, if you left-click it the
Channel Settings dialog will show. This is an important dialog inwhich you can tweek the sound
The
for each channel. See below:
169
This article will not further discuss the Channel Settings dialog. For now, just remember that this is
the place where you control the actual sound of the channel in question. How the sound will reach
your ears will also be dependent on whether or not you apply any effects, but more about that later
as well.
Good, back to the Step Sequencer view. If you right-click a channel button, it gives you a range of
options.
We will familiarize ourselves with those in some other articles, but one option that we will use much
is the first one, Piano roll. More about the Piano roll later in this article.
170
The pattern grid is the area on the Step Sequencer view that allows us to create drum loops and
simple melodies. Have a look at the screenshot below:
Nice, some kind of pattern. Now, how did I do that - and more importantly - what does it mean?
Simple, just left-click (or right-click) on the steps (small buttons) in the grid to activate (or
deactivate) them. What I am doing here is indicating when a channel should play the sound. Each
step represents a 16th note and by default the length for each channel is 16 steps four bars with 4
steps each. The above means that my DNC_Kick will play on the first step of every bar, my DNC_Snare
on the first step of the second and fourth bar and my DNC_Hat every second step, starting with the
first.
I really use this a lot to arrange my drum loops and sometimes for my bass, but not for (more
complex) melodies and chords. Drums are usually non-pitched and can be used with any harmony or
key so just telling FL Studio when to play a percussion channel is all there is to it.
We could spend more time on discussing the Step Sequencer view, but we will let it rest for now and
return back to the remaining features in some other article.
I mentioned the Piano Roll view briefly and we have seen how we can open it via right-clicking a
channel button (another way is to press F7). Have a look at the screenshot below:
171
This is the place where you create your note arrangements (score) for a single channel/instrument. It
has a lot of features that allow you to create, edit and manage complex note arrangements, but we
will start with some of the basics. See below:
Note events are placed in the upper part of the view, where their position on the vertical axis
determines the pitch and the position on the horizontal axis the time of the note. The length of the
note event controls the duration. You can place note events by left-clicking (right clicking on a note
event will remove it). After you have placed a note event you can drag & drop it to some other place,
increase or reduce its length, etc. In the screenshot above you see the piano roll for my Pure bass 3
channel. I have kept it really simple and placed only four note events. The third one has a lower
pitch than the rest. All four note events, however, have the same duration.
The lower part of the Piano Roll view is the so-called Integrated Event Editor. It is the area in which
you can control the panning, velocity, etc., of individual notes. We will talk more about that later. I
typically use it to create more dynamic melodies.
In summary, the Piano Roll view is one of the most important views in which you will arrange your
notes related to a single instrument.
Returning to the Step Sequencer view, this is what you get:
172
Do you see the relation between the two views? My arrangement in the Piano Roll view shows up in
the Step Sequencer view. And, the arrangement for the Pure bass3 channel happens to have the same
duration as the drum beats that I created in the Step Sequencer view directly. Cool coincidence.
Well, not quite ;) Have a look at the two views again and discover the similarities.
Ok, so now we did the beats in the Step Sequencer view, the bass in the Piano Roll view. Whats next?
This article is not about how to compose a cool song, but rather about the three important views. I
will therefore not do anything with the Smooth strings and Trance lead channels, but move on to view
number three the Playlist view.
You could say that the Playlist view (press F5) is where the overall composition is arranged. Have a
look at the screenshot below:
173
The Playlist view has two main areas. The upper area is for pattern clips, the lower for pattern
blocks. Hmmm, a bit more explanation is required I guess. Lets begin with the lower area where we
place pattern blocks.
One thing you should realize is that when you work in the Step Sequencer (and Piano Roll), you
always work in the context of a specific Pattern track. Which one? Well, the one that is selected in
the Playlist. See below:
174
What this means is that all step and note arrangements that I made sofar (in the Step Sequencer and
Piano Roll) have been assigned to Pattern 1 in the Playlist. In other words, drum beats and bass are in
Pattern 1.
What I can do now is sequence my arrangements by placing pattern blocks. See below:
The above means that I am actually looping my drum beat and bass arrangement eight times by
placing eight pattern blocks after eachother. I do that by simply left-clicking with the mouse (rightclicking will remove a block). If I now would play the composition we would hear both drum beat and
bass.
Now, most typically you would want to place your beats, bassline, lead, chords, etc., in separate
pattern tracks. The reason is that you then can manipulate them independently. Hmmm, thats a
pity, I already placed everything in pattern track 1. Do I have to start all over to place my bass in
another pattern track? Not quite. If you right click on the name of the pattern track (Pattern 1 in our
screenshot), a menu will popup. See below:
175
By choosing Split by channel all my channels in the Step Sequencer will be spread out across multiple
pattern tracks. See below for the result:
Wow, cool! Now I can sequence each channel independently.
176
Do you get the point? If I now play this song, first the drum beat will play. The song will progress with
the Snare and Hat coming in after four bars. Finally, the bass will start playing.
A lot more can be said about the Playlist view, but I leave that for another article. For instance, what
about the upper area which I mentioned earlier? I will dedicate an entire other article to that, dont
worry ;)
"Hope this FL Studio tutorial was helpful. Feel free to leave any
comments. Happy composing!
177

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FRUITY LOVE PHILTER

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The Fruity Love Philter will show the following:

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LAYER YOUR SOUNDS

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Now, select the Crossfade switch as shown below:

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CONVERT YOUR EDISON SAMPLES TO PIANO

Choose Load sample in the File menu:

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And navigate to the Vocals folder as shown below:

Select FLS_DontStopMeNow_02.wav and click Open. See below:

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The sample will now be analyzed and coverted to a score.

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building block in your understanding of FL Studio and its richness

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THE FRUITY GRANULIZER

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Ok, lets add the Fruity Granulizer:

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inspiration for exploring this versatile plugin. More in general, I

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SCALES, MODES, CHORD PROGRESSIONS AND

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D major = D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#, D

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" I realize this tutorial/article may be somewhat heavy to digest,

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INTERVIEW WITH JON

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Have you ever experienced this to be a problem?

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Have you ever used FL Studio? Do you consider using it?

Do you have any favourite synths/VSTs?