FL Studio – Mixing and Mastering Tutorial (Basic Tips)
'*make sure you have annotation on to follow instructions* watch in 720p and full screen for better viewing. In this video tutorial i will show you how you can make your music track sound more professional and bring it to life using mixing and mastering. if you have ever finished making your track and it just don't sound right and sounds very basic and lifeless then using the mixer and master fx you can make it sound a lot better, which is how professional producers make their music better. The exact settings and fx i use in this video may not work your track because every song is different and needs different fx tweaking, this video is just to give you an idea of how you can give your track more energy, but you will most likely need to use your own settings because again each song is different, but if you just play around with the settings your track will start to sound much better. If this video helps you out then please leave a thumbs up, comment or even subscribe. Thanks, and enjoy making music.'
Vocals can add an organic touch to any track, and can really drive home the idea and message your song sends. Some tracks will sound empty without them, like something is missing. Vocal samples are one solution, but sometimes spending hours finding the right fit or the right lyrics just isn’t practical. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to record vocals in FL Studio to give your track a unique sound.
Note: You must have FL Studio Producer Edition or higher to record audio and vocals.
Step 1: Buy a Microphone & Accessories
If you already have all the hardware you need, just skip to Step 2. If not, there are tons of great microphones and accessories online. Much of your selection will depend on how much you can afford, and how much you’re willing to pay for high-quality recordings.
Full Disclosure: The following links are affiliate links. Buying from any of these links will earn me sales commission.
Mic Selection
For those of us on a budget and wanting versatility for use in and out of the studio, the Digital Reference DRV200 or Behringer Ultravoice Xm8500 are both solid choices. If you’re looking to spend a little more, a cardioid condenser mic like the Audio Technica AT2020, MXL 770, or MXL 990 are also good options. If you have a few hundred bucks laying around that you can devote to an entry-level condenser, check out our list of the best condenser mics for under $300. Just be considerate of whether or not your selection will require a phantom power source. Most modern audio interfaces include phantom power.
Boom & Stand Selection
Next, you’ll need a boom or stand to hold your mic. Again, there are loads of selections online. I purchased a pretty cheap mic boom from Neewer. It clamps to my desk and is very easy to set up and adjust. There are also some high-end models out there like the RODE PSA1. Make sure that your desk thickness is less than the maximum clamp opening depth, or the boom clamp won’t fit.
My gear for recording vocals. This is the MXL 990 Blizzard Edition, scissor boom mic stand from Neewer, and pop filter from Auphonix.
Headphone Selection
A set of headphones may also be necessary for the vocalist to wear during recording. If you’re recording and monitoring in the same room, these will allow the vocalist to hear the track during recording while preventing the track from being recorded by the mic. The Sony MDR7506 is my personal choice, but cheaper alternatives will also do if you’ll just be using these to record vocals.
Other Accessories
You will need an XLR cable to connect your mic to your audio interface, unless your mic uses a USB connection or you have an XLR to USB adapter. It is also worth investing in a pop filter. Pop filters stop pops in your recordings that are caused by fast-moving air running into your mics internal components. All of these decisions will depend on what degree of quality you’re willing to pay for for your vocals.
OK, now that we’ve covered everything we need, lets look at Step 2.
Step 2: Audio Driver Settings
To record vocals in FL Studio 12, we need to make sure we are using an ASIO driver. To access your driver settings, just go to Options, then Audio settings, and under Input/Output devices, choose an ASIO driver. If you don’t have an ASIO driver, you can download one here.
Latency
Latency is the time it takes for the live voice coming from your mic input and/or the data coming from FL Studio to be processed by your computer. You want to make sure that latency is as low as possible. A very high latency will lead to vocals that are out of sync with the rest of the track, and can make recording difficult for the vocalist when recording over a live mix.
You can reduce latency by reducing the audio device buffer size. Grim dawn witch blade. A rule of thumb is under 11 ms for latency. If you cannot achieve this without buffer underruns, it may be time for a faster processor.
You can reduce latency by reducing the audio device buffer size. Grim dawn witch blade. A rule of thumb is under 11 ms for latency. If you cannot achieve this without buffer underruns, it may be time for a faster processor.
Another way to help with latency issues is by turning on Latency compensation in your Mixer options under Disc recording. This removes your audio input device’s buffer latency time from the beginning your recorded audio clips so your vocals sync up with the rest of your track.
Step 3: Set Recording Filter to Record Audio
Right-click on the Record button in your top toolbar and make sure the Audio option is checked. This will allow you to record directly into the Playlist.
