The Music Producer's Ultimate Guide to FL Studio 20

The Music Producer's Ultimate Guide to FL Studio 20

by Joshua Au-Yeung
Released February 2021
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781800565326

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial

Book description

Leverage the power of FL Studio 20 to create and compose production-quality songs and develop professional music production skills

Key Features

  • Leverage the power of FL Studio to create your own production-level music
  • Develop widely applicable music production skills and learn how to promote your music
  • Utilize cutting-edge tools to fuel your creative ideas and publish your songs

Book Description

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.

What you will learn

  • Get up and running with FL Studio 20
  • Record live instruments and vocals and process them
  • Compose melodies and chord progressions on the Piano roll
  • Discover mixing techniques and apply effects to your tracks
  • Explore best practices to produce music like a professional
  • Publish songs in online stores and promote your music effectively

Who this book is for

This book is for music producers, composers, songwriters, DJs, and audio engineers interested in creating their own music, improving music production skills, mixing and mastering music, and selling songs online. To get started with this book, all you need is a computer and FL Studio.

Table of contents

  1. The Music Producer's Ultimate Guide to FL Studio 20
  2. www.packt.com
  3. Contributors
  4. About the author
  5. About the reviewer
  6. Preface
    1. Who this book is for
    2. What this book covers
    3. Download the color images
    4. Conventions used
    5. Get in touch
    6. Reviews
  7. Section 1:Getting Up and Running with FL Studio
  8. Chapter 1: Getting Started with FL Studio
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Exploring the music production landscape
    3. The musician's career path
    4. Steps in composing a song
    5. What is FL Studio?
    6. Exploring the FL Studio workspace
    7. Making your first song
      1. Creating a drum beat with the Channel Rack
      2. Adding an instrument to the Channel Rack
      3. Creating a melody with the Piano roll
      4. Routing channels to the Mixer
      5. Exporting the song
    8. Summary
  9. Chapter 2: Exploring the Browser, Playlist, and Channel Rack
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Introducing the FL Studio workbench
    3. Getting the most out of your samples
    4. Using the Browser
      1. Locating a sample's file location
      2. Searching for samples
      3. Adding your own samples to the Browser
      4. Swapping samples
    5. Using the Channel Rack
      1. Channel Rack option features
      2. The Channel Rack Rename, color and icon option
      3. Instrument options
      4. Detaching windows
      5. Installing new instruments
      6. Using layers
    6. Using the Playlist
      1. Playlist Toolbar
      2. Element pattern options
    7. Using the main header Toolbar features
      1. Version control
      2. Revert to last backup
      3. Audio Stream Input/Output (ASIO)
      4. Purge unused audio clips
      5. Undo and redo
      6. Viewing project info
    8. Summary
  10. Chapter 3: Composing with the Piano Roll
    1. Using the Piano roll
      1. Choosing an instrument
      2. Adding notes in the Piano roll
      3. Selecting multiple notes
      4. Deleting notes
      5. Muting and unmuting notes
      6. Slicing notes
      7. Sliding notes
      8. Using the stamp tool to get assistance with scales
    2. Composing great chord progressions
    3. Recording into the Piano roll with MIDI instruments
      1. The snap to grid (magnet) tool
      2. Quantizing notes
      3. Editing note articulations with the Event Editor
      4. Using Piano roll velocity
      5. Comparing instrument melodies with ghost notes
    4. Exporting sheet music
    5. Using and exporting MIDI scores
    6. Summary
  11. Chapter 4: Routing to the Mixer and Applying Automation
    1. What is mixing?
    2. Routing audio to the Mixer
    3. Navigating the Mixer console
      1. Understanding the insert mixer track
      2. Understanding the master channel
      3. Understanding the effects rack
      4. Applying an effect
    4. Applying automation
      1. Applying automation to external third-party plugins
    5. Freezing Audio Clips
    6. Summary
  12. Section 2:Music Production Fundamentals
  13. Chapter 5: Sound Design and Audio Envelopes
    1. What is sound?
    2. What causes a note's pitch?
    3. How do we hear things?
