Welcome to lesson 15 in the FL studio’ tutorial series.
In this lesson, we’re going to examine some basics of the mixer focusing primarily on how to route channels to different mixer tracks and then how to add pre-loaded or VST effects to those tracks.
The mixer in FL Studio allows you to split your channels audio to up to 64 different tracks,
these tracks can then be altered so that their inputs sound a certain way and can help you achieve the right mix, to go to the mixer, First click the last button on this toolbar,
you will see several tracks including the individual tracks labeled inserts the master track force in tracks and a selected track,
you will also see a track property section that applies to each separate track.
Playing the pattern here using the drumkit that is loaded with the basic template,
you see each drum note triggered in the pattern causes a level to move up and down in the first four tracks, the level of the master track also moves here because all sounds come through the master track,
tracks one through four include each drum in the step sequencer respectively with the kick being on one the clap on to the hat on three and so on,
you can see this indicated if while displaying the mix or n step sequencer you click on the channel names in the step sequencer as you do the tracks their attitude will highlight.
What if I wanted to route the drums all to the same track, maybe say track one I can do this using the channel settings menu for each channel brings up the channel settings menu for the clap,
in the upper right-hand corner is a box labeled FX this allows us to assign a number which actually routes the channel to the track of the number we enter,
you can see this move from track to track as we change the number.
Another method is to select each Channel and then go to a track right-click on it and choose link selected channels
then to this track using either method change all of the drums so that they route to track one,
if you wanted at this point you could rename the track to drums, you could also add a graphic icon to help you remember what is routed to that track.
Next, let’s add a new instrument to our step sequencer, now we can use the same method of track routing to route it to its own track in the mixer,
as an added note from the right-click menu of any track, we could also solo or move tracks right or left.
Let’s try to add some effects to our tracks, back in lesson 11 on vsts we discussed that VST effects get added to tracks in the mixer,
some effects come pre-loaded with FL Studio many more are available for free or commercially online,
to add a pre-loaded effect to a track: first, select the track here I’m using the drums and then go to the slots labeled with numbers on the far right,
these are your effect racks, to add an effect use the drop-down menu and choose one from the list that appears,
this process is very similar to adding a channel in the step sequencer and most effects will have their own interface maybe even some presets,
with the effect added you should hear a notable difference in the sound of the track,
you can turn the effect on or off here as well as adjust the next level of the effect here feel free to add more effects using the other slots if you like let’s try to add a VST effect to one of the other slots this time under the menu choose more and you’ll see the same VST menu that appeared when loading a VST instrument,
again there’s no way to discern the difference between a VST effect and VST instrument in FL Studio,
so you’ll have to undergo some trial and error until you learn the names of all your effects and instruments,
most VST effects will have presets but if not you can always randomize the presets as you would with an instrument.
Another option to consider that is more CPU friendly especially if I’ve been loading instances of the same effect into multiple tracks is to use the sins and then route your tracks to the effects they contain, for example, I can add an effect to send one,
then click the track whose audio I want the sin to receive in this case track 1 notice the sins now have a knob and some lit features, I’m not using sin 2 3 & 4 so I’ll turn these off for this particular track by left-clicking this enable send button light,
I can then adjust the control knob to add the desired effect, you see if I switch my focus on track 2 I have the same setting options with the sins which are independent of the other tracks.
One final note, if you decide to add effects to the master track realize it will affect all sounds coming through FL studio as all tracks are routed to the master track.
Now you should have an understanding of some of the basic features and functions of the mixer,
we will explore more advanced mixture for mixer functions in the later lessons.
Thus ends our introduction to using the mixer.
