What software do you use and why?
- Thread starter Defy
- Start date
True, those built-in sounds suck and are corny sounding. But either way, I don't blame the FL Studio company for putting them in there. The way I see it, those sounds were just put there to fill in some space and for means to get you started with something. Basically in other words, it's just a starter pack so you can hear the tutorial files and demo songs that come with it, other wise if it did have some really good sounds and a lot of them, the file installer would be much bigger. It's a pretty compact file, compared to others like Reason which is in the gigabytes range since Reason comes with a lot of factory sounds. The hell with that though, I say get your own sounds, find them on the net for free, buy them, etc... The only real sounds you need the most are percussion sounds anyways and sounds like lead synths & synth basses should all be synthesized using synth plugins (VSTi's) rather than being samples. Pretty much anything acoustic in form should be sampled, such as percussion instruments, piano, guitar, bass guitar. However, a lot of acoustic sounds CAN be synthesized to sound quite real like guitars especially and string sounds such as violins for background sounds.
As far as some VSTs sounding shitty. That's true, but you probably fucked with the wrong ones or didn't fully adjust them right. All those freeware ones I suggested sound really good IMO. Even if the sound your working with sounds a bit shitty or corny, it could be because a lack of FX, some FX like reverb can soften up the sound of certain synth sounds, also chorus/flanger/Delay FX can phatten them up a bit if they sound a bit thin. You got to fuck with the synths themselves of course before resorting to any FX, mess with the Filters if it sounds too harsh or too soft, ADSR Envelopes, Unison/Voices. You just got to play around with them.
thanks again man, i'm pretty much self-taught and this is the first real advice anybody's given me. i usually don't mess with the FX too much, but i've started to, i'm still learning alot, seein as i don't get to fuck around as much as i'd like, just here and there... maybe an hour or two a week, if that. my friend keeps tellin me that i should start gettin serious and try to get into it professionally, but rite now its just sorta like a hobby. i'm too busy with other shit to get REAL serious rite now. but thx 4 the advice, i'll definately keep it in mind.
I been usin FL Studio for years and the 1st thing i learned was to not use any sounds that it comes wit.....i mainly use it as a sequencing tool for my vst and dxi synths and all MY OWN drum samples ive collected over the years....
A lot of people prefer reasons and i believe its only cuz they learned how to use it 1st and got comfortable wit how it works and when they tried FL it wasnt what they were use to. i have yet to see an experianced FL user want to switch to reasons though.....ive fucced wit reason a lil and theres a hundred ways that FL is better..... one of the main reasons is VST/DXi compatibilaty.....reasons does not support these plugins so you have to pay for refills or wait till someone hooks you up wit them or sample your own sounds from some other source and make them compatible.....which is jus way too much work if you ask me.....dont get me wrong though ive met a few cats who make super slaps wit reason but after watchin them get down i think these same folks would be makin even better beats if they knew how to work FL the way i do.......
right now i run FL Studio 6....i use the ReFX Vanguard VST, the RGC Audio z3ta+ VST, RGC Audio Pentagon VST, Edirol Orchestral VST, Edirol Super Quartet VST, Korg Legacy Collections M-1 and Wavestation VST (most sounds youll find on any KORG hardware are in this plugin)....these are the main meat and potatoes that i use for any of my beats along wit good quality drums ive collected from various sources.....every now and then ill use a new freeware version vst but most of the time these are crap.....all the vst's i mentioned above cost around $200-300 a piece but if you know what you doin and spend the time it wont cost you shit.....
and now i have Cubase SX3 at home as well as at the studio i record at and work with other artists so now i jus make my beats in FL at 4 a bar loop (unless its on the rare occasion that i make an 8 bar beat), i assign each and every sound to its own FX channel in the mixer and when you export to wave it gives you an option to split mixer traccs(another example of why FL is better than reasons).....so when its done i have a 4 bar loop of each sound plus one master loop of the whole beat.....then i take these wav samples and drop em in cubase and copy the whole thing over and over till its long enough for a song....Now each seperate sound can be mixed along with vocal traccs you record(if a bassline is too loud or blendin too much with a vocal it can be adjusted right in the mix without goin bacc to FL) .......if an artist or myself is achin to record right away ill play the master loop fpr them to rap on then go bacc to the beat traccs and break em down later (takin away parts ie: erase a bass drum tracc or bassline or snare etc....)
