Why is FL studio looked down upon?

[Neurotik]

Spot on man, it sucks to feel i have to explain myself to aload of mac/logic users when asked about the DAW i'm using. I'm guilty of doing this in the past when i was too impatient to take the time and learn about the software i was using properly. Like i mentioned in the other thread, the only limitation on this software is the knowledge of the person using it. I find alot of the people who look down on and criticise FL tend to be people who think merely buying the most expensive stuff out there will automatically do the work for them.

[slothrop]

Yeah, for all that the different hosts have different strengths and weaknesses, I think the depth of snobbery is largely down to the fact that Cubase, Logic, ProTools etc have traditionally focussed quite a lot on the studio / home studio market while FL was originally aimed mostly at people doing dance music without much in the way of live recording or 'real' instruments. Hence people who are snobby about dance music being just pushing buttons on computers and not 'real' music pegged it as being a 'toy' for kids making trance in their bedrooms and not something for 'serious' producers to bother with.

And I guess some of this rubs off on the dance producers, some of whom are stuck with a bit of an inferiority complex about not being 'proper' musicians anyway, and are then eager to jump on to using cubase so they can get themselves into the 'real producers' club and look down their noses at the n00bs with their toy sequencer.

[egoless]

FL was originally aimed mostly at people doing dance music without much in the way of live recording or 'real' instruments.

You can easily record multiple audio channels in FL, but I would never record a band in it... Because when you record, you don't see waveforms appearing like in other software such as cubase, ableton... When the recording is finished and you hit "stop", you have to wait for the waveform to appear...

[Pedro Sánchez]

Fuck the idiots, a wicked tune is a wicked tune regardless of what it was made on.

I have a mate who has a MacPro with the latest Logic, an MPC4000, Korg Triton and all this outboard gear Neve.. yada yada, yet he can't make shit because he's too caught up in buying shit and toying (and taking pics) with it rather than learning the basics and going in deep on one plugin or synth and learning it inside out and turning out a decent tune, for me he represents this breed of numpty that spend more time wanking over gear than making MUSIC.

[slothrop]

FL was originally aimed mostly at people doing dance music without much in the way of live recording or 'real' instruments.

You can easily record multiple audio channels in FL, but I would never record a band in it... Because when you record, you don't see waveforms appearing like in other software such as cubase, ableton... When the recording is finished and you hit "stop", you have to wait for the waveform to appear...

I guess I'm thinking back to the really old days, when it was literally a drum machine with a couple of synths kludged in, no audio recording, no proper piano roll...

It added that stuff in over time, obviously, but that's historically what it was building from.

[Neurotik]

Fuck the idiots, a wicked tune is a wicked tune regardless of what it was made on.

I have a mate who has a MacPro with the latest Logic, an MPC4000, Korg Triton and all this outboard gear Neve.. yada yada, yet he can't make shit because he's too caught up in buying shit and toying (and taking pics) with it rather than learning the basics and going in deep on one plugin or synth and learning it inside out and turning out a decent tune, for me he represents this breed of numpty that spend more time wanking over gear than making MUSIC.

There are plenty of people who use Logic etc. and make amazing music so it's a shame that there's so many people like this with this misguided attitude/mentality that can be easily generalised onto those who prioritise making great music over developing some superiority complex over anyone with what they percieve as inferior gear. The only thing ditching FL and chasing something that was just more expensive got me was setting me back insofar that i was starting again learning the basics on new software rather than making more progress with what i was already using.

[irukandji]

FL makes the easy bits easy & the hard bits hard (that's the general impression I get from it anyway). Still a really awesome DAW though

[egoless]

FL makes the easy bits easy & the hard bits hard (that's the general impression I get from it anyway). Still a really awesome DAW though

I don't understand...

[mc wayne]

[3za]

FL makes the easy bits easy & the hard bits hard (that's the general impression I get from it anyway). Still a really awesome DAW though

I don't understand...

i do




people who say FL is shit are negitive pricks who hate the world because they have a small penis.

