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FL Studio Tutorial 1: The Basics

2006-07-21T01:46:19-04:00

OK, I am going to try to start a series of FL studio tutorials for those who are struggling with the program or just want to learn it. I'm pretty much just winging it on this tutorial, so there's likely to be lots of editing things in I missed and the like. Anyways, as any good tutorial series should, I'm starting the first lesson with the basics of fl, where hopefully someone could come in thats never even heard of fl and begin using it. First let's go over the interface. There are 5 key windows that you should know about, the Step Sequencer, mixer, Playlist, Piano Roll, and the Browser. If you notice, there are icons for each of these at the top of the screen. [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/panels.JPG[/img] you can click any of these to toggle showing the window it corresponds to. Some of these are automatically open when you start a new song, however it all depends on the way you set up your environment. I use two monitors, so I stick the step sequencer, mixer, and playlist on my right monitor, which runs at a considerably lower resolution than the left. Here's what my layout looks like, with the windows labeled. [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/SsMxPl.JPG[/img] You can see I pretty much cram everything in there to fill up the monitor. This has really helped me out. On the off chance the theres another dual monitor user out there, you might try a setup similar to this one. Now, just for you, I'll cram the other two windows on to the screen so you can see what they look like as well. [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/PrBr.JPG[/img] Note that there are 2 versions of the piano roll. The one on top is a special version that maps out the drums to specific keys. You don't need to worry about messing with this, just know that you may see this when making drum patterns. The one on the bottom is what you are going to be seeing most of the time So while we're on the topic of the Piano Roll, why not go into to detail on it? Well first we need to create an instrument to use! Go to the trusty step sequencer and right click on any of the instrument names. For this example we'll use the 3x Osc (this instrument will be rather familiar to those that have done any amount of synth programming). after right clicking, go Insert, then 3x Osc [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/3x Osc.JPG[/img] After this you'll see the purple instrument pop up in the step sequencer, and you'll see this window pop up... [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/instrument window.JPG[/img] This is the main instrument window, you can get to this window for each instrument by clicking it's name in the sequencer. This is your headquarters for the instrument. Some more advanced instruments will actually have seperate windows pop up for special control unique to that instrument. For the simple 3x Osc, all the controls fit nicely in the plugin page itself. There are also other tabs which allow an extrodinary amount of control over the sound of any given instrument. Now I could go into detail on each and every button and knob, but for one thing, there are a few things in there that I still dont have a clue what they do, and for another thing the best way to learn these things is experimentation. Write yourself a little loop, let it go, and tweak away! But - you don't know how to do that yet? Well you must be reading this for the first time! Read on... [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/Piano roll.JPG[/img] OK. If you go back to the Step Sequencer, you should now see a new instrument named "3x osc"!! Exciting! Right click on it and select Piano Roll (the first option). There it is! This pic may look a little scary at first, but that's mostly becasue I'm not much of a graphics designer o_0. Just read along and I'll explain everything. I happen to be a very visual learner myself so I like to provide aids like this to go along. The piano roll is something you will be seeing a lot. It is used in virtually every DAW*for midi sequencing, and no matter which program you pick or move on to in the future, it's bound to have this little feature in there somewhere. Pay attention to this next part, because this is a very important concept! The window is laid out on a 2d plane. The x axis (horizontal) is time, while the y axis (vertical) is pitch. Most of the time there is a friendly piano along the y axis to show you what particular pitch you are using. If you don't know where the notes are on a piano, no need to fret, the letter C is marked on each octave with a number indicating it's octave (C0 being the lowest, C10 being the highest). you can see C5 right at the edge of the letter h in Pitch. In most situations, you can click on the keys to trigger them on the affected instrument. Try it out, you can hear our little organ-like instrument. This also works on the keys on the main instrument window from earlier, btw! There is also a tool pallete in the upper left hand corner. The default is the pencil tool, and you aren't going to be changing it much. To create a note click anywhere in the grid. Notes are represented by bars of any given color (green is the default, try clicking the green box in the upper left corner to change it!). After your note appears try clicking and dragging it up and down and all around!! Wow annoying o_0. But quite fun sometimes when you're stuck and very bored. Anyways, after you finish giving yourself a headache. Try right clicking the note. Ah! where did it go?! Good job, you deleted it. Go ahead and create another by left clicking on the grid again. OK, this is getting old, I know, but bear with me. To resize the note, hover over the right edge until your cursor changes to that familiar icon for resizing windows and such. Click and drag left and right to change the length of your note. This is the equivalent of changing between an 8th note or quarter note on paper (except with a lot less erasing). The grid is divided up along the x axis to help guide you in placing your notes rhythmically. The thickest white lines mark 1 of each measure, the 3 slightly thinner lines between them mark the other beats, 2 3 and 4, and the very tiny lines in between those mark each sixteenth note. If you try resizing the note all the way over to the left, you should end up with a small green squre, that fits perfectly into any of the small squares on the grid. This is a sixteenth note. Drag it over to two squares. This is an eigth note. Drag it to fully extend from one semi-thick line to the next, and you have a quarter note! Exciting, I know. Now all you have to do is line the note up accross from the corresponding pitch on the keyboard and place it in the right place in the measure, and you're all set! Confused? keep reading... Look at the example in the picture (yes we are still on that same picture with too much crap written all over it) Notice how each of the notes lines up with the white notes on the keyboard, starting at C3, going up to C4, and then back down. It's the good ol' C Major scale!! ^_^ Notice that the rhythm is straight eight notes until the end where we arrive back on the original note on a quarter note. Hm, the quarter note appears to be twice as long of a bar as the eighth note - go figure! If only those darn italians could've learned to write music this way** .... then we'd end instead of a page with a bunch of lines and random circles and flags on it to a page with a grid and a bunch of random stupid bars on it. Wonderful. Anyways, so there we go, now hopefully you have an idea of how to write out a musical idea into this sequencer and hear it played. Note that sometimes complex rhthyms take several tries to put down, it's not always simple sometimes you may find yourself counting on your fingers to see on the upbeat of what count something happens. But here's the beauty! Go ahead and punch in the piano roll our example from the image here. Now hit the spacebar. Wow, muzak!! You'll notice that much to your annoyance it continually loops over and over until you hit the spacebar again. This looping is automatic (lucky you!) and will always play through the last measure containing notes - I know that sounds confusing, but say you through a note in there way on the right edge of the screen, in measure 6. When you hit spacebar, FL would play all the way through to that note, finish measure 6, then loop back to the beginning. Try it! OK, I know you're ready to be done with this god-forsaken window, but there's one more thing to talk about - that pane on the bottom. yes can you believe I wrote more crap on there for that too. This is where various data for each note is shown. The data is shown in the form of a bar directly under the note to which it corresponds. The default form of data for this section is velocity, and you wont' use much else very often. If you aren't familiar with midi data, values such as velocity are always a number between 0 and 127. When you create a note by the previous methods, it automatically gives it a preset velocity, 100 I believe (not entirely positive). Its about 3/4 of the way up, so you have some headroom. you can easily change the values for any note by simply clicking over the bar at the approximate velocity you want. In other words, let's say you wanted the C in the middle to be half as loud as the rest of the notes (dunno why, but oh well, it's possible!). Notice that the note is on the upbeat of 4 in the first meausre. You can also think of it as the 8th note, or the last note before the 1 bar for measure two - whatever works for you. Anyways, find the bar in the lower pane corresponding to that note, and click on the bar, about half way up. The bar shrinks to the size. Hit spacebar again to see how it sounds. You can also move the bars by clicking the white squares at the top and dragging them up and down.

Layla

2008-06-10T19:04:54-04:00

I've found lots of tabs for Layla... for the first part of it. I want to know if any of you have or know where to get the acoustic tabs for the second half of the song. Any help would help a lot... thanks!

