Philosophical reason to learn your favorite software shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are something every good producer knows as good as the palm of his or her hand, and there's a reason to it.
Time in economy is known as one of the more important assets that every person has. Your life will end some day, therefore your time is limited, therefore is very precious and should be administered with efficiency.
Now let's suppose you don't bother to learn a few shortcuts, and instead go all the way with the mouse cursor, the amount of time you'll lose traveling the whole screen again and again will add up(not to mention the unconfortable task to find the desired window), and even if it is just a half of a second you'll be doing this for a long long time, in my case more than 7 years in the practice of FL Studio. Got the point?
Enough talk, let's save some time for our lives:

The ABC of FL Studio

F5: View Playlist
F6: View Step Secuencer
F7: View Piano Roll
F8: View Browser
F9: View Mixer

These will be the more recurrent ones, so much that you can even erase the little inscriptions on your buttons.
Each of these shortcuts will bring a window to front, wich will have some sub-shortcuts itself, all these will be less recurrent, but a few are a must-know.

Playlist:
            Tools - Draw (P)(must-know!)
                    Paint (B)(must-know!)
                    Erase (D)
                    Slip (S)
                    Cut (C)
                    Select (E)(must-know!)
                    Zoom to selection (Z)
                    Add time marker (Alt+T)


Step Secuencer:
                    Graph editor (G)
                    Keyboard editor (K)
                   
                   
Piano Roll:
            Quick Tool Menu - Riff machine (Alt+E)
                              Quick legato (Ctrl+L)
                              Articulate (Alt+L)
                              Quick quantize (Ctrl+Q)(must-know!)
                              Quantize (Alt+Q)
                              Quick chop (Ctrl+U)
                              Chop (Alt+U)
                              Glue (Ctrl+G)
                              Arpeggiate (Alt+A)
                              Strum (Alt+S)
                              Flam (Alt+F)
                              Claw machine(Alt+W)
                              Limit (Alt+K)
                              Flip (Alt+Y)
                              Randomize (Alt+R)
                              Scale levels (Alt+X)
                              LFO (Alt+O)

              Tools Menu -  Draw (P)(must-know!)
                          Paint (B)(must-know!)
                          Erase (D)
                          Mute (T)
                          Cut (C)
                          Select (E)(must-know!)
                          Zoom to selection (Z)
                          Playback (scrub) (Y)

                         
Browser:
        Browser menu -  Find (Alt+F): Find exact phrase(find samples and features the easy way!)(must-know!)
                        Smart find: (Ctrl+F): Allows the use of advanced search functions. EG: * and ?.
                        Find previous (F2): Usable when searching(must-know!)
                        Find next (F3):  Usable when searching(must-know!)
                       
                       
Mixer:
        Main menu - Rename mixer track (F2)(must-know!)
                    Mixer track solo (S)(must-know!)
                    Open audio editor (Ctrl+E)
                    Open audio logger (Shift+E)
                    Link selected channels to selected mixer track (Ctrl+L)(must-know!)(must-know!)(must-know!) so recurrent...
                   
All these shortcuts are present in FL Studio 9 XXL (the current version I'm using at the time of writing this article), for more future and necessary shortcuts come back here everytime FL Studio changes it's version.


Until next time, live musically!


FL Studio tutorial: chapter 2 - main meters and main menus <- Previous Tutorial

Next Tutorial-> How and when to effectively use Channel Groups in FL Studio 9

16bit wav samples from Sonic 3 - Genesis

Hi there, how have you been? hope you're all doing fine!
I've been working on sampling some WAV files from Sonic 3 @ Genesis System.
These are WAV samples taken from the game by dumping the audio effects individually to separate files. They are the blips, noises, and sound effects of the game, and they hold within themselves, the pure spirit of the 16 bit era :)
I've also managed to make a simple FL Studio project to show what can be achieved with only some samples of the pack. Just for the record: the only samples that are not from the pack are the kick and the hihat. The kick is from another pack and I've included it in the .rar with the .flp project.
In order to be able to use the .flp you have to download the pack and open it in FL Studio 9 (not sure if it will work properly on earlier versions, it will not hurt you if you try and tell me), and all the red channels that are missing the samples have the name of the file in the pack that they need, just look for them with the "Load sample..." button(the little folder on the channel window).


Enough talk, TO THE FILES!


FLP project:
Fltutorialsbynyph.com - FLP DOWNLOAD

Sample pack:
Fltutorialsbynyph.com - Sonic 3 wav sample pack

MP3 audio:
  Fltutorialsbynyph.com - 16bit samples demo by nyp


I hope some of you found it useful to experiment and learn a little bit of sampling by your own, and there's gonna be a chapter or more, dedicated to that subjet when I finish with the basic ABC of FL Studio in the tutorials.
I've received a lot of good feedback from all of you people, that really pushes me forward in this project, and I am really thankfull for all of you that take time of your lives to read, view, and hear what I have to say in this blog.
Think of this post as an early prize for your support.
Keep the good vibes coming, the music flowing and the tutorials teaching :)

Until next time!

