Some tips that you might find useful and FL Tips

docwra · Post by **docwra** » Tue May 27, 2008 12:57 am

Always cross reference to other music. Gd way of telling if somethings lacking weight, size, width etc.

Try and do as little eq'ing as possible by selecting good quality samples when layering. Over doing on the EQ can kill a sample if your not careful and we don't want that now do we!

On the master channel i always keep the waves rverb on it set to the medium nightclub setting (Obviously turned off when im making my track). Basically when you play your track through this reverb it's pretty close to how it's gonna sound in a club, so is good for telling if something sounds muddy or isn't cutting it through the mix!

Always keep effects etc on your top and middle ends as it can lead to your bass being stereo!

When adding distortion always roll off some of the top end with an EQ as you are adding harmonics when distorting. The result will be that your sound will sound a lot tighter!

Always do bounces of your track through different stages. Gd way of telling if levels are balanced and if there are any unwanted frequencies! It's kinda weird but some things you just don't pick up in the sequencer beacuse your ears adjust!

Taking away frequencies in a lot of ways is always better than boosting frequencies as it could cause problems in your mix!

Using subtle chourus or flange on hats and percussion is an excellent way of adding movement to your drums.

Don't be afraid to be bold with your reverbs. A lot of people tend to either overdoo or not use enough. Great for giving a 3D effect to your mix. Also by adjusting the top end on the reverb it gives you more control over the placement by having a sound upfront or set back!

Using a mutil band compressor is also very gd when separating layers as it gives you more control than what an EQ would!

In the FL sampler try using the envelopes more. The FL sampler allows you to envelope the pitch, volume, and filter. You can also LFO the filter pitch and volume, so there is a lot of tools to twist your sounds with.

The FL waveshaper is also a very gd tool for stopping sounds clipping. It's not a limiter but if you load it up as it is it acts as a limiter and doesn't give a harsh sound on the top end like some limiters do!

On the mixer there is a stereo enhancer, this is particuarly useful as it saves you loadin up plug ins and draining your CPU!

On the FL mixer when you press the arrow to load an effect there is an option thats sais smart disable. When selected this will disable the plug in when not in use also saving on CPU!

For warping Techy basses try layering filters over filters and automate them at different speeds, rates etc. Personally i'd recommend the antares filter or TC's Filtrator!

Be original and have fun!

Hope this helps

Cheers

Jamie

drifterman_ · Post by **drifterman_** » Tue May 27, 2008 1:00 am

Some great tips here big up

fixation · Post by **fixation** » Tue May 27, 2008 10:04 am

thanks very much, some good stuff for a beginner like me

wub · Post by **wub** » Tue May 27, 2008 10:22 am

Docwra wrote: On the master channel i always keep the waves rverb on it set to the medium nightclub setting (Obviously turned off when im making my track). Basically when you play your track through this reverb it's pretty close to how it's gonna sound in a club, so is good for telling if something sounds muddy or isn't cutting it through the mix!

Great tip

legend4ry · Post by **legend4ry** » Tue May 27, 2008 10:52 am

Docwra wrote:
Always do bounces of your track through different stages. Gd way of telling if levels are balanced and if there are any unwanted frequencies! It's kinda weird but some things you just don't pick up in the sequencer beacuse your ears adjust!

I don't get this..

"bouncing" is?

docwra · Post by **docwra** » Tue May 27, 2008 12:01 pm

Bouncing means exporting your track to an mp3 or wav. When i do bounces i'll do it as an mp3 at a bit rate of 320. Only when im going to master will i bounce wavs.

Also another gd tip in FL is when bouncing dont forget to reset the volume button or your mix is going to sound quiet!

legend4ry · Post by **legend4ry** » Tue May 27, 2008 12:34 pm

Docwra wrote:Bouncing means exporting your track to an mp3 or wav. When i do bounces i'll do it as an mp3 at a bit rate of 320. Only when im going to master will i bounce wavs.

Also another gd tip in FL is when bouncing dont forget to reset the volume button or your mix is going to sound quiet!

Oh fair play, I just call it "exporting" hahaha

Yeah I have been doing this on my new tunes, exporting as wav > Audacity and getting the most DB out of it without clipping etc..