[Recessive Trait]

what a nice little love-in thread this is for us fl users.

when i started making my own music, people would say, "you should switch to ableton", implying that it would help me make listenable music. now that i make decent music, get 2-4 gigs a month, have label interest, the same people are saying, "you should try ableton", but fail to answer me properly when i ask how they think it might improve my output, especially now that i know what i'm doing and am comfortable with fl. i will make the switch soon, because i want the waveforms view (i know nothing about ableton), but not because of the tow-the-line, you-should-switch blowhards, many of whom don't even have 1 completed song.

[cloak and dagger]

I never understood why that whole attitude about one software or hardware being better than another is so prevalent with producers...producing music has opened my mind in so many ways, it always surprised me that it didn't for others as well.

Even having said that, what the fuck do they think basically all classic electronic music was made on? Did people like Drexciya, Remarc, Juan Atkins, Source Direct, Prodigy, Mr. Fingers, Aphex Twin, etc. use super complicated software and hardware to make their music? I'm glad it came out that Burial does all of his stuff in Sound Forge, but I'm a little surprised it hasn't shut these people up more than it has.


Anyway, to stay a little more on topic, one probable reason FL Studio is looked down upon is that a lot of people coming from other DAWs might really not like the way it works. I bought the VST version of Slicex, and even that has a lot of quirks involving menus, shortcuts, workflow, etc. that are different from every other VST / DAW / operating system out there. I know it's turned me off from testing out other Image Line products. The fact that there's no preview/audition function in it (and the fact that they didn't care when I mentioned it on the message board) is another.

[jaydot]

I'm actually too scared to try another DAW out right now (I use Ableton) but I've heard mixed things about FL.

The thing is there are that many to choose from that producers are always going to recommend and slate different ones.

[Ryalt]

You know, I was literally just having this conversation with a buddy the other day. We've both used FL for years, since FL4 I believe. Up until a couple months ago, my buddy was still using FL4. I believe he just now upgraded to 8.

Within the month, I was playing around with the Ableton demo. And a couple days ago, I broke down and bought Ableton Suite 8 and the Albino 3 synth plugin. Not cheap money, but it's a matter of workflow. I'm finding that I'm having a lot better time putting things together the way Ableton is set up compared to FL. Nothing I can really point a finger on to be honest with you, but it's just smoother for me. I mean literally they are both DAW's and all that matters is the end production. If you can do it in FL great, if it's better for you in Live, cheers.

I can see and edit things 100% better in Live than I could in FL. Not to say I couldn't in FL, but I really just like how everything is laid out in Live. My buddy, having just upgraded FL8 and previously owning Ableton Live 7, prefers FL. Because that's what works for him. He's coming out with some amazing stuff, but it's just a difference in perspective.

Another thing specifically about Ableton that really sold me on the product was it's ability to be used live. That alone makes it stand out compared to any other DAW. And it's something I could see myself really getting into in the future. I love production and have been messing around with sounds for years, but this brings it into a whole new ballpark of being able to sit there and remix on the fly.

We were talking about it, and FL is considered "2nd tier" as far as production tools go. No real reason other than it's specific gui, but that's one of the selling features of particular DAW's. As long as a product works for you, use it. There is no specific plus or minus really to different programs, and FL gets a bad rap because of folks who don't fully understand the program.

[wayoftheworld]

what a nice little love-in thread this is for us fl users.

when i started making my own music, people would say, "you should switch to ableton", implying that it would help me make listenable music. now that i make decent music, get 2-4 gigs a month, have label interest, the same people are saying, "you should try ableton", but fail to answer me properly when i ask how they think it might improve my output, especially now that i know what i'm doing and am comfortable with fl. i will make the switch soon, because i want the waveforms view (i know nothing about ableton), but not because of the tow-the-line, you-should-switch blowhards, many of whom don't even have 1 completed song.

no need to switch if you're comfortable using fl. just rewire that mofo into live, or better yet, open fl as a vsti inside ableton which gives direct wiring of fruity's midi output straight into ableton midi tracks, which is badder than a hurricane full of snakes on fire. and since you're gigging you'll have the option of doing live pa sets of the songs you create in fruity loops. ableton's the pills man, there's a reason people hype that shit!

