You’ve likely made it to this page because you are a beginner to FL Studio, or potentially a beginner to music production.
Maybe you’d started up FL Studio, taken one look at the interface, and thought to your
How in the world am I going to learn how to produce with this?
We will be the first to admit that, upon first glance, FL Studio is a bit intimidating.
However, since you are here and want to learn how to use FL Studio, we’re going to help you by breaking down the main features of this DAW so you can start using it as soon as possible.
Introduction to FL Studio
When you first load up FL Studio, you get a page that looks something like this:
One of the first things we’d like to note about FL Studio is that you can manipulate the windows to your liking. That is sort of the beauty of this DAW. The customization possibilities are near endless, compared to what you might find in a competitor DAW like Ableton Live.
Beyond the toolbar at the top, what you find at the top of the screen nothing about this DAW is fixed.
Speaking of the toolbar, let’s take a look at it.
Here is where you will find the File, Edit, Options, and more.
Most of these buttons are pretty self-explanatory, and some are just itemized iterations of the many knobs and buttons strewn across the interface. We recommend taking some time to explore these on your own, but don’t get too hung up on them.
Transport Section
In the center of the DAW, you will find the transport section.
This section houses the Play, Stop, and Record buttons.
you will also see two options in this section, including Pat and Song. These two options allow you to switch between the arrangement and the channel rack. With the ability to switch between these two, you can sketch out ideas and make a full track simultaneously.
You will also find a couple of additional buttons and a time counter next to the visual effects. These give you information about the time in your music and your CPU load.
Snap Control
Beneath your transport section, you will find the universal snap control, which allows you to snap onto the grid across the arrangement section and piano roll. Essentially, this section keeps your music quantized.
Go to the right of that section, you will find a few more important buttons, including Browser, Mixer, Channel Rack, Piano Roll, and Arrangement.
Browser Section
The FL Studio browser is where you will find information for all the materials in your track, including samples, instruments, and presets.
You can think of these as the raw materials in your toolbox, which you can use to make your music.
You will find many different folders, which you can explore overtime. However, for the sake of keeping this guide digestible, let’s look at some of the most important ones.
Packs Folder
You will find all of the default sound in FL Studio in the Packs folder. If you know how to use them, they aren’t that bad. You’ll find a wide range of drum sounds, FX, and loops, which you can use in the channel rack section.
Check out our massive selection of high-quality samples here at FL Tips.
Plugin Database
The Plug-in Database can be used in the main view by heading to the Browser window and clicking the ‘plug’ icon.
The database will give you an overview of your instrument plugins and effects. Any third-party plugins or VSTs that you own will also show up here.
Current Project
The Current Project folder shows you all automation Clips, sounds, actions, and anything else that you have done in the current project. This folder is extremely helpful for finding material if you don’t want to spend a ton of time sifting through various windows.
PRO TIP: You can add your own folder by clicking Options > File Settings
Channel Rack
The Channel Rack is where your ideas start to blossom.
It is arguably the most important piece of FL Studio, and probably the main thing that sets this DAW apart from so many others on the market.
The Channel Rack comes pre-loaded with four stock sounds to get you started. While you can certainly use these sounds, you can also use your knowledge of the Browser section to search for your own samples.
Simply drag sounds from your browser into a new slot underneath these sounds to create a brand-new Sampler.
In the top left corner of Channel Rack, you’ll find a small menu with a couple of mostly self-explanatory options.
- Loop Mode – Loops the entire pattern by default
- Menu – Allows you to select various channels and groups
Step Sequencer
The Step Sequencer is the most important part of the Channel Rack, allowing you to sketch out ideas quickly.
Left-click on the box to add a step or drag it across to create multiple steps. You can also right-click on a box to delete the step. Each of the individual channels we’ll have a title on the left side with a small LED button.
You can left-click on the LED to select the current channel, which gives you a few applicable dropdown menu settings.
Important Controls
While we’re not going to dive into all of the controls that the Step Sequencer offers, we will go over a few of the most important controls.
The left side of the step sequencer features a few buttons and knobs. If the LED is green, that says that the channel is on. You can left-click on a channel to turn it on or off, or right-click on a channel to solo it.
You’ll find two knobs next to each LED for volume and panning control, great for quick mixing.
The small numbers next to the knobs determine where it is going in the mix router, which we will get to later.
If you look to the right, you will find a couple of buttons, one of which is the mini step sequencer, which puts all of the steps on the step sequencer to the piano roll. You can also click on the bars to expand the graph editor, allowing you to surgically adjust the pitch, velocity, and additional parameters of each note or step.
Piano Roll
One of the most powerful parts of the Channel Rack is the Piano Roll. If you want to go beyond regular step sequencing, the Piano Roll can help you draw in chords, melodies, and complex drum rhythms.
FL Studio has long been renowned for its supreme piano roll, offering incredible functionality.