Help with Automation Clip (fl8)

2008-06-10T13:49:59-04:00

i just purchased FL8 producer's edtion and I'm having trouble using automation clips, master volume envelope and stuff. So if anyone knows how to use it...please explain >_< danka =D

Learning FL Studio

2007-05-23T12:27:19-04:00

I dont have enough time to put together a tutorial with my crazy schedule right now but Ive been working with FL Studio for about 5 years now and know it pretty well. If anyone has any specific questions or needs a few pointers, feel free to ask. :scream:

FL Studio Tutorial 3: Mixer & FX

2006-07-28T23:59:09-04:00

should've been 'Using the Mixer and FX', stupid short names. Grr. Alright, here we are, in the last leg!! For anyone that is reading this for the first time, this is the 3rd tutorial in my 'basics trilogy', a 3-part series designed to cover the basic concepts and uses of FL Studio. If you have not read the first two tutorials, I HIGHLY reccomend you go back and at least skim through them. From this point forward, I will assume you know everything previously covered. Alright, first things first. Let's take a close look at this thing we call the mixer. This is one of the more complicated windows you will deal with in FL Studio, but it is important that you learn how to use it. A note to pre-FL 6 users: The Mixer in FL 6 was given a lot of new feautures, more than I can list off the top of my head. The things you do still need to pay attention to are how to assign an instrument to a mixer channel, and how to use the faders, pan knobs, mute switches, VU Meters, and how to use effects (FX). OK, if you're keen, you'll know this is the cue for an overly detailed screenshot... [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/mixer.JPG[/img] Ha, I didn't realize it until I started to label this screen, but there is a lot of stuff crammed into that mixer window!! I guess I'm just used to it all now, but hey, you will be too before long! For now we'll just focus on the channel strips. Also note that I'm not going to cover absolutely everything in the mixer window, as there are some more advanced features. I will likely be coming back to the mixer for an in-depth tutorial, focused specifically on this particular window. Anyways, looking back at the screen, let's start from the bottom up. At the very bottom there is a button with a floppy disk icon on it. This is a more advanced feature, which is mostly for rendering and exporting tracks for portability. I'm not going to go into how to use this function for this tutorial, but if I come back for a more in-depth mixer tutorial, I'll cover it (but y'all have to request it!) Continuing, you can see another button with "FX" written on it. Whenever a channel has effects added to it, this switch becomes active and lights up (we'll learn about this later). You can then use this to bypass all effects if you wish to listen to a raw track. It functions a simple toggle switch (click on, click off), and is active whenever it is lit up. Next is a slightly more complicated feature, which is rather unique to FL Studio 6 from the previous versions. In the past to use sends it has been necessary to add an effect called "Fruity Send". With FL Studio 6, there are now switches on every channel for sends. To use this feature, first select the channel you wish to use by simply clicking anywhere in the channel strip. In this example, channel 1 is selected, for this reason the name has been highlighted. You can see the send icon for it changes to show that it is selected. This icon signifies the signal coming out of the fader and traveling in both directions. By default each channel sends to the master and all 4 send channels at the end of the mixer. You can see that the icon on the Master channel shows the signal coming in and going into the master. It is also lit up orange to signify that it is active. You can actually disable this send if you wish, but you aren't likely to ever need to do this. You'll also notice that after a send is activated a knob appears above the icon. This indicates the level of the send, ie how loud the instrument is when sent into the target channel. An alternate way of turning the channel up would be increasing the send level to the master (but that's not real practical). This new send system is very powerful (much more useful than the old way) and can allow virtually any network of sends and returns. You likely won't need to use this system for quite a while, but it's good to know how to use it, in case you ever happen to find a good use for it :D. Anyways, moving on, Now we get into the useful section. The level faders are probably going to be what you are tweaking more than anything else. In tradition with 'real' mixers, the faders start at the 3/4 up position (this would be '0' on a real mixer). I don't think a lot of explanation is needed for this part, click and drag on the fader to move it. Drag up to increase volume, down to decrease volume. Above the fader is the pan knob. Remeber this? We saw this at the end of lesson two. Click and drag up to pan right, and down to pan left. You'll see the meter pop up as you begin dragging. Next is the mute switch, hey we've seen this before! This works exactly like the ones on the SS. The next item up is the VU Meters. These are very important to monitor. You never want your channel to light up the red segments at the top of this meter. When this happens, iti s called clipping. If your channel clips, it will begin to disort and peak. The higher it goes past this point the worse it sounds, it can destroy your entire mix! Before doing a final render, make sure that at the very loudest part of the song this channel never goes past the yellow area. If you are having a lot of problems with this, and either can't get an extremely loud sample to not clip, or have too many dynamics in your song, causing the softer parts to be covered up when the fader is at a controllable level, you can use a special effect called a compressor. We'll talk about this more later. Continuing to move up, next we see the track name and optionally the track icon. For the example I renamed track 1 to "roxorz!" In the same way we renamed our patterns in lesson 2. To give the channel and image or icon, right click on the track and pick "set icon". Simple enough. AT the top is a scroll bar, which allows you to scroll through the 64 available tracks in the mixer. I have no earthly idea why there are 64 tracks, you'd be lucky to get to 16 (even the demo song didn't come close) - but, nevertheless, there are 64 channels there for the taking. OK, now I'm sure you are wondering just how the heck to use these tracks now that you know so much about them! Well it's rather simple really. you can assign as many instruments as you want to one channel in fact. Bring up the familiar main instrument window. Just in case you've forgotten how to do this, create yourself an instrument in the step sequencer or use one that's already there, and simply click on the instrument to bring up the main window (or retract it if it's already open). For this example, I'll just use the familiar "Kick" that's always sitting there on a new project. [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/fx.JPG[/img] Now take a look in the upper right hand corner. You'll notice a box with "--" in it, and labeled "FX". Eureka!! To assign the instrument to a track in the mixer, simply change the value of the "--" to whatever track you would like to use. This box works just like the knobs from before, click and drag up or down to increase or decrease the value. Watch the mixer as you do this, you'll notice the tracks become selected as you change this box as well. Generally, drums all go on track 1. This is simple with FPC as it's all compacted into 1 instrument, but in the days before FPC when we had tons of instruments with each sample in order to use drums, you would have to go through each piece of the kit and assign it to track 1. This way you could level the drums as a whole and apply effects and such uniformly as well. So, speaking of effecs, why not finally learn how to use them?? Well it's rather simple really. Let's say you get yourself a sick guitar part, and you stick it on Track 2. You can select track 2 and rename it to "sick guitar!", give it neat guitar icon, and throw some distortion in there to make it even sicker!! You already know how to do the first two, but let's focus on that third. Now that you've got your guitar on track 2, select that track, again by clicking anywhere on the channel strip. Now look over to the right half of the mixer.. [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/mixer 2.JPG[/img] Oh dear, I know - another scary picture. This section of the mixer has a lot of more complicated stuff, so I used some different colors. For now don't worry about the stuff with blue names, just the red names. First of all, you'll notice a big version of the VU meters we talked about earlier. This is an enlarged (amplified) version of whatever channel is selected. Just a nice little visual aid. Now in the upper section we have our 'rack' of sorts. We have 8 spots for any effects we chose. I put some fast distortion for our guitar in slot 1. To stick an effect in there, simply click the down arrow to the left of any slot - the FX selector, and go to Select. This will give you a drop down menu of many common effects built into FL. Hooray! Pick any of these and it will be loaded into the corresponding slot in the mixer, and the window for this effect will pop up, with all the settings and such for it. If you'll notice, our distortion pops up with a window like this one.. [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/fast dist.JPG[/img] Pretty simple, just a few knobs and a little graph, but it gives us full control over the effect. To toggle this window on and off, click on the effect's name in it's little rack space over in the mixer. Before long your workspace may become highly cluttered with these windows, so close them after you finish tweaking unless you need to monitor them or have plenty of screen real estate to spare. Just like I said a while back with the knobs in the main 3x osc window, the best way to learn how to use the controls for an effect is to let the instrument go on a loop or something, and tweak away! Just make sure to save your file before you start tweaking!

