The TS404 mono bass synth, 3xOSC sampler with three oscillators, Plucked plucked-string instrument and Sampler (which can, with some patience, be used with the Layer Generator to build up more complex sample-based programmes) are all pretty much as before. As with previous versions of Fruity Loops, the FL Studio user interface is both dark and compact - a decent monitor and 20:20 vision are distinct advantages!Īll the familiar Generators are present and correct, along with some interesting newcomers, of which more shortly. All these can be arranged as required by the user. The main window follows the same layout and appearance, with menus, transport and pattern selection tools along the top, the Browser down the left and the bulk of the display used to hold, for example, the various Generator, Pattern, Playlist, Piano Roll or Mixer windows. Installation and registration of the software is identical to version 3, and despite the name change, existing Fruity Loops users will find FL Studio a familiar working environment. Accordingly, a fairly modest PC can be used, although low-latency audio response would be a distinct advantage if a MIDI keyboard or controller is used for real-time input.Īrranging Patterns within the Playlist Window. As FL Studio is designed with pattern and step entry for MIDI parts very much in mind, the real-time audio latency is not perhaps as significant as when using a full-blown MIDI + Audio sequencer. During the review, version 4.1.2 of the Producer Edition became available via the web site, and I subsequently used this for the majority of the testing. Familiar FruitįL Studio is available in Express, Fruity Loops and Producer editions, respectively offering more features at a greater price. As the previous review is available on-line ( I'll only give a brief recap of these features before looking in more detail at what has been added. The basic functionality of FL Studio remains the same as before: Generators (software instruments) are used within a pattern-based sequencing environment to create complete arrangements. In order to maintain consistency, FL Studio has started at version 4. SOS reviewed version 3 back in the August 2002 issue, but Image Line are now back with a new release, plenty of new features and a new name for the software: Fruity Loops Studio, or FL Studio. The latest version comes with a new name - FL Studio - as well as some interesting new virtual instruments and proper audio recording features.Īlong with general-purpose MIDI + Audio sequencers such as Cubase and Sonar, more specialised applications such as Reason and Acid Pro have also become very popular, and in dance music circles a firm favourite with many is Fruity Loops. Load up Serum and we think you’ll be able to notice both what you hear (solid high frequencies, extending flat all the way up to the limits of hearing) as well as what you don’t hear (no unwanted mud or aliasing gibberish- just good, clean sound).Fruity Loops has built itself quite a cult following in dance music circles. In Serum, the native-mode (default) playback of oscillators operates with an ultra high-precision resampling, yielding an astonishingly inaudible signal-to-noise (for instance, -150 dB on a sawtooth played at 1 Khz at 44100)! This requires a lot of calculations, so Serum’s oscillator playback has been aggressively optimized using SSE2 instructions to allow for this high-quality playback without taxing your CPU any more than the typical (decent quality) soft synth already does. Many popular wavetable synthesizers are astonishingly bad at suppressing artifacts - even on a high-quality setting some create artifacts as high as -36 dB to -60 dB (level difference between fundamental on artifacts) which is well audible, and furthermore often dampening the highest wanted audible frequencies in the process, to try and suppress this unwanted sound. Artifacts mean that you are (perhaps unknowingly) crowding your mix with unwanted tones / frequencies.
Without considerable care and a whole lot of number crunching, this process will create audible artifacts.
Playback of wavetables requires digital resampling to play different frequencies.