Taking a first step into FL Studio… HELP!
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Alchemy432.
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December 2, 2013 at 1:29 pm #1017347
Vesper
ParticipantFor the record, I know some basic controls (Panning, Soloing, Muting, Etc…). And only a couple of basic ones (W-Length makes the tone more or less “clean”, and Low-Pass-Filter will only allow Low tones if i twiddle the parameters enough lol)
December 3, 2013 at 8:55 am #1017407Terry_42
KeymasterLearn music theory… it will get you started.
December 3, 2013 at 3:07 pm #1017429ParticipantGot any suggestions on where to learn? I didn’t take any music qualifications and I don’t know a thing about music theory (I preferred the freedom of learning what you wanna learn when you wanna learn it. Oh, And the fact i didn’t know i was into DJing when i had the option lol)
December 4, 2013 at 9:50 am #1017442KeymasterWell you do not need to learn all the hard stuff in music theory, so I would not worry about all the scales and such things in the beginning.
What you should know is basic song structure, the book “how to write a pop song” is actually quite good. And you should know the basics about rhythm and harmonic matching. Any basic music theory introduction book will do that in the first chapters, just make sure you get one for modern music, so you spare yourself the whole church and classic music structures…
Just learning the tool, in uour case FL studio, will not make you a producer, It can only make you a experimental clown, sorry to be so frank, and nobody will take your songs seriously, as in 99% of the cases you can hear that after the first few beats…
December 5, 2013 at 7:39 pm #1017514ParticipantBetter to be honest lol. I know there’s always a clear division between people who are wannabes, and people who are producers. I’d hate to be in the classifaction of “A kid who began making EDM because he though Skrillex and Zedd looked cool and he wanted to be like that”
December 9, 2013 at 9:11 am #1017604KeymasterIndeed and actually Skrillex does know quite a lot about music, I was fortunate to meet him and was surprised myself. Some people underestimate him and Deamau5 especially…
February 13, 2014 at 3:49 am #2003198Lamid45G
ParticipantJust learning the tool, in uour case FL studio, will not make you a producer, It can only make you a experimental clown, sorry to be so frank, and nobody will take your songs seriously, as in 99% of the cases you can hear that after the first few beats…
Sorry to bump and old threats, but I was just wonderin what you recommended then if I want folks to take my songs seriously ?
February 13, 2014 at 8:55 am #2003307Keymaster2 things are the main thing when I hear the first few bars of a song:
1. proper chord progression
2. proper song structuring
Both however also depend on the genre you do. For example house, techno and even dubstep while being quite different have a very traditional song progression, mostly following one of the more basic chord scales.
If you go new wave (now actually old wave hehe), Industrial, Body Trance,… this might not be the case and the rules are quite different, there might even be singing (or what they call singing) starting at the “wrong” bar (intermediate vocal insertion) that would be totally unfitting in a pop-house song.So get to know the scales and song structures that your genre operates on and you have 80% of the work done. The rest is then proper beattiming, good audio quality, good quality of synths and material used,… but for example Ableton does a lot of those things for you…
February 13, 2014 at 10:19 am #2003316ParticipantSo basically Fruity Loops not supporting for a good quality synths and materials ?
February 14, 2014 at 9:02 am #2003545KeymasterNope FL has different plugins some good some bad, but the OP was asking about FL without knowing anything about music theory and the genre itself. Hence the songs made would be with almost certainty use the wrong song structure and the wrong musical scale.
It is again not about the tool, but when producing the tool you actually use is unimportant. 80% of production is done in your head and on paper. If you have no way (in your head) to get a musical idea into a scale and structure that will fit the genre you want to cater to, then you will fail not matter what tool you are using.Take for example the following song. I wanted to do something with a sitar, we only used garage band and looped most of the instruments after we had the first few scales played in. So the song actually has been made with very little in terms of playing instruments and using GarageBand (which many consider a non-pro tool). Also while it has Sitar it is a Pop-Song from structure and scale (why many people liked it although I ment it as a joke…)
February 19, 2014 at 8:26 pm #2005343Weaver
ParticipantThere are basically two parts:
Learning your tools, and learning music.To learn how to use FL studio Seamless had an amazing basics series on it.