Chords

2005-12-19T10:11:30-05:00

Well there doesn't seem like there's much going on in this forum.... so I thought I might try to get it started. I could really use some help on figuring out chords, I'm not sure how to make them or how to use them. I don't even really know the basics, so any help will be greatly apprecited. My songwriting is quite difficult without this knowledge, since It takes me fifiteen minutes to find two chords that work well together.

FL Studio W/ Addictive Drums and a Roland TD-6 E-drum kit

2008-04-28T12:28:21-04:00

Let me start by saying that I'm brand new to making digital music. I play drums and finally decided to start recording. I just purchased FL Studio 8 and Addictive Drums plugin. I also use a Roland TD-6sw electronic drum kit that is hooked up via MIDI to my laptop. I read willydavidk's tutorials on using FL Studio and found them VERY helpful. But here is my problem. I'm using my E-drum kit to trigger the samples in Addictive Drums, but I can't figure out how to properly map the samples to match the pads on my kit. For example...when I hit the tom pads, cymbals are triggered. Can anyone help me with this?

FL Studio Tutorial 2: Patterns...

2006-07-22T22:17:31-04:00

and the Playlist (stupid short title) Alright, I know my first tutorial was very basic, as it was just intended to get someone started with FL that has had NO experience with it. The second edition is going to pickup where the first left off, so if you haven't read the first I highly suggest you go back and at least skim through it first to make sure you're up to pace. Anyways, in the last lesson you learned how to make a simple pattern using one instrument. This is a very important concept, but it only gets you so far. Before long you'll need several instruments, drum tracks, and such. And sorting through all of the sequences in the whole song can get quite messy if you're trying to squeeze it all into the same sequence. This is why FL implements a system of patterns. Let's take a loot at the playlist: [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/Playlist.JPG[/img] See the left panel, with all of the patterns? The one in orange is the currently selected patern, and the corresponding row for that pattern is highlighted. Each pattern can hold it's own little sequence for any of the instruments at once. This is a rather hard concept to explain in words, so let's try it out shall we? Go up to File -> New or just launch FL fresh, and let's start a new project. Firstly, those 4 default instruments you see all the time, Kick, clap, hi-hat, and snare - we don't need those! Try clicking on some of them, you'll notice just to the right of the name there is a small green circle that lights up. Our goal is to light all 4 of those up. Theres two ways to do this, you can either click the top one and drag down, or you can just click one that's already green, which will automatically light up all 4. Pick your method, and after they're all lit up, hit Ctrl + Delete. Hit ok to the dialog, and there they go! You'll notice that FL doesn't like to be left empty-handed, so any time it runs out of instruments, it automatically inserts an empty placeholder, called a sampler. This instrument won't do anything uless you load your own samples and go through the process of configuring everything - but let's not worry about that right now. Remember how we added the 3x Osc last time? That time we went to insert, then the instrument, which added it to the list - but this time, we want to get rid of the sampler too. FL studio allows us to do this at the same time. Go to replace -> FPC*. [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/FPC.JPG[/img] It may take a second to load, but then you will have a beautiful yellow window pop up with lots of buttons and things scattered about. This is your main window for FPC, and it wouldn't hurt to leave it open for the rest of the time if you can. Looking back at the Playlist, make sure Pattern 1 is orange and the first row is highlighted. If another pattern is oragne, just click Pattern 1 and everything will be fine. Look in the upper right hand corner of the FPC window, just to the right of "MIXER". There's a folder icon. click on this and a window opens up with many different choices for your drum pattern. [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/folderico.JPG[/img] For this example, let's go into 808 Loops, and pick 808kit_01.mid. You'll notice the name pops up in the corner, just to the right of the folder icon we clicked previously. You may also notice some data appears in the step sequencer. This shows that we now have a little sequence in this pattern. Hit space bar to listen to it. This is a good beat, and we'll use it later. But what about those fills? Drum parts get boring after a while, and it doesn't hurt to throw in a good fill here and ther. Go over to the playlist again, and click on Pattern 2. Notice that the information in the step sequencer clears. This is because this pattern can hold completely different data. If you go back to pattern 1 you'll see the drum loop reappear. Anyways, go to Pattern 2, and go back to the FPC window. If you accidentally closed it, just click FPC in the step sequencer and it comes right back. You can close the main instrument window if you want, the FPC window will stay open. Since we're using 808 loops, it's a good idea to stay within the same style. The left and right arrows on either side of the name of the current pattern (in the upper right hand corner, remember) will allow you to move through the other loops in this same folder. Alternatively you can hit the down arrow all the way to the right and get a list of all the loops in the folder. Since this pattern is empty, you simply need to change the loop once for FPC to fill it in. hit the right arrow to go to 808kit_02, and you'll see the data appear in the SS (step sequencer, I'll use shorthand occasionally) again. Go ahead and hit spacebar to listen to it, and continue clicking the right arrow to listen to differnet loops. You can pick whatever you like, but I decided on 808kit_07 for a fill. Remember this for later, and we'll continue moving on. It never hurts to start off a song with a good bass line, so let's find ourself a good Bass. Go to Insert again, and click BooBass. Seems simple enough. Now I just picked this since it's quick and simple, as I'm trying to get through this tutorial in a short time. Feel free to experiment with different instruments, especially after we go over the browser a little bit later. Anyways, after selecting BooBass, the familiar instrument window will come up, with BooBass' own settings. you can tweak the simple 3 band eq if you want, but once you're done, close the window so as not to clutter your workspace. Select Pattern 3 on the playlist first, then right click on BooBass and select Piano Roll. Look at the sequence below [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/boobass.JPG[/img] Punch this into your own Piano Roll and play it. Nothing to flashy, but still almost catchy in a way. Now go over to the Playlist again. We know that pattern 1 is our main drum pattern, pattern 2 is our fill, and pattern 3 is our bassline. Rather annoying remembering all those numbers don't you think? Especially whne you've got lot s of patterns to remember. Click on pattern 1 and hit F2. Type in Drums and hit enter. Click on pattern 2, hit F2, type Fill and hit enter. Click on pattern 3, hit F2, type Bass, and hit enter. Simple enough, but now we have some clear labels. Just a word of advice, sometimes the patterns aren't as simple to name as this, as you'll see later, so you may have to be rather creative with your names so you know what the pattern holds. Anyways, gettting on with it. You'll notice that the playlist works a lot lke the PR - you can draw on it the same way, create bars by clicking, erase by right clicking. However, you cannot change the size of the bar, only the location. We'll talk more about this later. I can't remember what the default tool is for the playlist at the moment, but put your mouse over the playlist, if it looks like a pencil or anything else, go to the tool pallette in the upper left hand corner and click the paintbrush. Now when you hover your mouse over the playlist it should turn into a paintbrush. This is a lot more useful than the pencil, which only allows you to draw one pattern at a time. The paintbrush allows you to drag and create a string of patterns as long as you want. Let's start the song off with 2 bars of bass line, kick the drums in on measure three, then continue until measure 8 where we change to a fill. Confused? Read on. We know the bassline is going to be constant, so click in the first measure accross from Bass, and drag over to measure 8. The drums come in on measure 3, and change to a fill on 8. Click on measure 3 accross from Drums, and drag over to measure 7. Then Click on measure 8 accross from Fill. When you're finished, it should look like this... [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/playlist sample.JPG[/img] Before we play it, take a look at the transport controls... [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/transport.JPG[/img] Notice the indicator to the left of the play button. You'll see two labels, PAT and SONG. Each has a light next to it, and the one selected is lit up orange. Until now we've been working with individual patterns, but now that we have an actual song going using multiple patterns, we want to play the whole song. you can click anywhere in this little section or you can hit L to change the play mode to SONG. Hit the spacebar and you'll notice a bar moving accross the playlist as your song begins to play. You can hear the repetitive bass and drums go until measure eight where you hear a fill and then your song immediately loops back to the beginning. Now let's start building the song. Bring up the browser. The browser operates using a tree design - in other words, when you go inside a folder, each subsequent file and folder are indented slightly to show that they are on a lower level. Looking at the first level, find Plugin Presets, and click it to drop down the list if it's not already so. Next click on Generators, to see a list of some of the instruments you have available to you. Go to Sytrus. Sytrus is the name of a very powerful synth included with FL Studio 6. It is much more powerful than any of the synths we've used so far. It's also an all-around synth, so you can make virtually any instrument you want. You'll notice after clicking on Sytrus there are several more folders. Go to Plucked. You'll see several instruments come up. To use one, drag it onto the SS. Make sure not to drag onto another instrument (it will light up orange) as this will actually replace the instrument with the preset. Find Zen (it's the last one) and drag it over. Go down to pattern 4, so as not to overwrite any previous material. Open up the PR for Zen and put a quarter note on G5 (ie the G above C5) on count 4, and a quarter note on C5 on count 1 of measure two. [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/PR sample.JPG[/img]

