Mixing (or not) in FL Studio

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by Lawrence
Off topic here but... don't mix in FL.. I love it and use it a lot but I mix in SX. Get a light version of a daw ($99) to run FL inside of and mix in that. You'll be happier.

Originally Posted by DAH
Man can you prove it? any arguments?

Didn't want to clog up the mp3 thread with OT post so I'll do this here.

Fruity Loops is a great program, I do a lot of my production there and mixing music created there inside of it works great. What I menat by "don't mix in FL" is to say that if you use FL as your daw (with no other app) for vocals and everythig else, you'll be better off using a daw with FL running in it as a VSTI if you're tracking and mixing vocals or other acoustic parts.

Overall you'll have more flexibility in a lot of areas including automation.

FL Studio was not designed to be a daw. It's a sample based (and midi) production environment. They're adding great daw-like features and it's looking good. I suspect it will eventually become a full fledged daw comparable to many of the light versions of other daws.

A user however would be much better off running a VSTI instance in something like Cubase SE or SL or even LE and tracking the vocals and other acoutic tracks there, and mixing from there.

That's what I do, feed stems from the VSTI into the SX mixer and mix them like audio tracks. Faders and travel are a lot bigger to get the right level, automation is a lot better, etc. etc.

Lawrence

[DAH]

just the matter of taste... if you do mean "sound in FL sucks compared to Cubase`s" the only thing i can say:"Nope"
yes, sometimes working with audiotracks in FL is a little bit uncomfy, but... i`ve just got used to it.
Frukt rulezzz b/p! - as I have printed on my T-shirt

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by DAH

just the matter of taste... if you do mean "sound in FL sucks compared to Cubase`s" the only thing i can say:"Nope"
yes, sometimes working with audiotracks in FL is a little bit uncomfy, but... i`ve just got used to it.
Frukt rulezzz b/p! - as I have printed on my T-shirt

No, the sound of FL is fine. It sounds great... that's certainly not what I meant. Just like you said it's a little tricky working with audio tracks in there. After working with audio tracks in a standard daw it's more than a little uncomfy for me. But you can get it done, it just takes longer.

Putting it in a shell (any low cost daw) would probably make the _resulting mix_ better. Not due to the sound of FL though.

But like you said... it sounds really good by itself standalone. I absolutely love that program.

Lawrence

[cynic one]

made this today in fl....bass from the se1, bits from sidstation...

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/attac...9&d=1152144566

[upscaps]

Originally Posted by cynic

made this today in fl....bass from the se1, bits from sidstation...

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/attac...9&d=1152144566

FL, like reason has a very thin sound to it. I listened to clip above and it was def small. drums r real tiny. drums r usually the dead giveaway. I have a laptop that i use w/ gigasampler, reason, kontakt2 and i come out multichannel into the board and run thru some preamps/fatso. it comes extremely close in sound to my hardware synth/mpc setup that i run thru same preamps/fatso

if u stayin in the computer, colortone pro on different channels makes a big difference.

[cynic one]

Originally Posted by upscaps

FL, like reason has a very thin sound to it. I listened to clip above and it was def small. drums r real tiny. drums r usually the dead giveaway. I have a laptop that i use w/ gigasampler, reason, kontakt2 and i come out multichannel into the board and run thru some preamps/fatso. it comes extremely close in sound to my hardware synth/mpc setup that i run thru same preamps/fatso

if u stayin in the computer, colortone pro on different channels makes a big difference.

tiny? those drums THUMP...what are you listening to it on laptop speakers? the shit is bangin hella loud on my monitoring setup. the bass is almost _too_ much.

i've been looking @ picking up a fatso, haven't done that yet though. how would you say it improves your computer mixes?

[upscaps]

im listening in my studio w/ adams and a sub.

there's a difference between loud and full.

fl and reason fall off badly when u compare the fullness of the sound to a motif or mpc3000 which i still use as well. synths & drums r super thin. do a comparison to a song thats out and in ur same genre.

It took me a few to get the same fullness/thickness i was used to having from an 9000 or Neve console in da box. fatso's and neve preamps help alot on hardware synths/mpc and help even greater on reason, gigasampler. u can also do some wonders if u bounce/rewire out and rock a little colortone pro on idividual tracks. not the same but good results.

[chester]

hi!

all starts with a good sample, thats all! Equal if its logic, fruity, reason etc.
Those samples in the Motif and other Workstations were processed over years to get
an unique sound. Compression and Eq helps alot for thin sounds. But best is too start with a good sound first.

ciao

chester

[cynic one]

Originally Posted by adamatic

I try to keep my mixer / step seq volumes really conservative when mixing ITB with FL. That FL ass sound people complain about is caused by having everything turned up too loud and the resulting clipping / shred that occurs. Really that isn't that hard to get that shred sound from any daw out there, FL just has that repuatation cause it has kinda fiddly gain-staging and alot of the userbase isn't the most clued up crowd on the planet.

no shit, that combined with the soft clip plugin is what's up....

[Lawrence]

FL is perfect for fattening up drums by layering 4 kicks or 2 snares but again, I bring those out to discreet daw tracks for mixing. Rendered as audio or playing from the VSTI.

I do like some of the FL plugins though like the parametric EQ... that's a nice EQ. It's just that the faders and knobs in FL don't seem to give access to precise level setting (and pan) as I get in SX when I run it as a VSTI. I can get a faster (an ultimately better) mix of the FL tracks as discreet daw tracks than I can in FL.

As far as it sounding "thin" in standalone mode? I don't find that true at all... if sounds pretty fat to me.

Lawrence