Good tips anyways mate!

illustrativesound · Post by **illustrativesound** » Tue May 27, 2008 1:17 pm

once I 'bounced' a track to WAV into Audacity, and it was just pure white noise, not really sure why.. so I just use 320 mp3.

Any tips for mastering.... like best FL effects for vocals... and the more high end treble sounds, I want a clean sound.... I cant help but think my tunes are muffled, I feel like they need to breath...ya know?

docwra · Post by **docwra** » Tue May 27, 2008 2:06 pm

If your mastering you always want to master from a wav as an mp3 is a compressed audio file. Adding more compression is going to crush it to fuck i imagine so always wav.

Using Chourses and Flanges can really brighten up your sounds. As for mastering the FL plugins are sufficient to get a professional sound if you know what you are doing but i'd would opt for some professional audio mastering tools such as Waves, URS, Sony Oxford etc, if you can get your hands on these

docwra · Post by **docwra** » Tue May 27, 2008 2:07 pm

Another gd way to give something width if it's lacking, say for example you are processing a bass is to clone the top/middle end frequency and pan 1 layer so much to the left and another so much to the right. Personal preference how much u pan it.

docwra · Post by **docwra** » Tue May 27, 2008 2:11 pm

A gd way of tightening up drums is just by simply using a simple but effective envelope. Only use the decay to dictate how open the sound is gonna be and u'll find it can give your sound more punch and a glitchy effect.

Also another thing i've been experimenting lately is using the arpeggiator on the FL Slicer when i've got a break i've made loaded. Fuck bout with the speed and the gate and the envelope decay and you can get some weird glitchy sounds

__________ · Post by **__________** » Tue May 27, 2008 2:31 pm

IllustrativeSound wrote:once I 'bounced' a track to WAV into Audacity, and it was just pure white noise, not really sure why.. so I just use 320 mp3.

that'll be because you had the .wav settings as something your soundcard or computer can't handle.

bounce it as normal 16 bit .wav and it should be fine. my laptop can't handle 32 bit float (16.

either, but does 32 bit float (0.24) and 16 bit int just fine.

recording audio from fl with your interpolation and sample rate set high in your audio properties sounds better than a straight bounce in my opinion.

illustrativesound · Post by **illustrativesound** » Tue May 27, 2008 4:01 pm

oh okay, cheers for the tippage. There is one thing though, about mastering a WAV instead, I do all mastering inside FL before bouncing it... so what would that make it? (pre MP3/WAV) whats the best thing to do!?!?

also,a bout cloning and panning the mid-high frequencies, how do you go about selected those areas as a whole??? I usually EQ instruments individually instead of the frequencies bands....

sorry if my terminology sounds newbie, I technically am a noob.

docwra · Post by **docwra** » Tue May 27, 2008 4:12 pm

I do my mastering in FL but in a separate FL project. So basically once iv finished my track i'll bounce it to wav at the highest quality possible. Then bring it back in 2 a new project once it has bounced and work on mastering it from there. You will also find when you bounce an audio file down it takes a hell of a lot quicker to bounce!

As for the cloning method i don't do that all the time it's just a tip if you are not getting enough width of your sound when you've put a Stereo Widener on it. But what i suggest is to send the cloned sounds to the same fx channel where you can EQ them to taste if thats what you mean?

shibboleth · Post by **shibboleth** » Tue May 27, 2008 8:05 pm

best thing i ever found in FL studio was loading in sine wave shapes from the shapes/sytrus folder into the sampler and pissing about with the pan/volume/cut/pitch n resonance LFOS/envolopes = the shit for subs

docwra · Post by **docwra** » Tue May 27, 2008 10:20 pm

Synthetic hits are also good for punch in drum layering.

Also another good way for raw synths is to load wavetones exported from wavelab and make a process chain of effects. Just as good as a synth

hxdb · Post by **hxdb** » Tue May 27, 2008 10:45 pm

Nice wan Jamie!

docwra · Post by **docwra** » Sat May 31, 2008 5:17 pm

greenseed · Post by **greenseed** » Sat May 31, 2008 7:03 pm

great info here
thx

cryptic · Post by **cryptic** » Sat May 31, 2008 8:58 pm

ctrl + s

The best tip in the world

Some good stuff there docwra!

Some tips that you might find useful and FL Tips

Some tips that you might find useful and FL Tips

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