Let’s look at a few of the most basic functions of the Piano Roll.
Basic Piano Roll Functionality
In the same way that you draw in steps on the step sequencer, you can click and drag up, down, left, and right to add notes to the piano roll and change the pitch and timing of each note. Hover your mouse over the end of a note and drag it left or right to make it longer or shorter.
You’ll find the velocity for each note at the bottom, and you can click and drag to adjust the velocity values.
There are many tools to play with in the Piano Roll section. Let’s look at a few of the main ones found on the toolbar.
- Draw – Allows you to click and draw in notes and adjust them
- Paint – Allows you to paint in notes and drag to repeat them
- Paint Sequencer – Allows you to paint in notes in steps and drag to repeat them
- Delete – Allows you to click on notes to remove them
- Mute – Allows you to click on certain notes to deactivate them
- Slice – Allows you to split notes into multiple parts by dragging a line between them
- Select – Allows you to select a group of notes by clicking and holding
- Zoom – Allows you to click and drag to zoom into a specific area
For a true deep dive into the Piano Roll, it’s best to have a basic understanding of music theory.
Make sure to check out our music theory course here at FLTips, which provides over 6 hours of advanced lessons for creating chord progressions and melodies.
Arrangement Section
Once you have made some patterns in the channel rack and want to turn them into a full-fledged song, head on over to the Arrangement View.
On the left-hand side, you’ll find Picker, which you can use to drag your patterns from the Channel Rack.
One of the great things about FL Studio is that it is very flexible, allowing you to place your structure to patterns in any track. However, the Arrangement view is for so much more than just patterns.
For example, you can drag audio samples into the Arrangement view and structure them in any way you please. You can also add automation clips to create more movement in your individual tracks.
Mixer Section
Once your Arrangement is how you like it, the Mixer is where you handle all the processing.
Essentially, this is where all your creative sound design occurs, as there are endless routing and processing capabilities. Each of the channels in the Channel Rack gets assigned to a mixer track based on the number that we talked about earlier. You can also select specific numbers to route your tracks to.
The greenish-yellow meter on the far left of this section indicates the master level, while the smaller meter above each of the track faders indicates the individual track levels. There are basic controls on each track, including volume, mute, pan controls, and a stereo imager.
The small green lines near the bottom indicate the channel routing, and each channel is sent to the master by default.
Using Inserts in the Mixer Section
The true creativity starts when you begin adding inserts to the tracks to process them.
At the bottom of each track, you have a basic equalizer to play with, though you can also add the built-in effects plug-ins that come stock in FL Studio in the slots above. If you use third-party plugins, you can also use those.
Getting Started Making Music
Now that we have gone through the five main sections found in FL Studio, let’s dive in and look at a few key processes that you can use to start making music.
Using Plugins
If you have third-party plugins that you like to use, head to Options > File and click Manage Plugins.
This will bring up the Plugin Manager page, where you can click Find Plugins to let FL Studio search through your computer to find any plugins you have installed.
If there is a plug-in that FL Studio does not automatically find, you can click the folder icon in the top right of the search area and navigate to that plugin’s folder.
Now, when you want to use one of your plugins, you’ll find them all in the Channel Rack.
Adding Automation
Automation is one of the most powerful tools for anyone that produces electronic music. Producers use automation to add life and movements to sounds, creating tension and release, and dealing with any mixing problems throughout the course of their tracks.
Whenever you want to play around with a parameter in one of the native or third-party plugins you are using in FL Studio, right-click on that grandmother and select Create Automation Clip.
A new clip will appear in the Arrangement view with a line and the descriptor of the parameter you’ve chosen. To make an automation point, you can right-click anywhere. To move that automation point around, left-click. One of the neat things about FL Studio is that these automation points snap to the grid.PRO TIP: You can also change the curve type of any automation point by right-clicking on it
Exporting Your Track
Finishing tracks is always the goal. Knowing how to export a track properly from FL Studio is crucial.
Make your way to the toolbar at the top of the interface and click the save icon that has a small wave beneath it. Once you choose where you want to export your track, this window will pop up.
This window can be very overwhelming for beginners, so let’s take a look at a few key things to keep in mind.
- Set the Mode to “Full Song” so that it exports the entire track
- In the second section, select the desired format you would like to output in (WAV is standard)
- For standard export, keep the settings the same as in the photo above
Making Your First Track In FL Studio
By now, you have a solid understanding of the various sections and techniques used to begin making music in FL Studio.
Knowing how these tools work is a huge part of music production, and the rest is totally up to you.
Here at FL Tips, we’ve helped thousands of music producers around the world get their feet wet using FL Studio, We have a wide range of music production courses for electronic music genres, as well as mixing and mastering courses. You can check out our course page to take a deeper dive into producing music in FL Studio.
You can also check out the blogs below to learn more about using FL Studio:
