Make sure you understand the very basic functions of the 5 main windows of FL Studio — the browser, the channel rack, the piano roll, the playlist and the mixer. The first step to making a beat in FL Studio is to create a simple drum pattern that will be the backbone of your beat. The default drum sounds that come with FL Studio are pretty terrible, and you definitely want your own drum sounds to create the beat.
You should now see your chosen folder within the browser panel. To fix this simply click re-read the arrow next to the magnifying glass at the top of the browser, and your folder name should update. To import a specific drum sound into the project, simply left click on the desired sound file in the browser, and drag it into the channel rack.
The best thing to do is drag and drop the files just below the bottom sound in the channel rack, as dropping it on top of another file within the rack will replace it. For the next step, add a kick, snare, clap and a hi hat that take your fancy. You can add more percussion elements later, for now you just need to create a basic drum beat. This is where the fun really begins. Hands down. You can also drag left or right click to select multiple steps within a channel at once.
Make sure you rename and colour each drum track to keep your beat organised. To add your pattern to your track, simply left click within the playlist section, and your pattern will appear. Unlike almost all other DAWs, you can place any pattern anywhere within the playlist, and each pattern is not limited to its own track row. Go ahead and add 4, 8 or 16 bars of the drum pattern to your playlist. Your screen should now look something like this:.
Using a MIDI keyboard can transform the way you create music and take your tracks to another level. VST Instruments generate audio and act as software-based instruments. They often emulate recognizable sounds of famous synthesizers and other instruments. These programs can seem daunting to a beginner, as many VST interfaces appear very complex and overwhelming.
To do this, navigate to the pattern selector in the top menu and select the plus button to create a new pattern see above. This creates a blank channel rack within which you can create your new instrumental pattern. To add a VST instrument to your track, simply click the plus button at the bottom of the channel rack see above , and choose from the list. Again, for simplicity, I will be adding Sytrus , a great FL Studio plugin with lots of fantastic presets.
The piano roll is where you can compose, slice and edit MIDI notes of a selected channel with an incredible amount of detail and precision. It is incredibly helpful for example, to tweak a MIDI keyboard performance or lengthen certain notes within a sequence.
To open to piano roll for a chosen channel, right click on the channel name and select Piano Roll. Have a play around with the piano roll, creating chord sequences and melodies for different VST instrument presets and sounds. Click here for our full guide to FL Studio, including an in-depth look at the piano roll editing features. Repeat this step as many times as you want. This way you can add and layer as many instruments as you like: Sub-bass, bass, synths, keys, pianos, strings, pads, stabs, etc.
To make beautifully mixed, professional sounding music, a good quality audio interface is essential. Extra percussive or FX element are a great way to make your track stand out from other, more simplistic beats.
Again, using the step sequencer, create a pattern of percussive elements to add to your track. Add your extra percussion to your track in the relevant places i. Again, remembering to organise it effectively, your screen should now look a little something like this. This step is very important for building a song, so elements are introduced throughout a track. This creates a more professional sounding song as opposed to a stand alone loop or idea.
For example:. Lofi hip hop beats are usually only about 2 minutes long, without too much beat development, but include sections where drums drop out, or a filter is added, and then they come back in for effect. Full house track mixes are often minutes long, with lots of beat development, and usually start with a 4-on-the-floor kick pattern only.
But in order to create great, professional quality tracks, you need to learn what automation is and how to use it. A few examples would be: slowly fading in a pad over the course of 4 bars, sidechaining, and adding more reverb to a sound during a certain section of your track. This will create a track-length automation clip in a free playlist track. Seems easy? There are a few extra things you have to consider while adding automation.
This will highlight the selected section in red. Useful tip 1: If you left-click and hold in the line between two created points and drag, this allows you to fine-tune the curve between two points. This allows for a huge amount of sonic creativity. Mixing a track can be a very in-depth, complex process, especially for large, layered mixes.
You can add effects such as reverb, delay, compression and many, many other audio effects to your mixer channels. Using this mixer effectively can completely transform your songs into professional-sounding masterpieces. To send a specific sound to a specific mixer channel, left click and drag the numerical value to the left of the sounds name within the channel rack to your chosen value.
This will send your sound or instrument to the corresponding mixer channel, in which you can now add effects or change certain parameters.
For a more complete guide to these controls and how to use the mixer, click here. By selecting one of these slots, and choosing an effect, it will add the selected effect to your mixer channel.
Here is an overview of the best effects to play around with for beginners all included with FL Studio. Fruity Reeverb 2: This is a incredibly high quality reverb plugin that honestly sounds unreal straight out the box. Fruity Limiter: A fantastic limiter for limiting and compressing sounds. Fruity Love Philter: A versatile, powerful tool for adding filters and modulating effects.
Now you can add multiple effects to your tracks, add automation clips for the actual effects, sequence your patterns and structure your track into a fully fledged song. Get to work and create some amazing tunes.
It took me forever to understand FL Studio, and even longer to create something half decent. In this short and straightforward video, I show you how easy it is to make a beat with FL Studio. Second, you need a bunch of good drum samples: kick drums, claps, hi-hats, snares and some percussion sounds. You can find a lot of drum samples online for free as well as from quality commercial libraries.
If you are going to go the free route, just know that you are going to have to do a lot of digging and curating. For more advanced stuff, check out my tutorial on how to make a house beat. There are a lot of differences on the web beat makers available on the market within the superb vastness on the world wide web.
But a great choice is the extremely popular Fruity loops beat producer software application put together by FL Studio.
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