Easy Tabs Plz ( guitar )

2008-03-13T17:19:31-04:00

Yea I just got my guitar today and im looking for some easy electric guitar tabs soo if anyone could link them or tell me that would help

Vocal Tips & Tricks

2007-05-24T19:20:53-04:00

Here are some simple ideas you can use to make your vocals sound better. [i]Listen listen listen! Your ear is your voice, not your throat.[/i] [b]All the rules that apply to normal music practice (and some that don't) apply to vocal practice.[/b] Practice regularly (daily if possible). Find a coach. Read books, study other vocalists. Listen to their CDs, sing along. Stretch, warm up and use strength training exercises. Your voice is a set of muscles like any other set that any other musician uses, don't over do it. [i]Listen listen listen! Your ear is your voice, not your throat.[/i] [b]Learn breath control; sing from your belly.[/b] The muscle that controls your breathing is called your diaphragm and if you watch a baby sleeping, you'll notice that when (s)he breathes, what primarily rises up and down is not the chest but the belly. Hiccups and "Getting the wind knocked out of you" are both forms of diaphram spasms. If you've experienced either of these things, then you know how crucial a role the diaphragm plays in breathing. The point is that singing has everything to do with breath and that good breath control will result in better vocals. Breath control comes from the control and stability of the diaphragm. If you think you need to push harder on something, either to be louder or clearer or more stable, push harder on your diaphragm, not your vocal muscles. Your vocal muscles should, for the most part, be relaxed. Sing from your belly. [i]Listen listen listen! Your ear is your voice, not your throat.[/i] [b]Sing with something, anything.[/b] Find a good quality (preferably organic) long-sustaining pitch source. A guitar, a piano, a sitar, a fan, a blender, a blow dryer, a lawn mower, anything. No seriously, I mean anything. Anything that has a constant pitch and can produce an extended and sustained tone. Preferably something that sustains a tone for a long time and that doesn't interfere with your stomach, chest throat mouth or head areas, also preferably something with which you can select the easiest note for you to sing in your range. For most people a guitar or piano will suffice though if you can get an electric guitar and crank up the volume this will probably be your best bet. When you're only plucking one string you can crank up the volume louder than you think on an electric guitar. Careful! Don't crank it so loud you can't hear yourself anymore. You need to sing [i]with[/i] something to be sure that you're holding a steady note. A string will vibrate at a more or less constant rate and will not vary it's pitch by much at all. A string does vary its pitch a small amount over time, sharper on the attack, flatter on the decay, small amounts of fluctuation during vibration. However, compared to the average (and even trained) human voice, the amount of a string's vibrational flux is negligible and is perfectly suitable for singing with. [i]Listen listen listen! Your ear is your voice, not your throat.[/i] [b]Slow down. Take baby steps. Start with just one note.[/b] Waaaaay down, yes I mean way down. Now using your trusty pitch source, strike a note and sing it. Hold that one single note for as long as you can. Make a contest out of it. It's like holding your breath. How long can you hold a note? 10 seconds, 15? 30? A minute? Remember not to run completely out of breath to the point of wheezing, that is not good. Consider your note broken once you really begin to run out of breath and stop the instant the note becomes strained. Do that for a week straight before you go on to moving between notes. [i]Listen listen listen! Your ear is your voice, not your throat. Have I gotten through to you yet? Let me explain.[/i] [b]Listen! Your ear is your voice.[/b] Most people get this backwards and they think that by pushing harder on their vocal muscles that they will in some way enhance their voice. Only by really listening to your voice and what it sounds like and what it is doing will you understand what it is your vocal muscles are actually doing to it and thus understand how to manipulate those vocal muscles to do what you want with your voice. While doing your one note singing exercise, don't think about or pay attention to how you sound, pay attention to how the string sounds and match the pitch. This is absolutely fundamental. Vocal practice is primarily ear training first and muscle training second. Most instrument training centers first around how to properly move the muscles and appendages concerned. Vocal training centers first around how to detect the whether and how far off a note is from another, in other words, how far off is your voice from that note you [i]should[/i] be singing. As mentioned before, sing one note for a week or a month or as long as it takes for you to know with absolute certainty that you can and are singing what you are hearing. Your ear is your voice. [i]Listen listen listen! Your ear is your voice, not your throat.[/i] [b]Learn to sing effortlessly through direct experience.[/b] Try the simple exercise of making each of the standard vowel sounds: A E I O U but use the european style vowel sounds, so phonetically it sounds like: "Ahhh, Ehhh, Eeeee, Ohhh, Ooou." Sing one note and keep that note steady, now while keeping that note going, shift between each of the vowel sounds. Move your mouth around, move your throat around, open your mouth wide narrow your mouth down. Discover through direct experience the easiest and most effortless way to clearly enunciate each of those vowels without stress on your vocal muscles. This is difficult! Don't get frustrated. First begin to sing a note, then listen very closely to how the note sounds, then finally try to pay attention to how your voice box and throat muscles feel in the position they are in. After you've listened and payed attention to how your voice sounds and how it feels to make that sound, then and only then should you shift your voice box and throat muscles to a different position to get a different sound. All the while you should be singing and keeping this note going. Now revert back to listening to your voice. Then feel your throat, then change. Always begin with listening. [i]Listen listen listen! Your ear is your voice, not your throat.[/i] [b]An anecdote on science[/b] A vocal coach was telling me about how they did some studies (and you know they talk a lot) to see if they could figure out the neurological basis for the cognition of vocal intonation. Many experiments and electrode attachments later the scientists conducting this study were stumped and had no further information on how the brain does what it does when people sing, much less how to help people become better singers with the information they were hoping to garner. The coach told me that as part of the study they were comparing different techniques to figure out which ones yielded the best results in terms of helping people figure out how to sing better and make their voices both do what they wanted and sound more pleasing. The age old but winning technique that the coach imparted to me that has supposedly been in use for hundreds of years is simpler than the scientists could have ever imagined. It's called visualization. No this isn't a Tony Robbins seminar or any new age mumbo jumbo, it's really pretty simple. All you do is "visualize the sound" you want to hear. Sight and sound don't particularly mix well in this context, so this might require a bit of explanation. They say that the sense of smell is the most closely related to memory. Think of a time when you smelled something that triggered a particularly powerful memory, for many people the smell of popcorn triggers the memory of a movie theater, or the smell of freshly baked goods might trigger the memory of mother or grandmother. Now try to remember something you've smelled or tasted before, like an apple. Simply try to remember what an apple actually tastes like. You can do it, it just requires a bit of imagination. Now try to remember what an apple looks like, all of this with as much detail as possible. Now for the last test, try to remember exactly what your favorite song sounds like, full orchestration and everything, what key it's in, all the different parts. Try to do it as a whole, don't try to remember specific details of the song, just try to "hear" the song in your head. Got it? No? Keep trying. Yes? Good. Sort of? Well, that's about as close as you need to get. So now here's how this all fits together: when you're singing, once properly warmed up and using correct vocal technique and while not straining, simply imagine how you'd like your voice to come out, think about it for a while, really concentrate on it, even "visualize" to the extent that is possible, and then... well... just do it. Just let it out. Simply take that visualized or imagined sound and "put it into" your vocal chords and see what happens. You might be surprised; hopefully in a good way. :)

FL Studio 6 Microphone HELP!!!

