Why Pro Composers Dislike FL Studio & How to Fix It (Kinda)

Link to the presets I mentioned in the video:
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🎻 LIBRARIES & SOFTWARE:
- Strings: Metropolis Ark 1, Cinematic Strings 2, Fluid Shorts, Jaeger
- Brass: Metropolis Ark 1, Century Brass, Jaeger
- Percussion: Damage, Rhapsody Orchestral Percussion
- Choir: Metropolis Ark 1, Oceania
- Piano: The Giant
- Solo Vocals: Jaeger, Vocalisa
- Guitars: Guitar Rig
- Trailer SFX: Juggernaut, Cinematic Trailers Designed, Scenes From The Multiverse Vol.1, Shredders, AVA Instinct
- Mixing & Mastering: iZotope Ozone, ValhallaRoom, ValhallaShimmer, FL Studio Plugins
- DAW: FL Studio 20
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💻 HARDWARE & PC SPECS:
- Desktop PC: 3.7 GHz Intel Core i7 8700k / 32GB DDR4 RAM / 2TB Samsung Evo860 M.2 SSD
- Laptop PC: Asus ROG GLW752 (2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ / 16GB DDR4 RAM / 1TB Samsung Evo860 M.2 SSD)
- Audio Interface: M-Audio M-Track Plus
- MIDI Keyboard: M-Audio Keystation 49 MkIII

[AlexMoukala]

I want to emphasize that it took me several years before running into these limitations of FL's workflow.
If your orchestrations never reach the 125 mixer tracks limit, and if you compose using a fixed template instead of adding different instruments to your project files on the fly every time, most of the things I talk about in this video won't matter to you.
But they might once your orchestral music production process starts to get more nuanced and refined.

FL Studio will keep getting updated and these issues will surely be solved down the road, but for me personally, I'm starting to get the feeling that my growth as a composer finally started to exceed the speed at which Image Line's developers implements updates aimed at composers within the FL Studio community.

It's unfortunately a feeling I see shared all too often in the FL Studio forums, but it's not shared frequently enough to prompt a quick response from the Image Line staff compared to how quickly they respond to other issues and features they have lined up.

PS. For those of you wanting to learn more and deeper ways to use Patcher in general, I recommend you to check out NanoSpiral's channel.
There's a lot of great Patcher tutorials there:

[MaxShirshovMusic]

This video should be shared with the devs from image-line. If watching a man overcome the impossible and pick up a coding language just to use some basic features doesn't make them feel anything, nothing will.

[sensumcommunem]

Far from being _uninteresting, _ this is probably one of the most informative _"How To"_ tutorial videos for FL classical/trailer/film/game composers because of its practicality.

This exceeds your tutorial from a few years ago with regards to BRSO Articulate. That too was a _lightbulb moment_ video for me, and again served to improve the workflow/set-up of my templates.

I am not a professional composer, I am a hobbyist, and I switch between various types and genres of music. I only got back into music in 2020, after a 25 year hiatus, and FL had the most intuitive workflow for me.

That was until I began using orchestral libraries and started to scratch my head thinking: "Where's that feature in FL Studio?" (after having watched a Cubase or Logic tutorial).

So videos/tutorials of this nature are important, very important, and I thank you for creating them.

P.S. Great course BTW. 👍
👍👍👍👍👍👍

[Tauramehtar]

Alex, I'm so glad you're back here on YouTube. Missed you and the great videos and music, brother.

[swatforce]

This is one of the biggest problems I've been facing, as I find myself being limited by FL Studio to the point where I've even been thinking about switching my DAW. Why I don't want to do this though, is the fact that I've spent the past five years learning this program to a point where I can open fl and start composing, much like a professional pianist can sit down at a piano and simply start playing as they know that instrument very well. As such I really appreciate this video, especially as most composers on YouTube use logic or Ableton and it can get extremely annoying when they use features FL studio composers don't have. For that, I must thank you Alex as this really helps🙏🙏🙏Keep up the amazing vids, and thanks a lot🔥🔥🔥

[Flowee]

You dont even know how happy i fell seeing another video here on this channel. Thank you so much, and i hope you will keep uploading🙏🫶🤟

[NLover]

my orchestral projects aren't complex to the point where I'd need any of this, but it was still interesting to learn about these features, great video ^^

[JamesImirzian]

Really appreciate this, thank you Alex! Totally understand the source of the frustration here too. All this time we spend wrangling the vsts and daw really drains from our energy to do what we want to do - actually write music!

[sanguisvirginis]

you really are the best teacher on youtube for this stuff, or just production in general. you actually use examples and show yourself doing it, explaining it really simply. the goat!!!

[micheleduritto]

I guess my discussion on the other video helped you create this video, which i am very grateful about, i was already half way done in doing everything you talked about here in Patcher myself, because i got curious when you showed this on that other video, the only thing i was struggling were the multiscripts for kontakt and how to effectively do the same thing in Sine Player, but thanks to your multiscript and thank to the use of midi out everything is now clear...even more, you also done the job for us, so thank you Alex.

[berserker]

3 videos in just 2 weeks, this must to be a dream XDXDXD
Thank you Alex, glad to see you back🤘🏻

[DomzTunes]

For me it was the amount of windows you had to keep opening and closing but eventually you get used to it.

[DNXIE]

I actually messaged you about this on Facebook, thank you for taking the time to explain this further!

[rqmbnoz]

Hey Alex, first of all this is AMAZING !!! I was always annoyed by how the delay was setup on Fl thanks you a lot for sharing this with us. I also wanted to tell you thank you for the new tutorials I am glad that you have managed to find the time to make more of them on this channel. I also really enjoy the new unscripted format despite what you might think, and I am sure I am not the only. Thanks again Alex :)

[PhantomCatMusic]

I've spent hours trying to find a solution to the delay and I've just been manually shifting my notes. This is great stuff!

[MADZBEATS]

So good to hear you again. Reminds me of the times when I felt very motivated ;)

[musicbyfery]

Never thought of using different midi channels and audio outputs within 1 instance of a plugin, thanks for sharing you knowledge 🙏🏽

[TheKuyaJep]

I agree with you on so much. FL is really amazing and has such a fluid workforce but the limitations you pointed out are what I've been struggling with too. In projects that get larger, 125 mixer tracks feel so limited. Using Patcher as a workaround has been the "secret trick" but it'd also be nice to just have more tracks in the mixer.

Anyhow, thank you for your insight on these points!

[Pax]

Thanks for sharing! and thanks for mentioning this plugin. The minus delay plugin.

[analyticequals]

Good job on your Solutions. Would love to see you make your patches for patcher. They are clean and to the point.