Friday 5 March 2010

FL BEATS TUTORIALS

How to make fl beats?



This tutorial will explain you how to make fl beats in fruity loops. It will also teach you the basic functions and features as well as how to use the step sequencer. I know many people just like you struggle to create fl beats, however this is actually really easy to!

Ok to start with, you'll need to open the fruity loops software. It really doesn't matter which version you are running. Once you have done this, you'll need to open a new project in fl. You should normally see a small box containing small rectangles, also known as the step sequencer. In case you're not able to see the step sequencer, just simply press on F6. The step sequencer will allow us to create fl beats!


Usually once opend, it will contain the kick, clap, hihat and snare. These are simply 4 library samples that fruity loops automatically opens once you open fl. Like many other sequencer, you are free to load any other samples. Fruity loops has a large amount of samples available for you.
An easy way to change any sound sample can be done by hitting the F8 key. All you just need to do is to look for the sample that suits you the most.
Then right click the Sampler in the step sequencer, choose "load sample", find your sounds and choose what you want to use.

For this fl beats tutorial, I will mainly focus on the 3 standard samples: kick, snare and hihat. I have opted for a "crash" - which is somekind of overhead or symbal - instead of the "clap" sample. Our basic kit looks just like a basic drumkit now and that's what we want obviously.


fl beats






Every button in the grid is in fact 1/16 of a note. If you don't know what this means, no worries, you can always look up in Google what this is. This is basic musicknowledge and is very easy to understand. Basically in a 4/4 bar you have 4 times a 1/4 of a note = 4/4. So by keeping the same speed and making them 1/16 notes, you will get 16 times a 1/16 note to fullfil the entire 4/4 bar. Anyway feel free to use Google or youtube to get more background info on this.
For this example we are using just standard 4/4 time, which is the most common and what Fruity Loops starts up with.

But for now an easy way to illustrate how to lay out different notes in Fruity Loops is to right click on the kick track and select "Fill each 4 steps", this will give you quarter notes for the kick drum. Right click HiHat and choose "Fill each 2 steps" and you'll have 8th Notes. Do the same for the Snare track and select "Fill each 8 steps" for Half Notes.

Obviously this can be done manually as well. All you need is to click on any rectangle you want and this will create you your first fl beats! Now hit the "play button" and listen to your fl beats. How about speeding things up or slowing your fl beats down a bit? Judge yourself, you are the master now and it's your taste that will chose whether you like it or not. Music is very subjective and exciting!

So there you have it, your very first fl beats!