2007-08-30T02:45:21-04:00

Ok, so I want to play with Vocoders and such with FL. When I tried to set an input device in the Mixer, I couldn't select anything. I've got a standard microphone, plugs into the mic port at the back. Help would be greatly appreciated!

Guitar Lessons :P

2007-09-24T14:47:06-04:00

I know this may be stupid,but I actually found a guitar song that isn't extremely insane to play and I'm actually pretty good at it,but I'm not sure what to do. -0------ What do I do?Cause to get to both don't I have to strum all the way down? --------- --------- -2------ --------- [IMG]http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r305/flutes-4ever/TAB.jpg[/IMG]

FL tutorials (fruity loops zip packages)

2008-01-14T16:32:26-05:00

[img]http://adraw.yweb.sk/woa.jpg[/img] Some time ago I made a little tutorial initiative, where i created some FL studio tutorials. My tutorials are in form of zip packages, where every package contains one html file with additional information. These tutorials use only standard set of instruments and effects so you wont have problems running them. They are split into categories which cover topics like: Sidechain compression Filter automation Bass maddnes Granular synthesis Noise shaping and more. I tried to make this tutorial [b]different[/b], and plan to continue with their development. So if you are interested, you may subscribe. Whatever. Enjoy learning [url]http://www.adrawtutorials.blogspot.com[/url]

Advanced DnB bass synthesis

2007-11-23T16:41:03-05:00

Eaaaasy all, Right here's some useful tutorials for bass synthesis, originally for DnB but can be applied to any genre, found it opened up windows of creativity regarding how specific sounds were made... [url]http://www.dogsonacid.com/showthread.php?threadid=337721&highlight=bass+tutorial[/url] ^Translated version is down on that page ;)^ The next one is pretty advanced as there's no explaining, just the recording... but i found it useful so hopefully someone else will :D it's a video clip of the guy making a bassline... Forum thread: [url]http://www.dogsonacid.com/showthread.php?s=5799af4e398bf0e426fa30134a0e7fc5&threadid=537544&perpage=20&highlight=spinlock&pagenumber=1[/url] Video: [url]http://www.mediafire.com/?71xdhqtnymn[/url] Aaaanyway, i think i can help if anyone gets stuck with it... think it's important to move beyond preset synths.... especially FL Presets cause they're so obviously FL makes me cringe... XD

FL Studio Special Tutorial 1: Using audio clips - PART 1

2006-11-05T00:16:25-05:00

FL Studio Special Tutorial 1: Using audio clips - PART 1 NOTE: Before continuing, if you haven't already, I highly recommend you read through my first 3 tutorials, the 'basics trilogy'. I will assume that you already know everything covered there from here on. OK, so I've gotten several requests to go into more detail about using audio clips and recording within fl to add vocals, live instruments, etc. Now before I begin I want to state that FL Studio is mainly geared towards midi and vst's. The audio clip system is a bit rough to work with, to say the least. I, personally, use Cubase for recording, and run FL as a plugin for drums, synths, etc. With that said, I'll get into it. First of all, you need to understand that there are 2 ways to use external audio within FL, by copying in prerecorded audio clips, and by recording directly into FL Studio itself. As you may have guessed, the latter is quite a bit more complicated, and may be impossible altogether for some of you. I'll cover the simpler former first, and come back to the latter in a bit. So to start off, take a look at your playlist. The playlist is split up into two panes, the upper sequencing pane, where you spend the majority of your time (or all of it most likely if you're reading this tutorial). Take a look at the bottom pane, which you may have not noticed until now. If you don't have a second pane, it may be hidden. If this is the case, click on the bar at the bottom of the playlist window and drag it up. [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/PL1.JPG[/img] [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/PL2.JPG[/img] The lower pane is where you manipulate and place your audio waveforms. The very simplest way to get started using your prerecorded audio is to bring up the folder and drag the file directly onto the playlist from windows explorer. This will immediately initiate some changes... [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/dragaudio2.JPG[/img] First of all, you'll see your audio waveform immediately pop up in the bottom pane, on the row you dragged it on to. Unless you dragged it to the exact row and measure you wanted, it's probably in the wrong place, however, so you'll need to move it around. We'll get to that a minute - first let's take a look at the step sequencer. You'll notice that all of your instruments have disapeared and a new one has appeared named after the audio file you dragged onto your playlist. This is simply an audio clip instrument (try adding an instrument and notice the one near the top named audio clip). Let's take a look at the audio clip's instrument window... [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/audioclip.JPG[/img] There are several useful settings here, and you may come back several times. you'll notice at the top, under the SMP and MISC tabs if your audio file. If you want to define a different file, just hit the folder. If you click the panel with the name of your audio clip, or the down arrow at the right edge, it will bring up a pop up menu with recently used files (you probably don't have any right now) as well as the option to disable the audio clip (none). Down in the lower half you see a more detailed image of the waveform. If you click on the waveform it will play the audio clip once. As a side note, if you have a long audio file and you happen to click this by accident and really don't feel like sitting there for 5 minutes waiting on it to end, hit the panic button, ctrl + H. This is mostly used for the occasional stuck note with MIDI or to nix all the leftover audio after stopping the song due to reeverb, delay, etc, but can also help in this situation. Anyways, probably the most useful option on here is the "Normalize" switch. This will minimize the difference between the loud and soft points in your audio clip. Also if you use a lot of clips, and you turn on normalization for all of them, FL will try to bring all of them to a standard volume level. (If you need to tweak the volume manually, don't forget about the volume and pan knobs at the top of the instrument window and next to the instrument in the SS). Other useful switches are Reverse which, amazingly, reverses the clip, and swap stereo, which will, even more amazingly, swap the stereo channels (ie if something was panned to the left, it is now panned to the right) You'll also notice the row of knobs just above the waveform. In and Out are for fade ins and fade outs. The section in the middle of the window is for time stretching, and it allows you to change the pitch of the note without changing the length of the clip (pitch knob), change the length of the clip without changing the pitch of the note (MUL knob, note there is sound quality loss here), and to simply stretch the clip, ie a longer clip with lower pitch, or shorter clip with higher pitch (time knob). The rest of the options are best learned by experimentation. The pogo and crf knobs down by the waveform make for some interesting effects (just try them with smaller clips unless you want to site there for 2 minutes waiting on it to process). Alright, back to the rest of the world. OK, I'm sure some of you right now want to know exactly where the heck the rest of your instruments went! Well take a close look at the step sequencer. Notice at the bottom where it says "Audio clips" click here to bring up the list of all your different groups. Click on 'All' to bring back the rest of your instruments... [img]http://willydavidk.kittsplace.com/graphics/FL/SS1.JPG[/img] If you want to make your own groups (I never found the feature particularly useful myself..) simply select each instrument you want in your group by clicking the green circle to the right of the first instrument, and shift-clicking the rest of them. After all of the instruments are selected, go to channels -> group select, or just hit Alt + G. Give FL an appropriate name for the group, and there you are! Use the same method as before to get all of your instruments back. OK, so now we know how to get our audio clips into fl, and how to tweak them to our heart's content, let's find out how to use them! Back to the lower pane we go. You'll notice that the grid in the lower pane is similar to the familiar upper pane, and that the vertical lines all match up. This is because fl follows both panes the same way, and you can actually stick your waveforms onto the lower panes and move them around the same way as a pattern block on the upper pane! To insert your clip, first select it in the step sequencer (remember this is the 'audio clip' instrument tied to your audio file). After it is selected, simply follow your usual pattern sequencing procedure, only now in the lower pane. You can place the waveform in simply by left clicking. You can drag it around the same way, and delete it by right clicking. Several options are available to you from the pull down menu in the upper left corner of the waveform after you insert it into the playlist (there is a small down arrow to the left of the name). Again I don't have the time to go into detail on all of these, but some of the more useful features are Edit Sample, which will bring up a basic wave editor, that allows you to clip, and otherwise modify your audio clip. A basic knowledge of wave editors in general will be useful here. Also the option "Make unique" will create a copy of your audio clip in a new instrument, which will take the same name with an amended "#2, #3", etc. Detect tempo and Fit to Tempo are used for time stretching, and shouldn't be necessary unless you are trying to bring in clips from other songs with different tempos. Preview will do the same thing as clicking the waveform within the instrument window (remember ctrl + h ), and Select Channel will show you all of your audio clips and actually allow you to change the clip you have on the playlist to something else. You can tie your audio clip to a mixer channel and add FX the same way you can a vst from the instrument window. This is a great feature, and you'll definitely want to know how to use this once you start using vocals on your tracks (check out tutorial 3 for more detail). OK, I'm going to wrap this tutorial up here, and I'll make this a two part. In the second part I'll discuss how to record directly into FL Studio. If you're stuck, and don't know how to record anything into the computer at all, try running sndrec32 (use winkey + r, or run from the start menu) for the incredibly basic sound recording utility included with windows. This will allow you to toy with your sound card, and if you need help on getting your mic to record through sound recorder send me a message, as it's a fairly simple process. Once you know how to record with your sound card, check out a program called GoldWave (just google it). you can download a free shareware version, which basically just pops up a stupid window whenever you start it to tell you to go buy it. If, by some miracle, you happen to exceed the number of button clicks or w/e it is (I've only done it once ever) just uninstall and reinstall the program and you've got a fully working wave editor again. I hope this helps a lot of you guys out! Thanks for spending the last 15 minutes of your life reading this. If you have any more questions, just send me a message! Until next time, -David

