Fl Studio – Texture/Timing and General Tips Tutorial (for all DAWs)


LOE (Level Of Experience): ANY


The main concept of this tutorial will center around the fact that great music is not made through the explicitly perceived complexity of the music being produced, yet the implicit simplicity of a true work of art.
What I mean is there is a compensation trap newbie’s or even amateurs often fall into where they lock in on familiar habits of their production techniques and persistently try to improve on these old techniques not realizing this would be the same idea of having a backyard full of poison ivy, than adding fertilizer to it. Trying to better something that shouldn’t be there to begin.

Imagine your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) as something that contains MORE than just a hammer and nails. It’s a toolbox LOADED with resources that are put there for a reason, never to be neglected.

BREAK YOUR HABITS. Open your eyes & ears. F-O-C-U-S.

Texture-
What is texture? Something as simple as texture can take a great melody and make it sound like crap in a mix or the shittiest melody in the world and make it sound like a magical/complex and almost unobtainable quality of sound, when in reality you might have been able to key in that melody with a blindfold on.

Texture is the glue that smoothes together all elements of a song and makes it sound less like a bunch of instruments playing together but a complete song. DO NOT limit yourself into thinking textures need to match. Cotton jeans and a polyester shirt can go great together. Different textures are like different parts of a personality that mesh together into a form that makes sense. May sound complex, it’s really not, even for a newbie. I’ll get deeper into this concept later in this tutorial.

Timing-
Timing can be note placement or tempo, but these are the BASICS of composition. And in a finished track, timing will take place in so many forms you may not be aware of.
Attack, decay, sustain, release, lfo, automations, reverb decay, delay feedback, flanger feedback, etc.
DO NOT think you need to spend endless hours fiddling with these components.
Just know simple things that DON’T WORK. And the whole idea of timing I’d like you to simplify into this idea.
When you have a toothache, and you call the dentist, he has a book so that your TIME does not interfere with the time of another patient.

Example:
A simple kick/bass line K-B-K-B-K-B-K-B

So we compress everything, do some equalizing, and it still sounds like crap? Maybe if we add some fx, some chorus to the bass, play with the compression & equal levels we’ll get a better sound..

Still sound like crap?

This is SOO basic. You need to ingrain it into your head. Similar frequencies DO NOT LIKE EACH OTHER.
One idea people resort to: side chain the bass.

It’s simple, affective, and keeps frequencies at peace with each other.
But side chaining can sometimes add a “texture” that doesn’t mesh with the overall sound you’re going for. Side chaining is GREAT, if you don’t do it, start. But DO NOT abuse it.

Side chaining will give you more of a slow attack thump sound than a fast attack pulse like a heart beat. Of course this is all relative to your level of expertise, but I’m speaking to only who this applies to.

Try this.
Open a kick and bass. ANY kick and ANY bass. Literally flip a coin 20 times, as many times as you land tails, add it up, count through your favorite kick drum sample pack to that number and open that sample. This will force you to make different textures and times live in harmony in the same world.
(note: I don’t use the word ‘texture’ with the stringent rules formal musical theory applies like you might learn in a university, texture to me is a very BROAD term the way I apply in my theory, like mixing people of 2 different races, you’re mixing 2 textures, but in the realm of sound, you actually have control over the outcome).
Open a synth/sf2 or w/e for the bass.
Do the same thing.

Place them on the K-B-K-B-K-B-K-B sequence.

What’s your natural impulse right now?
Think about it.
Tempted to just completely change the sounds/patches/samples?

Change your softsynth? Think it doesn’t measure up to your expectations. Isn’t capable?
Ok, close your bass (from Albino, z3ta or w/e you think the “good” sounds are), open the 3osc now. You’re punishing yourself for shifting the responsibility of YOU’RE work onto something other than you. And guess what, the 3osc and ts4o4 make some SICK bass lines. With very little effort.


Pattern the kick and bass to loop as K-B formula.

Now, focus.

The direction I’ll lead you from this point has nothing more to do with my mood at the moment.
I want something smooth and soft, something that flies under the radar, not really screaming for attention, but at the same times makes you want to shake your head with the beat till if falls off.

