Is there anything better or comparable to this? - http://www.flstudio.com/
nope
well...cubase maybe, but fruity is easier to handle
I find Fruity Loops fairly easy, except the name. LOL Anyway, just checking. Thank you for answering, child@play.
fl studios a great program very easy to use
one of my freinds at school says garage band is pretty good never tried it though
It depends on how much you willing to pay, Cubase is a good option but the software your likely to find in professional studios is Pro-Tools which is a combination of software and hardware although you can use Pro-Tools without the hardware if you want.
Regards to you.
Cyber-Angel
FL Studio is certainly the best one I've used aswell.
This is a link to my ...cough-cough... Myspace blog page... cough-splutter.
Ignore anything you might read there, what I'm posting it here for is the Flash MP3 player, the first 2 songs on it were made in FLStudio 6 with the slayer plugin. They're only crappy digital representations of a couple of my songs because I didn't have any recording equipment.
I may well be getting some though so, I'll be uploading some proper analogue recordings with real guitars/drums/etc. at some point in the future.
FruityLoops is a great all rounder, stick with that for sure.
Thanks guys! More information is helping. ;D
@dandel0 - Do I need to sign in to hear these MP3s? I wasn't able to find them. Can you assist?
Sorry, Calico, I posted the wrong url. Try this one...
http://www.myspace.com/stonefinger (http://www.myspace.com/stonefinger)
At the right hand side of the page you'll see the blog section, click on 'view all blog entries' to go to the page with the player on it. They're pretty rough but it shows that FLStudio isn't just good specificaly for dance/jungle/etc. style music.
Thanks, dandel0. I have played with this before (demo version) and like what it can do. Not sure about the version...but thinking.
The next step up from FL in my opinion is Reason (http://www.propellerheads.se/). ;D
- Oshyan
yes i have got reason 4 its easy to use and not as cluttered as fl studio
I've been through just about every audio app going, Protools included and although I don't use Windows much now I would say that FL Studio is the best app on that platform. It is maybe not so straightforward to use in UI terms compared to more standard type sequencers but it's easy and quite fast once you know how. It is actually very powerful. Not as toy like as the UI might suggest. There are lots of quirky things in FL Studio. You can "play" a picture file for example. My prime app is Logic Pro on Mac but I miss some of the quirky things in FL. It has very nice easy to experiment with random generation.
Cool. More feedback. I appreciate the opinions. I'll look at a demo of Reason. Once I tried FL, I liked it a lot.
Quote from: Oshyan on April 18, 2008, 12:37:45 AM
The next step up from FL in my opinion is Reason (http://www.propellerheads.se/). ;D
- Oshyan
Reason is very good but, unlike Cubase, it doesn't have the full range of MIDI controllers (which isn't much of a problem if you don't use them).
I find that I only ever really need Sibelius, Cubase, HALion, Groove Agent and Audacity. Of course, they're really expensive... :'(
Oh cool! Music stuff,yay!
I went on a major hardware synth tack a while ago, but I still keep Cubase and misc. software toys around. Recently I've considered selling my hardware synths and some other lightly used gear for a Receptor. ::) Not close to that yet though, don't have time for one thing .. :D
One of the simplest to use loop arranger/composers is Tuareg (www.brambos.com). Version 1.5 is really, really basic, but the UI is so intuitive, if you have a bunch of audio loops around (trimmed to loop points), you can cook up wack beats with it in no time. The biggest drawback from me is that I love the loop slicer but it doesn't crossfade so you get pops/etc. I've actually arranged some sliced beats in Tuareg and then reproduced them in some other free loop slicer (that did do crossfading). I still have some unfinished stuff from Tu .. gar. The same guy also wrote a VST host/arranger. Tu2 is a refinement of Tuareg 1.x, a decent one, but the 1.5 UI was a wonderful creative leap, worth playing around with just to experience a really fun paradigm for arranging. If you can customize another software interface (like Cubase) with custom controls to do the "stack of dj crossfade mixers" arrangement that Tu2 and Tuareg have, it's worth a peek just for that.
Anyone here do "live looping", a la www.loopers-delight.com?
@Arandil - This is all so wonderful and over my head, I'm grateful for your energy. I just wonder how much I will understand of all this until I get something and start playing around. This is really nice, I'll check out the URLs.
Enjoy! I imagine you got into Terragen on your own somewhere and then sussed it out, if you can do that you shouldn't have a problem sussing audio software. Bram Bos is good guy, the Tu yahoo group isn't that active anymore, but it has great archives. My wife is a teacher, and I showed her Terragen (0.9) and Tuareg 1.5 about 5 years ago. Bram gave her a very generous educational discount on Tuareg licenses for her school, so she could teach it. She taught both of those software "toys" to middle school kids and they went absolutely NUTS over them.