My Drum Tutorial

2007-11-27T19:37:19-05:00

Right Here's my drum tutorial in the form of a fl .zip bundle, just open the zip as a song file in FL and it will have all the bits needed to make the tutorial all ready in place... all the description bits are in the FLnotebook which should be open when you open the project... finally here's the link to download the tutorial nyah... [url]http://www.filefactory.com/file/777011/[/url] - (4mb)

Fruity Loops / FL Links

2007-11-12T15:01:12-05:00

I'm collecting Links, getting them on one page so they can be easily found and linked too. I've started with the FL related threads on bandAmp, I'd like to extend the list to torrents, vstplugins, Cubase and any other that fits the bill ! ;) Got any to add? Go ahead.....because of the 'edit post' function, you can add to your one post instead of making new posts each time. It makes easier reading and keeps it 'to the point' ! Cheers --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I've left the addresses to external links visible. WillyDKs Fruity Loops Tutorials : [url=http://forum.bandamp.com/Lessons/29664.html]FL Studio Tutorial 1: The Basics[/url] [url=http://forum.bandamp.com/Lessons/29817.html]FL Studio Tutorial 2: Patterns...[/url] [url=http://forum.bandamp.com/Lessons/30305.html]FL Studio Tutorial 3: Mixer & FX[/url] WillyDKs Fruity Loops Special Tutorials : [url=http://forum.bandamp.com/Lessons/37190.html]FL Studio Special Tutorial 1: Using audio clips - PART 1[/url] Kelpies Cool Tutorals : [url=http://forum.bandamp.com/Lessons/39142.html]Fruity Loops Tutorial IV: Routing Mixer Tracks and Using the Vocoder Plugin[/url] An FL Tutorial Blog : http://fruity--loops.blogspot.com/ Computermusics Tutorial Download page : http://www.computermusic.co.uk/page/computermusic?entry=cm_tutorial_pdfs FL visual basic tutorials : http://www.fltutorials.com/sale/tutorial/tutor/microsoft/fl_studio_6_producer_edition.htm Go CJ! Go CJ!..... http://www.vtc.com/products/Fruity-Loops-Studio-7.htm http://flstudio-tutorials.com/tutorials.php http://www.fltutorialz.com/ http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/346613 http://videotutorials.e-officedirect.com/videotutorials.exe?forumname=flstudio Fruity Vocoder explained : http://youtube.com/watch?v=91igHV0CwJk Free VST Plugins : http://www.computermusictutorials.com/index.php?topic=VSt 'Classic Series' Free vst Plugins : http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/classic-series.php Some Questions Already Asked : [url=http://forum.bandamp.com/Recording/11204.html]using Fruity Loop[/url] [url=http://forum.bandamp.com/Recording/11918.html]using Fruity Loop II[/url] [url=http://forum.bandamp.com/The_Pit/39036.html]Fruity Loops PLUGINS DONT WORK plsssssh help me :([/url] [url=http://forum.bandamp.com/Lessons/58197.html]Mixer suggestions on FL Studio[/url] [url=http://forum.bandamp.com/Lessons/56614.html]FL Studio 6 Microphone HELP!!![/url] [url=http://forum.bandamp.com/Lessons/55623.html]Making FL studio output seem less synthetic.[/url] [url=http://forum.bandamp.com/Gear_Talk/53122.html]VST question![/url] [url=http://forum.bandamp.com/Recording/1744.html]How do I amplify without clipping?[/url] [url=http://forum.bandamp.com/Lessons/45350.html]Im a noob[/url] And a thread to post ALL your FL questions : [url=http://forum.bandamp.com/Lessons/51497.html]Learning FL Studio[/url] If you know of any threads on bandAmp I missed please tell me or just post them.

Fruity Loops Tutorial IV: Routing Mixer Tracks and Using the Vocoder Plugin

2006-11-30T19:04:37-05:00

This is a NEWBIE-friendly tutorial. It goes from start to finish! Alright, after looking and looking and looking through the help and discovering there was even a handy dandy RTFM, I came acrossed how to do it. So I present to you a tutorial for both. It is very intensive and has three parts. It should be great for experienced and non-experienced people! The links: http://kelpie.xenoci.de/Images/FLS_Tutorial_Part_I_by_Quie_Scent.jpg [i](1.7M)[/i] http://kelpie.xenoci.de/Images/FLS_Tutorial_Part_II_by_Quie_Scent.jpg [i](1.1M)[/i] http://kelpie.xenoci.de/Images/FLS_Tutorial_Part_III_by_Quie_Scent.jpg [i](1.5M)[/i] Alternative: http://kelpie.xenoci.de/flstuts/flstuti/ FLS Tutorial Part I http://kelpie.xenoci.de/flstuts/flstutii/ FLS Tutorial Part II http://kelpie.xenoci.de/flstuts/flstutiii/ FLS Tutorial Part III I do warn you though, each file is in jpeg format and is atleast 1mb big. We can use PDF's but I really hate those evil things. Edit: I changed where I had the tutorials linked to. The reason being is because for quite some time deviantart.com has had bandwidth issues.

Mixer suggestions on FL Studio

2007-09-27T21:36:33-04:00

Hi follow mates in bandamp. I recently joined this site because it looks very cool and friendly. anyway I have been using FL Studio for about a month, and I read all the tutorials in this forums (thank you, to theperson who posted the thread). so i was wondering what are some quality mixers for certain genres of music.. for hiphop beats, trance, etc.. it would be really nice if someone gave a basic knowledge on some of the most effective onces, thank you bunch! :)

Video Tutorials!