Ignorance about a subject makes you uncapable of living your dreams <-Previous Post
Next Post-> Philosophical reason to learn your favorite software shortcuts

Ignorance about a subject makes you uncapable of living your dreams

I've been there, not knowing what does that random button do, and closing the damn program after a few minutes of not making anything worthy of being listen to.
This course is about defeating that sense of being made out of musical crap, by realizing that ignorance about a subject (that matter to you) makes you uncapable of living your dreams. Your beautiful music production dreams.
You are here to change that, from day to day to day, by making yours all the knowledge that you'll need in this journey.
Face it, the goal is very difficult. But you must trust in my knowledge transmission skills as if there's no tomorrow. Because there's no twomorrow for your music production dreams if you don't commit to the task. The task of absorving all the condensed expertise I'm about to deliver to you, for free.
My only payment is feedback.
Well, that and any eventual donation that may happen, but you must really and deeply ask yourself if my efforts helped you to improve in any way, to be smarter in any way, to be a better you than before knowing this blog. If that's the case, and only that case, donate.
If not, keep this blog close to you and in time I'll write about something you didn't even thought about, but give us time, not only to me but to you too.
Have you ever come across an interesting blog and bookmarked it after reading a few entries that you liked, closed it and inmidiately forgot about it's existance? I know I do that almost everytime I surf the blogosphere, but maybe not today nor twomorrow I'll have to sort my bookmarks, and that's the time I visit once again that forgotten blog and find new posts or archive posts as interesting and inspiring as the ones that made me bookmark it in the first place.
We have a very long, but very enjoyable journey ahead of us. Let us start it.

Until we meet again!

FL Studio tutorial: chapter 2 - main meters and menus<-Previous Post

Next Post-> 16bit wav samples from Sonic 3 - Genesis

FL Studio tutorial: chapter 1 - soundflow / step secuencer

Soundflow

Soundflow is the flow of the sound in a specific environment, from where it begins and where it goes, all the different stages that modify it in some way are going to be explained here.
Soundflow in FL Studio begins in the channel window, more specifically in the step secuencer or alternatively the piano roll.
The sound in FL Studio is produced by "channels", and these can be samplers, VST instruments or internal generators. Each channel can be assigned to a specific mixer track, from wich the sound will go to the main mixer track called Master and then to the soundcard output(after the main volume and main pitch steps), but if you don't route the channel to a mixer track the sound will directly go to the Master, leaving you without the possibility to add effects to that specific channel, but you can still generally add the effects along with all the other channels that weren't assigned to a mixer track.
At the end of the soundflow we got the main volume and main pitch sliders at the top of the main panel, you can manipulate the main volume at will while working on your project, but you must reset the slider to default position to render your work. For the main pitch you may do as you please.


Step secuencer

Audio data in FL studio is introduced via the step secuencer or alternatively the piano roll.
Both data inputs do the same work, but providing easy interfaces to aproach the music cration in different ways depending on what your needs are.
Step secuencer makes it really easy to create percussion loops, it's as simple as clicking some dots on the screen and then click play or (spacebar) to hear it. Of course, making music is actually more difficult than that, but the main procedure is the same.
To add some complexity to your loops you can click on the "Graph editor" icon (G) to show an array of properties that can add new dimentions of depth to really simple loops. Those properies are: note panning (Pan), note volume (Velocity), note release velocity (Release), cutoff (Filter cut), resonance (Filter res), pitch (Pitch) and shifting (Shift). Lets say you fill completely all the steps in a hi-hat sample, and let it play just like that. Pretty annoying in my opinion. Now open the "Graph editor" icon (g) and randomly modify the pitch sliders, nothing special, just enough to hear how the same steps sound very different with little effort.
If you think about it, messing with the pitch in this way is not very musical, in the sense that you can't make a note progression by modifying only this property, or at least it will be more difficult than using "Keyboard editor" (k).
"Keyboard editor" is a micro piano roll embedded in the step secuencer, more inmediate to use than the actual "Piano roll" and with a few characteristics to have in mind:
1)you can traspose the notes you draw in it by pressing and holding ctrl key.
2)notes can slide by pressing the slide button at the top of the "Keyboard editor".
3)making chords is not an option, for that is the actual "Piano roll"
You must remember the general law of VSTi and DX instruments: they don't natively support FL Studio slide feature. This is solved by the use of portamento in each VSTi and DX instruments individually.
The maximum lenght of a pattern made in the step secuencer is 64 steps, if you want more space...just make another pattern!


Until next time!

Next Tutorial->  FL Studio tutorial: chapter 2 - main meters and main menus

Introduction

Hi, I'm NYPH, welcome to my tutorial blog. My main goal at making this blog will be giving help to the new and advanced users of FL Studio via quality video tutorials and posts, and by following a chapters scheme I'll try to introduce you to the more basic and not so basic features of this great editor and secuencer.
Not only this blog is about FL Studio tutorials, but also I'll post free samples, free mp3's, free .flp sources and free templates, so stay tuned for every new release.
Also you can give me some feedback after seeing my work so I can improve every day, since I'm not that skilled in video edition I can take any suggestion for getting better at my video editing skills, and also to my explaining skills, after all I'm not a professor of any kind and I'm not used to explain very much, but I have an eager to share my knowledge about what I do most: music, and music production.
I hope this blog serves to anyone who enters in it, since that's my goal in life since a few years: improving the state of consciousness, in this case, musical production consciousness.

This is a work in progress, be patient and you'll be gratified.

First Tutorial->  FL Studio tutorial: chapter 1 - soundflow / step secuencer