I think most people use kick drums from samples.
They come in millions of different textures and times.

They may hit quick and end quick, or hit slow and end slow.

Doesn’t matter.

Learn how to use the sampler the kick is in.
Learn how to use the sampler ANY SAMPLE is in.

If your kick lingers a millisecond too long, and the bass begins on quick attack. The second these frequencies merge you’re destined to get an ugly/muddy unprofessional sound.
Make sure the attack, decay, sustain and release are set for both so both elements of the track are 100% content in their position.
Play with the filters on both.
Also realize opening the filter on the bass can often be dangerous unless you don’t know what you’re doing. This all obviously depends on the genre as hard trance usually lets those higher frequencies in, but now you’re putting a plastic bag over the main leads to breathe from.

Hihats/percussions/claps

Again A LOT of sampler work here.
Try learning how to use the hi pass filter directly in the sampler while playing with the resonance (mod y) control. That little drop down menu underneath the modx and mody with the filter options should almost ALWAYS be used.

For open hihats learn how to play with the filter LFO to the left of these options. It doesn’t take long but a slight adjustment of the attack time, amount and speed can have a HUGE yet subtle impact on the overall track.
Which was the basis of this whole post, small changes that make MASSIVE differences.

Even put a quick 1 feedback delay on a hat that almost sounds like a chorus affect. Play around with and learn all the capabilities of these samplers, they are POWERFUL.

For claps, try AGAIN some LFO. Route it through some fast distortion. I LOVE a slow attack on claps. For best results, clone the clap, cut all the release, sustain and delay on one, pan it left, than put the slow attack clap on the right channel. Its simple and gives the complex perception of something that literally take no time to do.
Also, don’t forget snares and claps make for some nice polyphonic sounds played together, give it a try.


I could write a book about all the different things I do with synths but try this for fun.
Get a groove that sounds *decent*. Doesn’t need to be insane. Really, just trust me.

Do this:

WITH OUT any affects in the mixer each synth is routed through but the send channel. (you’ll understand as I explain)
For example:
You open up z3ta. Type in a 4 bar melody, can be as simple or complex as you wish.

Think of a name for the melody. Say for this ex. we call it “killer”.
You’re going to do this.
Using the mixer (please don’t ask how it really is too simple).
Record this pattern 3 times as a wav file under 3 different names.
“Killer1”
“Killer 2”
“Killer 3”.

Go to the ‘recorded folder’ and find these files.
Drag each out beginning on the same bar, but one right underneath each other (called “patterns” in FL).

So you have 3 of the SAME melodies basically playing at the same time.

Now, route each sample to a DIFFERENT channel.
You will wind up with 3 channels.
For each channel open up random and different fx.

Say for Killer1 you run it through a chorus, and blood overdrive.
Killer 2 you compress it and run it through a hipass filter.
Killer 3 you can leave alone, or run it through some flanger or distortion, doesn’t really matter.

Put ‘fl send” into each channel these 3 samples are routed into. And send them all to channel 1. “Dry” for each of the channels should be completely to the left (for Fruity Send in the channel for each sample) and volume should be 85-100% (I prefer 100) to the right.


This way you’re completely routing all these 3 samples to the same channel.
Put a reverb on the send channel and a delay (be careful with the delay, don’t overdo it). And lastly put a filter.
On the individual sample channels it’s also VERY useful to use an equalizer.
And it’s also very useful to use volume controls so no one sample suffocates the other.

But this is a BASIC route you can take to turning vst synth melodies into something unreal, powerful, and *complex through what is REALLY a very simple method of sound manipulation.

I’m going to submit a future tutorial just on getting synths lines so powerful you’ll want to know why the hell you never realized how simple it was to actually do, but for now I’m exhausted.
I’d also like to submit FLP files of how I create a simple melody, and how I clone it and make it really burn through speakers. But I need to know how many FL users are out there.
If not I’ll wind up just using mp3s, but if anyone got anything from this tutorial, let me know, and I’ll get to my synth tut, which I’m dying to do.

-Roxx