[Basic A]

FL was originally aimed mostly at people doing dance music without much in the way of live recording or 'real' instruments.

You can easily record multiple audio channels in FL, but I would never record a band in it... Because when you record, you don't see waveforms appearing like in other software such as cubase, ableton... When the recording is finished and you hit "stop", you have to wait for the waveform to appear...

Inputs to mixer slots to edisons shabow?

....................................

[joekool]

this is MY experience with FL and how it relates to MY workflow. its MY opinion so please don't think im ragging on anybody, i'm just being honest.

got a copy of FL for christmas when i was like 13.. had been using soundforge up until that point doing weird little mash-up things..

i loved that program. for a very long time. i wrote a LOT of songs, learned a little bit about production and even played a couple live shows with it.

eventually a friend of mine told me to give ableton a test run. twenty minutes after id started using it, i realized i was probably never going to use FL again. ableton did everything FL does, except better. the session view was like a godsend for me, since i'd been struggling for so long with hating the feeling that i was playing with legos more than i was making music. beyond that, i'd bought the producer edition, and there was NO automation. i cant believe they left something as crucial as automation out of the fucking thing. in live, clip automations and follow actions and all of that were things that i naturally discovered when it was time for me to discover them, and it all just felt much more organic and productive to me. i recently tried installing a demo of FL 9 on my computer. i loaded it up, tried to make a beat, and just ended up laughing at how annoying and awkward it all was. the fact that each individual instrument is not pre-assigned a slot in the mixer as you load it is so weird, and the native plugins sound like (imo) total crap. not that ableton's are that much better, but at least the reverb and delay are useable. and the fact that, in ableton, all the effects for a track are RIGHT THERE, at the bottom of the screen, ready for you to use (as opposed to being hidden behind some weird labyrinth of windows and right-clicks), just makes using FL seem tedious, boring, and uninspiring. like i said, this is for ME. plenty of people have made REALLY REALLY good songs on FL, so i'm not saying it has no potential, but i just cannot, and, really, will not, use it. this is not even going into the fact that, for some reason, i can run 7 or 8 instances of Massive at once in ableton, and my computer shits a fucking brick if i even load up 1 in FL...

and honestly, i think it has nothing to do with an "elitist" attitude. it has to do with the fact that some people find it really hard to work with, and because of that it's just simply not considered a professional DAW in a lot of circles. that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with using FL, or people are inferior or make inferior tunes because they use it. thats like saying i can't ride a skateboard well because i have the wrong wheels, which is just stupid.

for the tl;dr of it: some people love it, i don't, that's why i use a different program. nothing more to it than that.

[Depone]

My main 'quip' with FL is that from what i have heard and seen, a lot of "new PrOdUcErZ" use it as their first tool (think fisher price of daws .... no no im completely joking dont worry). This is an unhealthy reputation, and because of that 60% or so music I hear that comes from FL is some half knocked up shitty Krunk or dnb.
Just look at the youtube videos for funks sake.

All to their own, but its not for me. Im sticking with Logic thanks.

PS: call me a cnut all you want for saying this but i still think it looks god-awful. I used it for a full day to see what the crack is and ended up nearly scratching my eyes out. That and its pattern based arrange screen weirdness.
Its also my understanding that its Being aimed at the 15 year old bedroom producers and not at the 'professional' market.

/rant over

[deadly_habit]

yea the reason i switched from fl to cubase was audio editing, recording and automation issues
maybe it's better now but took long enough

[nowaysj]

Here is why I think fl studio is looked down upon:

1. The name (I hate name flstudio btw, I still call it fruity loops in my head) It was just fruity and had the words loops in it.

2. Fruity was BASIC back in the day when pt, logic, cubase were further along with direct to disk recording and piano roll midi editing (maybe not pt on that one).

3. Fruity has long been warezized, and a lot of the people that use it are using cracks.

There you go.

There are some fundamental deficiencies in fruity, truth be told, but fruity is always getting better and remains free for people that have bought it. I paid 99 in 99 and am just astounded with the product I now have.