Book Image

The Music Producer's Ultimate Guide to FL Studio 20

By : Joshua Au-Yeung
Book Image

The Music Producer's Ultimate Guide to FL Studio 20

By: Joshua Au-Yeung

Overview of this book

FL Studio is a cutting-edge software music production environment and an extremely powerful and easy-to-use tool for creating music. This book will give you everything you need to produce music with FL Studio like a professional. You'll begin by exploring FL Studio 20's vast array of tools, and discover best practices, tips, and tricks for creating music. You'll then learn how to set up your studio environment, create a beat, compose a melody and chord progression, mix sounds with effects, and export songs. As you advance, you'll find out how to use tools such as the Piano roll, mixer console, audio envelopes, types of compression, equalizers, vocoders, vocal chops, and tools for increasing stereo width. The book introduces you to mixing best practices, and shows you how to master your songs. Along the way, you'll explore glitch effects and create your own instruments and custom-designed effect chains. You'll also cover ZGameEditor Visualizer, a tool used for creating reactive visuals for your songs. Finally, you'll learn how to register, sell, and promote your music. By the end of this FL Studio book, you'll be able to utilize cutting-edge tools to fuel your creative ideas, mix music effectively, and publish your songs.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Section 1:Getting Up and Running with FL Studio
6
Section 2:Music Production Fundamentals
12
Section 3:Postproduction and Publishing Your Music

Vocals effect processing best practices

It's best to record dry vocals without any effects. You can always add in and swap out effects later. If you need to hear how an effect will sound for reference while recording (such as when using Autotune or Vocoder), record the dry vocals at the same time as the effected vocals on two separate channels so you end up with access to the dry vocals in addition to any effected vocals.

When applying effects on vocals, there's an order that's usually followed. The following order is a suggestion, not a mandatory rule. If you find any of the following terminologies confusing regarding compressing or EQ, revisit Chapter 6, Compression, Sidechaining, Limiting, and Equalization.

Here's a suggested order for applying effects to vocals:

  1. Pitch correction corrects pitch and adjusts mistimings.
  2. Gate or expander effects remove background and unwanted noises. For example, Fruity Limiter can be used as a gate.
  3. A compressor...