Image-Line FL Studio 10
Many computer musicians hold FL Studio
dear as their irst – and sometimes only –
musical love. If you’re not yet familiar with it,
here’s a crash course: it’s a DAW that enables
you to record/edit audio, edit MIDI in a piano roll
or step sequencer, work with patterns, arrange
them into songs and mix the lot down. There’s
an extensive array of instruments and efects
included, the app is stable and solid, and the
interface is straightforward and clean. It has a bit
of a false reputation as being “for beginners”,
but there are certainly professionals who use it
because it’s easy to use. Owing to its emphasis
on MIDI and sample-based production, it’s best
suited to electronic musicians. Sure, it can
handle a few audio tracks, but if you’re looking
to record a band, you should look elsewhere.
We’re reviewing the top-of-the-line Signature
Bundle here, although there are packages to suit
all pockets. The last ‘proper’ release of FL Studio
9 was v9.1, and releases since then have been
public betas leading up to v10. So, we’ll be
looking at everything added since v9.1. But irst,
we need to look at what’s been taken away.
FL Studio’s long-standing pattern blocks are
now being phased out. On launching it they’re
absent, and while they can be re-enabled in the
settings, a message warns that pattern blocks
are obsolete and won’t be in future versions. In a
way, this is good news because the developers
can improve the new clips Playlist system
without having to accommodate and maintain
the old system of pattern blocks.
Can’t give it up
The thing is, some users prefer pattern blocks
because they’ve been using them for so long,
and a serious concern with live show performers
is the future of Live Mode. Using pattern blocks
with Live Mode is currently the only way to
launch patterns on-the-ly. The new playlist
marker types, while handy for arranging, and
I m a g e - L i n e
This massively popular PC DAW reaches double digits, ushering in
plenty of new features and giving pattern blocks the old heave-ho
MARKERS
New for v10 are loop,
pause and skip markers
AUTOSAVE
Projects are
now backed up
automatically
WAVE METERS
Keep an eye on
the signal
flowing through
each channel
MIXER
Now with automatic plug-in latency
compensation – about time, too!
PLUG-IN WRAPPER
This is your means for loading third-party
VSTs, now with support for 64-bit plug-ins
WAVE DISPLAY
Drop audio here
to display the
waveform behind
the MIDI notes –
handy for syncing
MIDI to audio
TRACKS
You can now adjust their
heights individually
Check out the FL Studio
manual and give the
demo a test drive
potentially useful for live performance, are not
yet satisfying substitutes for the old Live Mode.
On the bright side, since these new marker
types (and the new ZGameEditor Visualizer
plug-in) are being advertised as great for live
performance, this suggests that Image-Line
consider live features to be a central part of FL
Studio. We do hope this means that more live
features are on their to-do list.
On to the new stuf, then. The piano roll,
Playlist (ie, arrangement/project page) and
mixer are fundamental to any DAW, and this
update sees many GUI tweaks and worklow
enhancements in these key areas. Check out the
History section on the Image-Line website for a
full rundown, and our feature on p49.
FL Studio users have long appreciated the
‘ghost notes’ feature that allows you to see the
notes of multiple instruments on the same piano
roll, and now you can edit ghost notes directly
by double-right-clicking them. Anyone who
84 / / June 2011
> reviews / image-line l studio 10
CMU165.rev_fl 84 4/13/11 11:17:20 AM