Fruity loops is a highly underrated program when it comes to music production software. I find the layout and usability of FL Studio top very ingenious. Songs are structured with on the basis of compiling various patterns and layering various elements of these patterns. Automation is used with effects and instruments to achieve various results and make the songs interesting. But today i would like to compile a fruity loops 6 tutorial, on how to make a techno track. We will start from loading up drum samples, then mastering these samples, then making a pattern structure, then implementing a melody with a softsynth provided and then finally doing some automation and exporting. Firstly a note, this tutorial will be showing true techno music, not some scooter or paul van dyk, they aren’t techno! First things first! You need to have a Fruity Loops version 6 installed and working. When that is done open it up.
Original Post : blog.nightgen.com
Tutorial
Too much rides! So on pattern 1 and 2, in the step sequencer right click all of the highlighted beats on the ride cymbal, i.e EB-trance_ride_2. We will add it in again later. For now lets keep making some different arrangements by pasting the first pattern and cloning it then editing it. I will make 3 more variations and post my final playlist and the variations i made in the step sequencer.
Playlist Editor:
Pattern 2:
Pattern 3:
Pattern 4:
Pattern 5:
- You can use the above patterns and arrangements for your song or whatever, i am just illustrating how to use the playlist editor to arrange and build a song. So go ahead and play your song, add tweaks, you are in control. Lets add in our rides however, to give the tech track a bit more power. Select what is now Pattern 7 (This should be free) and draw in the rides. Paste the pattern on track 7 from bar 17 till 24. Add in the other patterns, i.e the melody and whatever drums you made. My new playlist editor looks like this:
- Next we will add some automation to our track, because i dont like how the synth comes in at the moment. I won’t make a full track here, but i am just showing you the basics of how to compose a track with what FL Studio 6 has to offer. So lets slowly fade in our synth and add a filter! Firstly open up the FX Mixer by pressing “F9″. Select channel 6 which is the channel for our Sytrus Synth . On Bay 6 add the Fruity Filter Effect, not Fruity Free Filter (Fruity Loops 7 will have a new bigger and badder filter, yum yum). Back on the Playlist editor make sure Pattern 8 is selected. Then with the Fruity Filter window open set all of the setting to:
- Next right click on the “Cutoff freq” dial and select “Init song with this position”. This will make sure whenever the song starts, the dial will snap back to this position, and not the position that it ended on last time. Right click again on this cutoff dial and this time select “Edit Events”. You must make sure you are still on Pattern 8 on the playlist editor, or this may lead to some big confusion later on. A new window will pop up, this is where you draw a graph, which controls the parameters of the dial. So with the paintbrush tool selected, from the bottom left of the screen right click and hold to draw a diagonal line up to the top of the screen ending at the end of the 4th bar. I.e:
- Next step is to go back to the playlist editor, and paste a bar at the start of Pattern 8. You have just created an automation channel, which filters gradually the highs of the synth we made. Sounds good yeh ? You can do this for just about any parameter in fruity loops, just watch out which pattern you are drawing in the event, it can cause some headaches and frustration, believe me, i’ve stress tested this one. Here is my final playlist editor window:
- So continue to produce your song, add new elements, take some away. But now when you are ready, lets export our track. Make sure the song mode is selected, or you will export your track only with the selected pattern. Go to “File > Export > MP3 File”. You can export to WAV if you like, if you don’t like the LAME ENC which FL Studio 6 uses, or you wish to do further mastering in programs like Adobe Audition or SonySoundforge etc. But i think what we have here has enough punch, plus most of the mastering work is best to be done on individual channels and sounds, not on the final song as a whole. Anyhow, select MP3 File and select your save location. Next use these settings, although you can select a lower/higher bitrate when desired.
Yay. We have made a song, exported it to MP3 format and ready to upload to our friends/the web/record labels/radio stations whatever. This concludes my two part tutorial of how to makeaTechno track with Fruity Loops 6. Please if you have any tips for me and the others, or you would like to show me your final version of the track or you got lost before you even read the title of the post, please write me a comment here and i will get back to you! Hope you enjoyed this tutorial, i will be writing more tips and fruity loops news when i get the chance to!
Final Zipped Loop Package: fruity-loops-6-techno-tutorial-part-2.zip (Courtesy : blog.nightgen.com)
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