Image Line FL Studio 8 Producer Edition

WOW! what a software package! i have been faithful to ImageLine's Fruity Loops long line of software since almost day dot! back in the day when computers were never used to make real music, when "boom boom boom" music was all that could be created properly in a purely digitised environment.. and my god how much it has changed!

Now, with FL8 (Fruityloops8) you can realistically have virtual instruments using the many plugins ...
...has an almost unlimited potential for variation! drum synths, keyboards, infact every instrument that goes into a band is there to use! you can even use your pc's keyboard as a piano! not only that, it will support having instruments plugged directly into your pc and will work in perfect harmony with them too for recording note finding etc!!! But to add, it is a very very simple program for making "Dance" type tracks as looping is simple ... more

WOW! what a software package! i have been faithful to ImageLine's Fruity Loops long line of software since almost day dot! back in the day when computers were never used to make real music, when "boom boom boom" music was all that could be created properly in a purely digitised environment.. and my god how much it has changed!

Now, with FL8 (Fruityloops8) you can realistically have virtual instruments using the many plugins and features available! from guitars, acoustic, electric, plucked, and each has an almost unlimited potential for variation! drum synths, keyboards, infact every instrument that goes into a band is there to use! you can even use your pc's keyboard as a piano! not only that, it will support having instruments plugged directly into your pc and will work in perfect harmony with them too for recording note finding etc!!! But to add, it is a very very simple program for making "Dance" type tracks as looping is simple and done virtualy automatically!

Ok, so maybe your no musician! i have never had a single days professional tuition, and i can now "virtualy" play a guiter, knock out a fantastic drum rhythm, play the piano, and so much more! the music i have made has been very very good and have produced very professional results to the point of a university graduate musician being bought to his knees, the software he learnt on was far to complicated to use (i never found out what it was, but its most likely a high end program similar to Acid)

After an easy installation, and clicking yes to most of the plugins, your well on your way to creating a masterpiece! the first thing you will notice is its clear and simple layout, clicking "View" on the menu shelf (where, "File" "edit" etc is on normal windows applications) straight forward! in there you will find a link to plugins (where all the instruments are) and other goodies too! as with all these programs, they do make some of the simple things difficult to find to stop illegal downloading and use by everyone... but the official copy does have instructions! some of the simple things that are hard to find include, increasing the bar length (i.e. going from the preset 8 beats per bar to a useable 32 beats to bar or upto 64b/pb) and utilising any real powerful options and professional options!

All the premade sampleas are to the left of the screen, here you will find hundreds if not thousands of preset stock sounds, from vocals (very limited) to guitar notes, to drums, cymbols, infact pretty much at least one of everything!

But as ease of use goes, you can start making decent tracks and loops almost instantly! no matter what your level of understanding is! but for that finesse, i would highly recommend getting to know the program REALLY well and make simple sounds and go through the instructions and find out what an enveloper is, what a granuliser is etc etc!

Some of the features and plugins include

Fruity Slayer - this is a full on electrical guitar, you can change EVERYTHING on it, from turning it into an acoustic sound, to full on hardcore metal (or just noise!!!) you can adjust the pitch, tuning, pickup position, you can add effects like wahwah, tornado, tremolo, fuzz box, phaser, talkbox, flanger etc etc etc! as well as feedback, presence, treble, mid, low, and high, you can also adjust amplitute, what type of amp is used, what type of channels etc etc!!! the list really does go on! you can even adjust the speed of the stroke (i.e. how quickly each string is played on the plectrums downward travel to give melodic smooth "plucked" chords to evil thrashing mentalness)

BooBass - is a bass guitar plugin. It has only 3 adjustments, but make it into a very adjustable and varying sound, the adjustments are bass, mid and treble. it can give a very quick quirky bass, to a more deeper longer drony type of bassline.

FL Keys - this is one of my favourites, i have spent hours just playing around with a real sounding piano! using my keyboard as the keyboard! i have even marked of the keys on the letters. it has all of the scales and the sharps too! (just to add, the alpha numeric keyboard will work with all instruments, including drums etc) i have made some great little riffs like this! although im no piano player at all, so creating anything more than 30 seconds is difficult for me, although i have had a semi-pro musician play some amazing stuff with a little practice and "finger finding"!

Fruity Video Player - i love this! you can play a video you have created, or not, and add sounds to it! then you can easily combine the sound file and the video file to create some interesting effects... imagine a home video of your cat falling off the table with added cartoon sounds! crash bang fadud lol! the possibilities are endless... i have even created animations from nothing and married the sound and video together with some other windows basic software (maybe on Vista only) for some fantastic mini videos for mobile phones, screen savers, websites etc etc

Aswell as granulisers, envelope controlers, and other interesting synthed drums, sounds etc etc, you wont be bored, and the potential is almost limitless, especially for none pro's and a quick fix for pro's too. As full on professional producers would probably use Acid or something similar, but for upto £3500 it is far more expensive than Fruity Loops 8 at between £100 - £300! and in my personal opinion, with a little learning, it does pretty much the same as Acid, but alot more user friendly (well, the versions of Acid i have used anyway)

This software has so much to offer, and can really turn a single musician, or even a none musician into a whole band! it can turn a bedroom into a production/recording studio with a good amp, and a decent set of speakers! whether your learning the world of music software environments or are a professional after a quick way of making simple loops, this is for you! you can make full on full length music without much knowledge, and in the same breath you can create mini riffs for phone ringer tones as anything you create can be exported as *.wav, *.mp3, *.midi and *.OGG files for great application transference! and even for the Acid users out there, you can export into an Acid usuable file with clips etc.....

I suppose with things like this, it has litrally hundreds and thousands of things you can do to a single sound, let alone the hundreds of preloaded samples and instruments, including a text to speech generator! that is great fun too! if its a sound, it can be used! i have borrowed bits from cd's, used a vocalist solo and made music around it, to making simple relaxing sounds to help people sleep at night! and full band music to hardcore dance music too! the possibilities truely are limitless, but as fore mentioned, its sometimes the simple things that are difficult to find, but with good instructions you are well on your way to a fantastic work of art created 100% from nothing by YOU!

Since my life as an avid FL user, i have never looked back, the program is cheap (in comparison), its small at between 70Mb upto 1Gb+ (depending on the samples packs and plugin features etc), its user friendly, easy to use, and will entertain the whole family, novice bedroom studio person, to a nice little program for professionals!

Once you get used to the sounds, you just listen to adverts, tv programs, radio shows etc and here Fruity Loops in them more than first realised!

Thankyou for reading :) 

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