FL Studio Mixer Workflow

Welcome to our first video in our FL Studio Mixer Workflow course.  This video is just a teaser giving you a taste of my experience behind the mixer.

I reveal to you how I composed a track, show you different types of audio routing, effects used, and how an organized color-coded mixer should look.

Everything is shown step-by-step to you as we proceed through the videos.

Enjoy!

# GratuiTous

There's always the on-going debate about analog vs. digital (or 'mixing in the box' is another term for digital mixing).  Some people say analog gives you a warmer sound and digital sounds 'brittle and cold'.  These are just theories and opinions, though.

The really neat thing about audio is we can test it.  In my opinion, a lot of the people who love this analog gear can't let go of the 'hands-on feel', but digital is much easier.

It allows us to recall our mixes EXACTLY as they were, rather than having to remember where all our dials were on a hardware mixer if we ever needed to do a revision of the mix!

This video is a little breakdown/comparison of the analog world vs. digital, and I use a real mixer and FL Studio's mixer as a comparison through the discussion.

We've come a long way with audio and the digital route is looking a lot easier and time-efficient.

I thought creating a drum loop from scratch with you would be a great approach so you can see the whole process of getting organized step-by-step.

We use this drum loop throughout the rest of the course.

In this video you will gain insight to my mindset of organizing my mixer.

I first discuss how I like to set up my sounds.  I like to have my instruments at the top of the step sequencer, and then have my drums, claps, and percussion underneath.

I will label my instruments because that makes it very easy to read them as the mix progresses.  For example, I'd label the PIANO, GUITAR, BASS, etc. (Also notice how I write them in capital letters. I feel it gives a cleaner look.)

For my drums, claps, hi-hats, percussion, etc - I typically do not label these.  I do, however, group them by color.

Now, it's important to set up your step sequencer first in regards to labeling and color-coding because FL Studio has an awesome shortcut where the color + label follows into the mixer if you've organized yourself ahead of time. (It's a huge shortcut which saves a lot of time.)

And to further top it off - I actually break apart the patterns too, and color everything at once because as I show in the video, FL Studio stores the same color you used on the top of the color choices.  This way I know I'm getting the exact same color for my pattern, sound, and mixer insert.

(I show the breaking apart of the pattern in the next video.)

As mentioned - It's important to color-code your pattern, too, because once your mix starts getting busy with automation, multiple instruments, different colors etc, having your pattern, sound and mixer insert all the same color will greatly improve your workflow.

Once you start mixing, you want to work generally fast.  Not so fast that you're not making wise choices, but fast enough so you don't get tired.  I typically give myself a rough mix the first time around, and every time afterward I open the project, I keep tweaking until I feel it's good to go.

In this video we break apart the drum loop so we can set our self up later to 'arrange the song' if we were to start building song structure.  (Again, color-coding the patterns so we know exactly where everything is, and if we were to arrange the song, we can easily add and remove loops such as the drums or claps.)

This is your first real intro to audio routing in the mixer.

At first, it can be really confusing!  But if you just keep it simple and follow the audio cables, it starts to make a lot more sense. (You'll also start to build confidence over time!)

Now, subgroups allow us to mix 'groups of sounds' a lot easier by controlling only one volume fader instead of many volume faders.

Also, if we apply an effect onto the subgroup, it applies it onto all the sounds we've routed into that subgroup.

This saves CPU and mixing time because we're only dealing with one plugin instead of tweaking many plugins to get the sound we want!

Subgroups are just a nice way to organize your sounds, but.. it also has it's pros and cons!

I reveal more about subgroups in our Sends section, especially in the paper and pencil overview on learning more about series vs. parallel processing!

It will be an eye-opener for you!

This video mainly just shows you how to add/remove effects so we can all be on the same page come our sends section.

However, I do break down a crucial point, and that's about properly comparing your mixing changes.

This is what we call A/B comparison.

In other words, when we turn the effect on and off, we have to make sure the volume is very close in comparison. Otherwise, we feel the louder is better. (It's a known fact! - It's just how it is. So don't spend hours trying to get the effected vs. original sound at the perfect volume, just get it so where they are really close and you can make a more accurate judgement.)

I also touch on series vs. parallel processing with you, building you up to the eye-opening sends section ;)