2007-09-09T15:39:00-04:00

Hey, i put up a link on my blog (trying to avoid it being a spam sitch). Anyway, if you are a visual learner like I am then I highly suggest it as it has lots of video tutorials. [url]http://mindsatplay.bandamp.com/blog/57222.html[/url]

AUDACITY experts read this --

2007-08-07T14:11:22-04:00

Alright, I guess there isn't really anywhere else to ask this; IN audacity, is there any way to change panning through a single track, kind of the like the "event" function in FL? I know that at the left hand side there is the volume and panning control, but what I want is panning to change; moving from one side to the other through a part of the song. I think you know what I mean.

Harmonica

2007-08-28T10:41:30-04:00

well, i just started playing the harmonica a few days ago.. i want to learn more but i find it very difficult. if anyone plays harmonica here, feel free to share with the rest of us :) anyway i have no clue how to bend notes.. i have a c harp and for some reason i also have a low d harp haha don't ask... anyway whoever is experienced with the harmonica please share with me, and whoever else is interested in this.. unless there is a different technique i should learn to play first... i know how to tongue block and lip block... i can play single notes.. uhm yeah that's pretty much it i've only been playing for 3 days or so.. i'd really like to learn how to play the blues on my harp.. but so far i know mary had a little lamb, oh susanna, and hey jude. any hints or help is greatly appreciated. thanks

Making FL studio output seem less synthetic.

2007-08-14T02:24:19-04:00

Hi all. New member here. I run a couple of electronic grind projects, where I make use of FL studios "slayer" guitar plugin. I need some help in making the final FL studio output sound less synthetic and more organic. Most of the people who have reviewed my stuff tell me that it sounds too much like video game music. I tried EQing it in sound forge and basically tried making it sound very muddy with layers of filthy distortion, but it still has that "electronic" feel. I understand that this comes with making guitar sounds on the program, but does any one know of a way I can solve this problem? Would appreciate any help. Thank you. P.S - Im pretty new to this, so please keep your advices/tips/info easy enough for me to understand. :(

vocals (bleh)

2006-07-01T17:50:23-04:00

does any one know of a way to make my vocals sound more lively? i know hisis proubley a stupid question seeing as how when you talk your voice is automaticly animated and what not but i have a very quite voice because i hate the way it sounds when im loud, but the quite kind gives the effect of a monoton or a flat liner and when i am loud it sounds flat as well and it sounds rehesed i dont know how to fix these proublems.................. i could really use some tips....... please help! paperdoll

Tech Heads

2007-04-24T11:34:02-04:00

Really useful tutorial for making music electronically can be found here [url]http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3665185/Danny_Byrd_Tutorial[/url] it's a torrent so hope you know how to dl torrent files etc, it's by Danny Byrd [url]http://www.myspace.com/dannybyrduk[/url] Amazing producer, basically deconstructs the track 'under the sea' which can be heard on his myspace, It's done in logic but can pretty much transfer the concepts over to any sequencer... so yea... really useful...

Vocoder... Help!

2007-05-08T03:02:11-04:00

Hey, I'm having some real headaches trying to understand how this VST vocoders work. If anybody here works with Jeskola Buzz or another VST host and knows how to get that damn robotic voice... please help me! I know there are two signals that are combined: a modulator (human voice) and a carrier (some kind of pad), but for jeskola the modulator input is an aux bus... and I don't know what's an aux bus for.... Anyway... Help will be highly appreciated... I've beeing thru every web page... Aetheris__

micing an acoustic guitar?

2007-01-29T20:59:51-05:00

can somebody please give me some tips on recording an acoustic guitar.

Piano Practise

2007-03-20T19:05:46-04:00

I've often thought I could be really good if only I could get the left hand & the right hand playing it by themselves without me having to think about it all the time..... anyway, try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4lnabU8yOs and in the words of Ryan, "now try the right hand backwards" ! Have fun.

exercises for guitar players

2007-01-07T14:02:23-05:00

check this out: http://www.vai.com/LittleBlackDots/lessons1984.html

Im a noob

2007-02-22T20:15:02-05:00

Hey, I'm new to fruity loops and bandamp. So anyone got any advice

Anthrax rules!!!!!

2007-02-16T16:27:31-05:00

Does anybody know how to play Anthrax's "Got The Time"? it's my favorite song and I can't find the tab anywhere.

pandora podcasts: interesting

2007-02-09T18:53:01-05:00

Hello ampers!! first, I don't know were to put this link but I think it fits well in the Lessons Forum You must listen-read this podcast about: * The Basics of Vocal Harmony * Drums and Drumming, Part I * Electric Guitar Effects * Recording Vocals * Elements of Salsa all of them are in http://blog.pandora.com/podcast/ I hope it helps you, let me know what you think and if you learn something I wanna listen it soon Dodo

Guitar for Beginners

2006-12-07T10:12:09-05:00

Here's one for those who have a guitar, but don't know how to play it. [url=http://www3.youtube.com/watch?v=7dXUW2wBS3I&mode=related&search=]basics[/url] [url=http://www3.youtube.com/watch?v=kDqmAqAZq0c&mode=related&search=]tuning your guitar[/url] SOME CHORDS: [url=http://www3.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk8cDHlzjXg&mode=related&search=]D major[/url] [url=http://www3.youtube.com/watch?v=VE9xfMHra44&mode=related&search=]A major[/url] [url=http://www3.youtube.com/watch?v=lAqYXWhbbs4&mode=related&search=]G major[/url] [url=http://www3.youtube.com/watch?v=ixkGccfrgUA&mode=related&search=]strumming[/url] I guess that's it for now... There will be more (if you let me know) ;) Rock on!

Some help with bass....

2007-01-07T22:52:18-05:00

Hi! I hope you have a nice time! Well.... I'm starting to record a song, and I decided to put a "bass line" as background, but I don't know which note can sound well.... The progression is like this (in normal power chords) B5 / A5 / G5 / F#5 -------------- in the 6th string of guitar. I like to hear the bass line like in metal of 80's... like "Rock of Ages" of Def Leppard or "Slow & Easy" of Whitesnake. If anyone can help me, I will pray for her/him (hahaha). HAve a nice day!

I Need help on a song!(guitar)

2007-01-04T02:21:09-05:00

OK look i wrote a song but im h having problems getting a good easy Tabs for it does anyone out there wan to help me? The Song is Called Promise Me here is the link to it [url]http://pic5.piczo.com/cowboyadamsranch/?g=3311968&cr=5[/url] its a slow one for guitar.

lets jam!

2005-12-15T07:22:37-05:00

hey any up for writing a tune long distance style? cmon the glove is dropped.... i offer up my bass{as i lost my 97456th guitar to the evil pawn broker} thought what jbp...triton...fish did was cool just pm me hail ampism ps prophet entheon didnt know where to post this so no lightning please as i read all stickies pertaing to this

Bass- the basic-est beginners guide ever.

