Tips for Producers using FL Studio How do producers get their tracks thumping and loud while making sure that they are not peaking at the low & high frequencies? The answer is Mastering, and Im going to give you some tips on how to improve your sound. So first things first, youre going to want to set up a template that you can open every time you start a new beat, to make things easier. Open up your mixer (press f9 by default). In the master track, youre going to want to open up the following. Keep in mind that there are numerous ways to master tracks, so Im just giving some guidelines that you can follow by. Slot 1. Fruity Parametric EQ 2 Slot 2. Fruity Compressor Slot 3. Fruity Multiband Compressor Slot 4. Another Fruity Parametric EQ 2 The default template usually comes with a Fruity Limiter already in the master track. If it is not there, open one up in Slot 5. Now, save this as a template by clicking the down arrow in the top left corner of the mixer, then going to file, then click save mixer track state as. I have mine saved as FL Rap Preset, but you can use anything. Parametric EQ 2: Open up your first Fruity Parametric EQ 2. There are some nice presets for this, and since typically youre going to want to remove the really high and low frequencies, open up a 40 hz + 18 khz cut. Here, youre going to want to notice that the parametric eq is cutting out the frequencies on both extremes. Since you still want your bass to hit strong, hover your mouse over the left corner of the waveline and scroll your mouse wheel down 1-2 notches. The line should curve up at this area and this will boost the part of the bass that you want to hit in the song. If you dont have a mouse wheel, you can click and drag down on the icon labeled BW (purple). Both of those methods produce the same result. Fruity Compressor Open your fruity compressor in slot 2. Click the down arrow in the top left corner of the compressor, choose presets, and click the optomaster preset. That is all I really do with this plugin. Fruity Multiband Compressor Open your multiband compressor in slot 3. Click the down arrow, choose presets, and click the Mastering 2.4dB preset. The multiband compressor allows you to edit the low, mid, and high band frequencies individually. You can increase the threshold to change the max volume for each band, or increase/decrease the attack/release dependent upon the sound youre going for. Generally, the preset will do. Parametric EQ 2 Open up your second Fruity Parametric EQ 2 in slot 4. With this, youre going to want to raise the 6 up to about the +6 level. This will boost your mid frequencies and make your track sound brighter and fuller. Fruity Limiter The fruity limiter will give your track that loudness while making sure that your track is not peaking. If the peak meter is over 0dB in the MASTER track, that means your track is peaking and could cause it to make those annoying clicking noises. Now if you want, you can resave your mixer state as I stated before to account for the changes, or you can leave it as it is. This is the basic setup for your master track. You should route all of your instruments to your mixer, including your kicks, snares, claps, and hats. To do this, click the sample in your step sequencer (f6 to open the step sequencer). With your sample selected, open the mixer, click an open track (They will be labeled Insert 1, Insert 2, etc) and press ctrl + L. This is the default command for linking the sample to the mixer track. If this doesnt work, you can also right click the mixer track and click link selected channels > to this track. If you are planning on having lyrics to your tracks at some point, you should not leave all your instruments panned to the center. What I mean by panned to the center is the knob under the track is pointed straight upwards. With the exception of your drums and bass, you should pan all of your instruments (i.e. piano, synths, etc) to the left or right. This will also give your track a fuller sound. Take a look at your peak meter to the left in the mixer. You can solo the track to see where it falls on the peak meter by right clicking the green dot below the track. To remove the solo, just right click the dot again. A good rule to follow is that your snares/claps should be around -5dB. Your bass should be around -10db. Your hats should be around -5dB. And your kick should be between 5-10. Like I said before, it all depends on the project. Sometimes you will have to adjust these to fit the track. Since most people inquire on how to make their bass really kick, I have a couple of suggestions. IMPROVING BASS You can open up a Fruity Parametric EQ 2 on both your kick and bass tracks. You are going to do the same process with both, so I am only going to give the instructions once. Open up the EQ, then grab the 1 and pull it down to the bottom left corner. Next, grab the 7 and pull it straight down, and then slide it somewhere between 500-2k (these labels are on the bottom of the EQ). This values again will depend on your kick and bass samples, so listen to your track and adjust these at the same time. Generally I place it somewhere between 500-1k. Doing this will take out the upper mid and higher frequencies of your bass and make it punch. Next, grab the 2 and slide it to the left, just below the 50 mark. Move it up just a little, which would be about the +1 mark (labels on the right). Grab the 3, place it at about 60, and move it down to about -1. Finally, grab the 4, and move it to about the 100 mark. This should also be about at the +1-2 mark. I have taken a picture of what this looks like on my end so that you can compare. After you complete this, you should check and make sure that your bass and kick arent exceeding the general values by noticeable amounts. Thats pretty much it. Another suggestion is be careful when adding reverb, because it can take away from your loudness by taking up decibels that could be used on other instruments. However, well placed reverb can also make your track sound great
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 06:13:09 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015