You could always break the beat down in fruity loops playlist as well and tracc out each sound so that when you load the traccs in a recordin program the beat is already broken down the way you want it and you can mix the sounds....but this takes a whole lot more roon cuz if the song is 4 minutes long then each sound will be 4 minutes long no matter how much empty space is in the tracc or not....meaning when they are split into wav files youll have a multitude of wav files around 30- 40 mb a piece and that can get real heavy on your hard drive after a while.....i only do this if traccin out a beat for someone i dont work closely with in the studio....and i put it on CD so its not takin up room on my HD......when i do it the normal way i mentioned above i get a beat with typically 8-12 sounds split into wav files around 5mb each and thas all the space that gets takin up on the HD.....cuz when you copy em over and over in Cubase its jus repeating a graphical image of the wav file not an actual wav.....
thas jus how i do it though and ive come to this after years of workin wit FL and leanrin on my own....i still want to get more hardware but im a broke ass cat and this has been the most affordable way for me to get my creativity out there.....
i have a sample of some beats here:
http://myspace.com/valleypain
its jus one song wit 3 beats mixed in it.....one hyphy beat, one lil jon style one, and one like Jeezy would rap on.....all of em done real quic in FL.....i got way better ones though.....
A lot of people prefer reasons and i believe its only cuz they learned how to use it 1st and got comfortable wit how it works and when they tried FL it wasnt what they were use to. i have yet to see an experianced FL user want to switch to reasons though.....ive fucced wit reason a lil and theres a hundred ways that FL is better..... one of the main reasons is VST/DXi compatibilaty.....reasons does not support these plugins so you have to pay for refills or wait till someone hooks you up wit them or sample your own sounds from some other source and make them compatible.....which is jus way too much work if you ask me.....dont get me wrong though ive met a few cats who make super slaps wit reason but after watchin them get down i think these same folks would be makin even better beats if they knew how to work FL the way i do.......
right now i run FL Studio 6....i use the ReFX Vanguard VST, the RGC Audio z3ta+ VST, RGC Audio Pentagon VST, Edirol Orchestral VST, Edirol Super Quartet VST, Korg Legacy Collections M-1 and Wavestation VST (most sounds youll find on any KORG hardware are in this plugin)....these are the main meat and potatoes that i use for any of my beats along wit good quality drums ive collected from various sources.....every now and then ill use a new freeware version vst but most of the time these are crap.....all the vst's i mentioned above cost around $200-300 a piece but if you know what you doin and spend the time it wont cost you shit.....
and now i have Cubase SX3 at home as well as at the studio i record at and work with other artists so now i jus make my beats in FL at 4 a bar loop (unless its on the rare occasion that i make an 8 bar beat), i assign each and every sound to its own FX channel in the mixer and when you export to wave it gives you an option to split mixer traccs(another example of why FL is better than reasons).....so when its done i have a 4 bar loop of each sound plus one master loop of the whole beat.....then i take these wav samples and drop em in cubase and copy the whole thing over and over till its long enough for a song....Now each seperate sound can be mixed along with vocal traccs you record(if a bassline is too loud or blendin too much with a vocal it can be adjusted right in the mix without goin bacc to FL) .......if an artist or myself is achin to record right away ill play the master loop fpr them to rap on then go bacc to the beat traccs and break em down later (takin away parts ie: erase a bass drum tracc or bassline or snare etc....)
You could always break the beat down in fruity loops playlist as well and tracc out each sound so that when you load the traccs in a recordin program the beat is already broken down the way you want it and you can mix the sounds....but this takes a whole lot more roon cuz if the song is 4 minutes long then each sound will be 4 minutes long no matter how much empty space is in the tracc or not....meaning when they are split into wav files youll have a multitude of wav files around 30- 40 mb a piece and that can get real heavy on your hard drive after a while.....i only do this if traccin out a beat for someone i dont work closely with in the studio....and i put it on CD so its not takin up room on my HD......when i do it the normal way i mentioned above i get a beat with typically 8-12 sounds split into wav files around 5mb each and thas all the space that gets takin up on the HD.....cuz when you copy em over and over in Cubase its jus repeating a graphical image of the wav file not an actual wav.....
thas jus how i do it though and ive come to this after years of workin wit FL and leanrin on my own....i still want to get more hardware but im a broke ass cat and this has been the most affordable way for me to get my creativity out there.....
i have a sample of some beats here:
http://myspace.com/valleypain
its jus one song wit 3 beats mixed in it.....one hyphy beat, one lil jon style one, and one like Jeezy would rap on.....all of em done real quic in FL.....i got way better ones though.....