If you want to dive into music theory, I recommend “Music Theory for Computer Musicians”
February 20, 2014 at 9:18 am #2005581KeymasterI second that book is very good.
February 20, 2014 at 10:50 am #2005590DJ Vintage
ModeratorYou mean actual book … as in paper … and reading and such? … mmmm
March 20, 2014 at 8:53 am #2012766Alchemy432
ParticipantFor what its worth, I’ve been producing for a decade now, I’ve used Sony Acid Pro, Fruity Loops, Cakewalk Sonar, Pro Tools, Cubase & Logic Pro.
From my experience, Fruity Loops does things very awkwardly compared to the others, and has an interface with less similarities to the others mentioned, then any of the others mentioned. Cubase has the nicest stock inbuilt synths and fx and is easy to add extra instruments and fx too, but has a steep initial learning curve. Sonar and Acid Pro (discontinued) are easier stepping stones to get you to cubase or logic pro or pro tools which is (as a producer) where I would say you would want to end up.
For your current needs however, and seeing as you are finding it frustrating to figure out all the bells & whistles of fruity loops I’d suggest Ableton Live. It can do everything Fruity loops can do. and has inbuilt instructions that can guide you from within the software as you continue to work on stuff, for as long as you want, when you feel you can work without the guides and tips, you can close those windows for good and have more workspace, and know what to do with it.
hope that helps some!
March 20, 2014 at 9:15 am #2012774Participantalso as a lifelong musician,
my opinion is that learning music theory is not necessary, or easy, or fun; and it can even work against your creativity by setting up far too many ‘rules’ which leave you sounding exactly like everyone else. yay.
it only becomes necessary when you want to do more complicated things, or say, be able to enjoy classical music.If you are learning piano, download synthesia. its like guitar hero for you midi keyboard.
If you are learning guitar, download Tab’s, and learn to read them, its a simplified version of proper sheet music and there are videos that can teach you to read the stuff in one lesson, as its not nearly as complicated as tradition sheet music, which is flawed anyway particularly when it comes to guitar. Or buy rocksmith for your computer or video game console and learn guitar via a guitar hero/rockband style interface. much more fun.
if learning any instruments, the most fun and encouraging way I’ve found to do so is to choose a song you enjoy listening to that “sounds” easy, and aim to learn that. you will pick up the essentials along the way. optiosn include downloading the midi and importing it for use with Synthesia, or downloading the guitar tabs for guitar or bass or ukelele or whatever, and start practicing along with the song. if its too fast, slow it down inside fruity loops, select a few bars to loop, and play along with the loop, one important thing to note is that your ears will get more educated the more you stick at this and at the end of the day your ears are what you should be using to determine if something sounds good or not.
Often websites will show you the correct chord fingering for the song you are trying to learn, eliminating the need to know the names of the chords themselves. Once you can play a song or two, you should have enough built up enthusiasm, and knowledge of the general basics, to try to learn more advanced or complicated music theory.
Also when you see a musical symbol in Fruity Loops or whatever you choose to use (doesn’t matter – a good tradesman doesn’t blame their tools) that you don’t understand or recognize, Google is your friend.
In this way you can learn to solve problems you face as you encounter them, allowing you to work creatively at the same time (which is the fun part) but whatever you do, don’t try to tackle things that actually discourage you from wanting to continue to learn before your ready, because the most important part is actually starting, and then sticking with it (and having fun). eventually you will find the things that made you want to give it all up in the early stages, will not be so intimidating or confusing down the road.
Also regarding learning music theory with only your mouse, keyboard & a D.A.W, it will take longer, leave you knowing less and generally be more of a headache, then trying to learn a real instrument (the ukelele is easier then guitar, and bass is easier still) its easier, faster & more fun to learn a real instrument and then apply what you have learnt to the synthesizer etc on your D.A.W later.
At least that’s what I think anyway.
Peace!
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