Music Mixing. [Assistance required]

[Pacifica]

Yes, yes, I'm back. For now at least.

Sampling, etc, I've got down.
Anyone here good with sequencing and beat matching?

I do not want a link to youtube.com, but rather leaning towards personal experience.

Programs I'm using:
PCDJ Reflex
Sound Forge 9
FL Studio 8
& Mixcraft 4

[TheEazyB]

only one of those ive had experience with is FL Studio 8, what do you mean by the question good with beatmatching? Do you have difficulty setting things together?

[Pacifica]

FL Studio I've yet to touch. Thing looks... too complicated.
I do have sequencing down (somewhat) in Mixcraft though.

But would like to know how to do it via Sound Forge - if possible - and FL Studio.
Actually, I'd like to learn how to use FL Studio all around. It's probably the most capable program I have for mixing music, but seems way too complicated.
If you know any tutorials regarding the program, feel free to throw a link.

::Edit::

Is Alexander (Narker) still around? If so, please direct him to this thread.

[DEEhunter]

FL studio is more of a instrumental thing if that is what you are trying to go for.

[-Legendary-]

I can tell you how to use Fruity Loops.. I use it for my beats. You can make good techno beats with it, and once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy. I remember when I first saw it I thought the same thing.

[Pacifica]

That would be amazing.
I tried making beats - well, let say I didn't even breach square one.

[AbeFroman]

never heard of mixcraft, it sounds like something made by Blizzard entertainment

[Eaton]

never heard of mixcraft, it sounds like something made by Blizzard entertainment

It's an audio editing suite designed by Acoustica.

[Alexander]

FL Studio I've yet to touch. Thing looks... too complicated.
I do have sequencing down (somewhat) in Mixcraft though.

But would like to know how to do it via Sound Forge - if possible - and FL Studio.
Actually, I'd like to learn how to use FL Studio all around. It's probably the most capable program I have for mixing music, but seems way too complicated.
If you know any tutorials regarding the program, feel free to throw a link.

::Edit::

Is Alexander (Narker) still around? If so, please direct him to this thread.

y hallo thar

Ok basically if you can get down the fundamentals of FL it can be one of the easiest and most straightforward programs around. The core of how it works lies in its sampling and sequencing engine. Also bear in mind im still using FL Studio 7, so it probably looks a little different than 8.



The sample channels, as shown in this picture, is where you sequence your drums and synths. Make sure that at first at the top, the "PAT" box next to the play button is checked instead of "SONG", because for now we will only be working with the patterns. Once we are happy with the beat we make here, we can move on and click the SONG button, and place the beats and synths we make in a song structure.

To sequence the beats, you need to place sample files, (small .wav's or .mp3's that are just one snare hit or bass drum hit, etc) on the sample channel. You can collect samples you download on the internet or cut up from songs, or you can use the built in samples in Fruity Loops, which suck balls. But because i'm only teaching you how to get sounds onto these channels and start sequencing them, I'll just show you where the FL sounds are because you more than likely don't have any sample packs.



Click the "Packs" section of the browser on the left, and from there you have a wide selection of different genres of samples that FL includes. I'm going to open up the "Dance" section for example.



Here you are presented with a list of the samples which are in this pack. You can click on them to hear what they sound like, and then you drag one of the samples to the box on the sequencer, as shown in the picture above.

Now you have the sample assigned to that specific channel, you can just simply click in the boxes of the beat where you want the sample to play. (Pressing space bar is a much faster way to start and stop a song compared to pressing the play button up at the top.)



Keep dragging the desired samples and filling in the boxes to create a basic 4/4 beat.



Now you have to put that beat into a song. Open up your playlist if it isn't open already, by clicking the button I've circled in red in the following picture.



Now, go to the boxes to the left of the play button that I referenced earlier, PAT and SONG, and click SONG, because we are transitioning from programming a beat to implementing it into the timeline of the song. Then, drag your mouse on the main playlist to the right of where it says Pattern 1, to lay out the beat. Every little box represents one runthrough of that beat.



You've now layed out your first pattern. On the other patterns, you can designate anything else, such as the melodies and synths that make up the other parts of your song.

Click the "PAT" button again, and on the playlist, click Pattern 2, to start making the synth part of your song.

I'm going to detail how to make a synth part with the 3x Oscillator, but the method of laying out notes in the piano roll is universal to all the different synths and VST's in the program.



To select the Oscillator, go to the left of your screen at the browser, close the Packs rollout, and go up to the top, and select the "Channel Presets" option. Then open the 3x Osc folder, and choose the sound of your picking. Once you have designated the sound you want to use, simply drag it to the sequencer box like you did with the drum samples. I often use the "Hard Bass" preset.



Now to create the notes that are generated by this preset of the 3x Osc, right click on the box with the name of the sound on it, and press "Piano Roll".



From here, you can basically draw out the notes that you want to be in the song.



Select the "Brush" tool on the top of the Piano Roll, which I have circled in the previous image, and lay out any notes you please as I have done. Now, back on the playlist, simply drag out more boxes in Pattern 2 to place those notes on the actual song. You can switch back from PAT to SONG now, and press space to hear what you have created. Keep repeating this process to create as many synths as you like, but make sure you make a new pattern for each one, this makes things much easier. This is basically what fruity loops is, using synths and samples on a playlist to sequence a song.



If you need to make the drum loop longer or change the time signature of the song, go to the top left of the sequencer, as I have shown in the previous picture, and simply drag the number up and down to get the desired amount of 4 beat bars. In the shown picture, I have dragged mine up to 16 to accommodate a bassline of sorts.

There are many, many more elements of this program, but what I have shown here is the very basic process of laying out samples and playing a desired synth. You can download the file I made with this here:

http://hippygoat.com/tut.flp

and listen to it without FL here: http://hippygoat.com/tut.mp3

The possibilities with this program are limitless for the kind of music I produce, I've made everything from eurotrance to pop to grindcore to rap.

And because I just spent over an hour of my Sunday morning writing this up for you, I'll shamelessly plug my own work so you can see the kind of things FL is capable of.

http://hippygoat.com/cleansing.mp3
http://hippygoat.com/pop.mp3
http://hippygoat.com/gog.mp3
http://hippygoat.com/ultrapower.mp3
http://hippygoat.com/hericlitus.mp3

and my two main projects, which have many other songs on them.

http://myspace.com/alexanderanalrape (where most of my creative effort goes)

and http://myspace.com/perforatedtoapulp (A satire grindcore page)