The hardest thing about audio, for me, was getting the picture in my head of how things work together (lo, these many years ago .. lol!). Basically, the main Tuareg GUI is what really makes it fun to play with. It's basically like this:
Track 1 <crossfade mixer> Track 2
Track 3 <crossfade mixer> Track 4
Track 5 <crossfade mixer> Track 6
... etc.
OK, so each track above is simply a single, independent audio source from all the other tracks (i.e. a single .wav file, mono or stereo).
But that <crossfade mixer> is what makes Tu really fun. You would load up a .wav file loop into Track 1, and another one (or even the same one!) into Track 2. Then, you play with the crossfade mixer and the effects for each track. There's preset crossfades you can select or can you draw your own. All the crossfade mixer does is determine whether you hear only Track 1, only Track 2 or both together, but when you stack six of them on top of one another, you suddenly have this very simple but powerful pattern/loop arranger.
This may all go over your head now, but once you sit down and play with it, then you can come back to this thread and follow it.
TIPS:
* Grab all of the free .wav loops you can from the web. The beginning and end of the .wav file should (ideally) "wrap around" in a loop, so that if you play that single .wav file in any media play with 'track repeat', the end of the audio just wraps around right to the beginning seamlessly. A lot of the .wav loops you get on CD are "untrimmed", meaning: they've got extra audio at the beginning and end of the file. Most free .wav loops I've found on the web have been trimmed though.
* Play with just the top two tracks in Tuareg, all of the other tracks do exactly the same dang thing, so if you get one of them figured out, you've got the whole stack figured out.
* Watch your output volume for each track and for the main output too. You probably shouldn't have any volume faders at maximum unless you've only got a handful of elements in the mix. Tuareg 1.5 doesn't have an output meter, so you can't tell if you're playing any audio track too loud (so that it distorts) or if the combined volume of all the tracks is too loud (distorting the combined audio result).
* If you're totally new to pattern music arranging, see if you can find a free drum machine called 'Hammerhead'. It's also written by Bram and is one of the simplest free drum machine programs around. Playing around with Hammerhead will teach you the basics of drum pattern arranging, and you can save the results as a .wav loop to use in Tuareg or any software.
I love running into audio folks on video forums and vice-versa. I'm just waiting to run into any hardcore Orbiter fans up here now. ;D
EDIT:
Ok, I just actually went to Bram's site and it appears he's removed Tuareg 1.5 (only has 2.5 up there now). 2.5 is definitely a better program than 1.5, but 1.5 was really easy to get into and learn from. I'll see if I can find an archive of it somewhere. In the meantime, Tu 2.5 is 1.5 on steroids and works essentially the same way, with a number of elaborations (so it's a little harder to navigate, but it's definitely more powerful).
The Tunafish software is a plugin host (it runs VST audio plugins - synths and effects, etc. - and there's tons of free VST plugins out on the Internet). But it also has a .wav sequencer. Tunafish is a great portable VST host, I may have to check out the latest version, as I haven't yet.
Quote from: Arandil on April 19, 2008, 01:57:06 PM
Anyone here do "live looping", a la www.loopers-delight.com?
I do a good bit of looping, live style. I use normal delays and a home made tape looper at times. I also have an Akai S20 sampler which is just about the fastest sampler there is.
As for music programs, I am a big fan of Adobe Audition, and have been using it since the Cool Edit Pro days (before Adobe bought it). It's not difficult to use IMO, but quite different from FL and Reason since it is more of an audio editor than a "virtual studio".
Quote from: Muied Lumens on April 20, 2008, 02:19:16 PM
I do a good bit of looping, live style. I use normal delays and a home made tape looper at times. I also have an Akai S20 sampler which is just about the fastest sampler there is.
Cool! Homemade tape looper? Reel to reel, separate physical record/playback head/channels, et. al? Or did you circuit bend a cassette tape looper? ;D I've never looped with a dedicated sampler, do you use a foot controller or something to send it the midi? Got any stuff posted to listen to? If you happen to be anywhere near Colorado, please send me a PM. :)
I have an Electrix Repeater and delays, but I need to repair my left/mono input on the Repeater so I haven't been using it. Instead, coincidentally, I've gone back to just playing with delays using feedback pedals and having lots of fun (even broke out the ebow again :o :D). I'm using a Lexicon MPX-1 and a Vortex, with a pedal patched to each for controlling delay feedback (mostly looping guitar, synths, singing bowls sometimes). Lots of fun with guitar and synth, but I miss being able to conveniently arrange percussion loops with the Repeater so I'll bring that back at some point, or replace it with something similar (seeing how Electrix is now defunct .. for the second time), like a Looperlative .. after I sell my car, or something ...