2006-12-06T20:42:39-05:00

If you're here, you want to learn bass. If you don't want to learn bass, leave. Right now. Fool. OK Now you may think Ive gotten the meanness out of my system. But I haven't. Because a little more meanness is necessary to the bass process. Before we get into the real lessons, you need to understand and come to terms with something. It is this; Bass is [b][i][u]not[/u][/i][/b], repeat, [b][i][u]NOT[/u][/i][/b] a guitar. If you are reading this and want to learn bass, then chances are you already play guitar. Understand right away; nothing you ever do on a bass will ever sound like a guitar. Sometimes you do things on a guitar that sound like a bass, but NEVER EVER the other way around. Also, you will NOT (re-read for emphasis) be learning anything that is like guitar. It is similar, but if you go into this trying to play the bass like a guitar, you will utterly fail. If you can understand and appreciate that, and still want to learn to play the bass, please read on :) Remember, this is only a basic lesson. We're just gonna teach you about the fretboard right now. Don't get too excited. Also, for the purposes of this lesson, I will assume you know how to use musical notation. I believe that tablature is the [u]completely wrong way[/u] to try to learn any instrument. Notation is always best. OK, I bet you're itching to start learning. Well, here we go. I have two bass lesson books. Independently, neither of them are really very good lesson books. So I am going to combine the knowledge from both of them, which should give you a valuable knowledge of the bass. First we need to learn how to hold the bass, though. I know it's as basic as you can get, but someone might need it. Bear with me. Also, the pictures are all done by me, so they will be showing left-handed form. Just do the exact same thing with the other hand. I have to ask you again to bear with me. Also, I can't find the camera. So I will just let this post sit until I find it. 'Cause I don't want to re-type it later.

blues

2006-12-08T14:36:07-05:00

hey i was wondering if i could get any links to some good blues guitar guides for an intermediate guitarist thanks in advance

for guitar freaks

2006-12-10T20:26:54-05:00

Thought you guys might be interested in this one: http://www.guitarlessonworld.com/lessons/index.htm

Piano/Bass

2006-12-04T04:31:49-05:00

Ok... I need help... Well.. Not actually help, but a lesson... Or... two lessons... Can anyone teach me how to play bass and piano? Or at least give me a good link? I know the basics...

Crazy Train-Ozzy Osbourne

2006-11-25T19:47:51-05:00

Hey, anyone know easy guitar tabs for Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train"? The easiest would be nice. oh yea.... RANDY RHODES RULES!!!! m/

Bass...

2006-12-02T04:55:38-05:00

I have written a song... It goes like this: (4/4) | Dm | F | C | Am | Do you have any idea of how I can play the bass? Like a melody or something... I also play piano on this one, so it's kind of a ballad... *The song begins with piano chords (as above).Then I play a melody (piano) Then the guitar fades in with the chords. And then, the chords change: | Dm | Em | Dm | Em | F | C | F | C | F | G | | Dm | F | C | G |...* Could anyone find out a melody to play on the bass?

i nead help reading music

2006-11-18T12:46:37-05:00

can any one show me how? to read music that is plz :D

Fixing the crack... lol

2006-11-20T12:56:32-05:00

Yea some of you posted about getting a crack sound at the start or end of your samples you have loaded into your sequencer, we'll i spoke to my music production tutor about it, and he said it could be a few things. The first and IMO the most likely is that the samples have been sliced badly... when u look at a sample zoomed out, it might look like ur slicing it in a point of no sound, but your most likely not... lets look at this in a screenshot of a sample zoomed in... [URL=http://img479.imageshack.us/my.php?image=flci2.jpg][IMG]http://img479.imageshack.us/img479/2910/flci2.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL] as you can see point B would be the correct place to slice it, so then it would match up with the start of the sample, and opoint a... would be the wrong place to slice it, because that means the loop ending would not match up with the start, thus resulting in a single crackle sound everytime the loop repeats as it skips the distance of the redline below point A... to summarise... Slicing at point B good... slicing at point A bad... The next point he said it could be, would be the soundcard drivers, try updating them, if that doesn't work try older versions as newer versions aren't necessarily the best. And the other point he made was that it could be the actual soundcard, this would natrually be more relevant for ppl using laptops with built in soundcards/chips which are designed for playing mp3's in Windows Media Player etc, and not really... industry standard equipment... so my only solution for this one would be to sell a kidney and go buy a new soundcard, either way, i hope one of these provides a solution for your sliced sample crackle problems... if not... tough... :D -D P.s. Please dont really try and sell your kidney for soundcard money... that would just be silly...

Acting like a star!!!

2006-11-03T10:03:39-05:00

8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) So...I was wondering about those of you who do live performances.....What do you do, or did you do, to get yourself prepared for the performance aspect of playing live. I don't mean your singing, or your playing...I mean creating your stage persona. I was thinking that some people who have never performed live before may not realize how important it can be to have an onstage personality, onstage moves, things to say between songs (I know sometimes that I have no clue what to say between songs, and usually end up rambling and soundling like an idiot :roll: ) To get the ball rolling here, I'll tell you all what I do. When I have band practice...I have a huge mirror in the room....and I look at the mirror like it is my audience...but also observe what the heck I look like...am I making goofy facial expressions...do I look like I'm feeling what I'm singing....what physical movements look natural and fun, and what makes me look like an idiot.... What do I say between songs to the audience? Well....I usually try to make observations about people, like if I see a couple snuggling...and the next song is a love song - then I might say " This next song is for the couple in the back corner who can't keep their hands off of each other...if you need the keys to my van come see me between songs ;) " I might talk about what the song I'm about to do means to me, or what its about...I might comment on something big that's happening in the news or sports. You have to guage your audience...some want to laugh..some want to think...it's up to you as a performer to be observant of your audience and act accordingly. Also, when I'm playing...I try my best to make eye contact with as many people as possible...just a glance and a smile (not staring in a zombie-like way that's gonna make them start to feel uncomfortable). And if you're playing at a bar - be sure to say something nice about the servers...they'll appreciate it and you might just get more drinks on the house. So...I'd like to hear YOUR opinions and suggestions on this....creating a guide for the newbie performer! :D

fun arpeggios

2006-11-11T12:26:25-05:00

[img]http://www.bandamp.com/user/album/8578/9040.jpg[/img] go slow and build up speed try these alt picking and sweep picking.

I CAN USE SOME HELP HERE

2006-11-01T14:16:52-05:00

hey....to every1, well guys and gals i'm in need of some help with FL studio, i've been dealin with FL studio from the past 1 yr...but still dosen't got any hold on it.....i mean i jus can't learn it ......i did made some beats with it but i wanna do better and for tht i knw i gotta have some knwledge abt VST plugins and mixer effects but i don't have any knwledge abt it wat so ever. i jus want to make some good beats.........ok u got me....not jus good beats but some pro. beats to make a song.....as i love to rap i want to make much more out of it by gettin my talent with my own beats, i mean if u'll have ur own song thn ur said to be origial, true isn't it.......so i would really appreatiate if u guys and gal could help me out here. i'm more interested in online classes so tht i could learn it better. if u'll help me practically thn it will be a lill easy for me to understand it, wht i mean is keep dictating me the steps to make a song...u guys choose any song u would like me to make which includes some professional things like VST-plugins, mixer effects and the most important, the things tht i don't knw in FL studio, so plzzz if any1 could teach me thn i'll be really thnkfull to you, i jus wanna do something in the feild of music and make my dream come true...... and else is up to guys, to help me achive my goal.... jus a humble request to all of u..... in the end i need some HEEEELLLLLPPPPPPPPP................ - DOE

Help on BandAMP.com?

2006-10-13T08:33:03-04:00

Can anyone please help me here cos I need to know how exactly to operate this site. Yeah call me stupid, but I'm serious. I mean whenever I post something..is there something that can indicate to me that someone replied to my post or something or do I HAVE to go into allll my posts everytime to see whether someone replied? Thats probably my biggest biggy here. In the end I guess I can do with an instruction manual for the site. Can anyone point me in the right direction after explaining my first question please? :roll:

Circular Breathing

2006-04-03T15:51:55-04:00

I am trying to explain to someone how to circular breathe but without success. My explanation is essentially this: - Breathe out through your mouth (i.e. play your instrument normally) - Breathe in through your nose while expelling air out of your mouth as if you were squirting water (but maintain your emboucher) - Repeat How can I improve this explanation?

Practise time!

2006-03-13T10:30:06-05:00

well actually i was just wondering what kind off scales och just anything you use for practising? Do you practise or do you just play some solos, how do you do it? You try to play legato to build up strength? Maybe something thats really great for building up some nice huge stringskipping (i really suck when i have to jump from the d string to the high e) ? I need something new :)