    4. How do instruments create sound with different pitches?
    5. Why do different instruments playing the same pitch sound different?
    6. Modifying sound envelopes
    7. Using Mod X and Mod Y for automation
    8. Summary
  14. Chapter 6: Compression, Sidechaining, Limiting, and Equalization
    1. Understanding compression
      1. Applying compression with Fruity Limiter
    2. Applying gates and expanders
      1. When to use gating
    3. Applying sidechaining
    4. Using limiters
    5. Applying equalization
      1. EQ best practices
      2. EQ general rules
    6. Summary
  15. Chapter 7: Stereo Width – Panning, Reverb, Delay, Chorus, and Flangers
    1. Panning audio
      1. Panning best practices
    2. Using reverb
      1. Applying digital reverb with Fruity Reeverb 2
      2. Applying convolution reverb with Fruity Convolver
    3. Using delay effects
      1. Applying delay effects with Fruity Delay 3
      2. Delay effect best practices
    4. Using chorus effects
      1. Chorus effect best practices
    5. Using flanger effects
    6. Using phaser effects
    7. Understanding mix buses
      1. Mix bus best practices
    8. Summary
  16. Chapter 8: Recording Live Audio and Vocal Processing
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Understanding microphones
      1. Dynamic microphones
      2. Condenser microphones
      3. Ribbon microphones
      4. USB microphones
    3. Setting up your recording environment
      1. Recording instruments
      2. Recording drum kits
      3. Preparing to record vocals
    4. Recording audio into FL Studio
      1. Recording with Edison
    5. Using pitch correction with Newtone
      1. Pitch correction best practices
    6. Vocals effect processing best practices
      1. Backing vocals effects best practices
    7. Summary
  17. Chapter 9: Understanding Vocal Effects
    1. Understanding vocoders
    2. Understanding MIDI
    3. Using vocoders
      1. Harmonizing vocals with Pitcher
    4. Using Vocodex
      1. Vocoder best practices
    5. Creating vocal chops
      1. Using Slicex to create vocal chops
      2. Vocal chopping considerations
    6. Summary
  18. Section 3:Postproduction and Publishing Your Music
  19. Chapter 10: Creating Your Own Instruments and Effects
    1. Understanding glitch effects
    2. Creating glitch effects with Gross Beat
      1. Mapping time and volume effects to a sample
      2. Gross Beat sequencer
    3. Creating instruments with DirectWave
    4. Creating effects with Patcher
      1. Creating custom dashboards in Patcher
    5. Summary
  20. Chapter 11: Mastering Fundamentals
    1. What is mastering?
      1. Can you master music yourself?
      2. When should you master your music?
      3. How do I get good at mastering?
      4. What equipment do I use to master music?
    2. Equalization in mastering
      1. Diagnosing frequency problems
      2. Understanding spectrograms
      3. Adjusting dynamics
    3. Using multiband compressors
      1. Applying multiband compression with Maximus
    4. What are saturators/harmonic exciters?
    5. Understanding limiters
    6. Understanding stereo imaging with vectorscopes
      1. Stereo imaging best practices
    7. Exporting audio for third-party mixing and mastering
    8. Summary
  21. Chapter 12: Branding, Promotion,and Marketing
    1. Marketing essentials
    2. Creating a brand
      1. Choosing your artist name
      2. Creating a website
    3. Making the most of your live performances
      1. Booking your first gigs
      2. Filming your shows
      3. Streaming performances online
    4. Collaborating with others to promote yourself
      1. Advice for creating content on social media
      2. Getting more views on YouTube
      3. What about YouTube video titles and thumbnails?
    5. Creating music visuals with ZGameEditor Visualizer
    6. Summary
  22. Chapter 13: Publishing and Selling Music Online
    1. Registering your music
    2. Tagging your music in preparation for distribution
    3. Selling music on online stores and streaming services
      1. DistroKid walk-through
    4. Claiming revenue from songs on YouTube using AdRev
      1. What are ISRC, ISWC, and UPC codes?
    5. Summary
    6. Further reading
    7. Share your music
    8. More from the author
    9. Conclusion
    10. Why subscribe?
  23. Other Books You May Enjoy
    1. Packt is searching for authors like you
    2. Leave a review - let other readers know what you think

Product information

  • Title: The Music Producer's Ultimate Guide to FL Studio 20
  • Author(s): Joshua Au-Yeung
  • Release date: February 2021
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781800565326