QuoteAs for music programs, I am a big fan of Adobe Audition, and have been using it since the Cool Edit Pro days (before Adobe bought it). It's not difficult to use IMO, but quite different from FL and Reason since it is more of an audio editor than a "virtual studio".
Cool Edit Pro was a classic. I used CEP to clean up old jazz 45s for a drummer friend of mine once, and it did the job nicely.
Cheers
Arandil, this basic concept sounds exactly the same as FL, except in FL the loops are synthesized generated music notes. At least, this is true from what I've done with FL. When I have time to look at Tuareg, I'll come straight back here to go over this. Thank you for the explanation.
Quote from: calico on April 20, 2008, 06:09:29 PM
Arandil, this basic concept sounds exactly the same as FL, except in FL the loops are synthesized generated music notes. At least, this is true from what I've done with FL. When I have time to look at Tuareg, I'll come straight back here to go over this. Thank you for the explanation.
Fruity's a LOT more flexible and deep, and I'm only going off the version I played with years ago. I'm sure it's pretty wack now, I might have to take a peek and see what they've been up to.
Cheers
Quote from: Arandil on April 20, 2008, 02:49:42 PM
... Or did you circuit bend a cassette tape looper? ;D
Exactly! ;D ;D
(http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd162/muied_lumens/IMG_0037.jpg)
I have not been able to use it for some time now, but have plans of setting up everything soon. It sounds very grungy, and isn't suitable on everything. I put in a switch for the eraser head so that I can overdub when needed.
Quote
I've never looped with a dedicated sampler, do you use a foot controller or something to send it the midi? Got any stuff posted to listen to? If you happen to be anywhere near Colorado, please send me a PM. :)
I'm in the UK. :(
My looping is not too obvious, as I do a lot of other things too, like introduce feedback into the loop and then process things after, chop and then maybe process again, etc. I use the S20 to capture things on the fly, all it takes is three button presses to get a loop, but it won't accept a foot pedal. I also use an MPC 2000, a Digitech Studio Quad (which has 10 sec delays) and a Ensoniq DP/2. But a Repeater would be fantastic! I am incredibly tempted to buy one, but the price hurts! :o
Anyway, here is a link to some music:
http://www.soundclick.com/muiedlumens (http://www.soundclick.com/muiedlumens)
Quote from: Arandil on April 20, 2008, 06:14:47 PM
Quote from: calico on April 20, 2008, 06:09:29 PM
Arandil, this basic concept sounds exactly the same as FL, except in FL the loops are synthesized generated music notes. At least, this is true from what I've done with FL. When I have time to look at Tuareg, I'll come straight back here to go over this. Thank you for the explanation.
Fruity's a LOT more flexible and deep, and I'm only going off the version I played with years ago. I'm sure it's pretty wack now, I might have to take a peek and see what they've been up to.
Cheers
Ableton Live started out as a live looping program where you could fly in samples on the go, or record them from the inputs while playing others. It has developed a lot since then, with MIDI and Vst capabilities plus a lot more, but still has this basic functionalty as far as I'm concerned.
;D I so called it .. ;D
That's awesome. I've never taken the time to do a real tape loop. I'll check out your stuff and try to get some of mine up. Fun!
Cheers!
EDIT:
I was on the fence with Ableton. On the one hand, nice arrangement tool, on the other, haven't had a chance to suss out the real time looping capabilities, and haven't heard yet that it can really do that well. In the meantime, hardware .. :P
EDIT2:
Oh, and I cannot recommend buying a Repeater, unfortunately. The company, Electrix, went belly up for the 2nd time and I only know of one guy, really, who can really fix them now. I'd save for an Echoplex Digital Pro or a Looperlative instead, they're robust and supported. Or, have you seen this guy's stuff? http://manecolooper.tripod.com/ (http://manecolooper.tripod.com/)
I haven't touched Ableton yet, just seen others put it into action. But as I'm getting a MacBook I might have a closer look...
Looking forwards to hearing your stuff Arandil! ;D
Quote from: Oshyan on April 18, 2008, 12:37:45 AM
The next step up from FL in my opinion is Reason (http://www.propellerheads.se/). ;D
- Oshyan
Is this some type of logical argument? ;D