Step 4: Connect Your Mic & Choose a Mixer Track
Once your mic is connected, you need to tell FL Studio where the mic input is coming from and what to do with it. Choose any Mixer track for your audio to come from, just not the Master track. At the top of the signal processing chain, set your Audio input source to the device your mic is connected to.
There should be two sections, one for stereo and one for mono. Stereo will record in one stereo track (left or right) unless you’re using a stereo mic, and both mono options will just record copies of the same signal in mono for both left and right.
There should be two sections, one for stereo and one for mono. Stereo will record in one stereo track (left or right) unless you’re using a stereo mic, and both mono options will just record copies of the same signal in mono for both left and right.
In the vocoder setup below, the modulator is the mic input panned hard left, and the carrier is a synth preset panned hard right.
Step 5: Record Into the Playlist
There are actually two ways to record vocals in FL Studio. The first way is into the Playlist as an audio clip. The clip will also be present in the Channel rack. This method saves a file of the recording on your computer in the Recorded folder in the Browser/plugin picker by default.
Arm the Mixer Track & Set the Save Path
First, we want to make sure the Mixer track that you have your mic input routed to is armed for recording. When you chose your mic input, FL Studio should have auto-armed the Mixer track. You can check by looking at the Mixer track and making sure the red Arm disk recording button is lit up. Just click it to toggle on and off. You can also right-click to choose a different folder directory to save your audio clips to.
Adjust Mic Input Gain
This is where we adjust the mic input peak level to -10 dBFS. We can do this by adding a Fruity Balance to the top of the mic input Mixer track signal processing chain. We’ll run through this same process in the next section on recording with Edison.
Start Recording
Next, click the Record audio button at the top main toolbar, and hit Play. You can now start recording your vocals!
When you’re done, just click Pause or Stop and the recorded audio clip will appear in your Channel rack and Playlist too, if you’ve recorded in Song mode.
Alternative Step 5: Record Into Edison
The second way we can record vocals in FL Studio is with Edison in the Mixer. Edison is an audio editing and recording plugin by Image-Line, and comes with FL Studio Producer Edition and up. It allows for more control when recording and is better suited for sampling than recording into the Playlist.
Add Edison to Mic Input Track
First, add an Edison to your mic input Mixer track. Make sure it appears above any effects you have added on to the track. This will ensure that you have a “dry” recording, which will allow for more control and flexibility in your mix later on.
Edison should appear above effects in your signal processing chain. To reorder, hover over a slot and scroll with your mouse wheel.
Adjust Mic Input Gain
Next, you want to make sure the mic input signal coming into Edison is a maximum of -10 dBFS. You can achieve this by having your vocalist do a few test runs with proper distance from the mic and the loudness of their voice taken into consideration. Adjust your mic input gain so that the loudest parts of the test run are around -10 dBFS.
As mentioned earlier, you can do this by adding a Fruity Balance and a Wave Candy above Edison in the Mixer track. Adjust the gain on Fruity Balance as your vocalist is performing while simultaneously monitoring the Wave Candy meter until the loudest parts are around -10 dBFS.
As mentioned earlier, you can do this by adding a Fruity Balance and a Wave Candy above Edison in the Mixer track. Adjust the gain on Fruity Balance as your vocalist is performing while simultaneously monitoring the Wave Candy meter until the loudest parts are around -10 dBFS.
Start Recording
Next, hit the Record button in Edison. If you have the trigger set to On Input, Edison will automatically start recording once it senses an input signal. Click the Record button again to stop recording.
Edit & Send to Playlist/Channel Rack
From here, you can edit the recorded waveform, it’s volume, panning, and stereo separation envelopes (bottom left), normalize, add EQ, slice, etc. Once you have the waveform sounding the way you want, just click the Send to playlist as audio clip/to channel button at the top right in the Edison toolbar. Now, your clip is in the Playlist and Channel rack.
More Vocal Recording Tips
- Recording vocals with effects applied (wet) is not recommended. You can’t remove effects that you’ve recorded along with the vocals. You can always add effects to your vocal audio clips afterwards.
- If you are monitoring and recording in the same room, remember to make sure your studio monitors are off before recording. You want to isolate the vocalist’s voice as much as possible during recording. Headphones and a good acoustic treatment setup will really help here too.
- Aim for -10 dBFS peak level when recording vocals. Sometimes, shooting for -12 dBFS is ideal because vocalists will tend to sing louder than normal when recording.
And that wraps it up for this one. If you liked this 100% free FL Studio tutorial, let me know what else you’d like me to cover in the comments, on the Synaptic Sound Facebook page, or YouTube channel!
First thing you need to do is make sure each track in your song is connected to a separate channel in the mixer.
This is the most important part of exporting stems in FL Studio and you should do this slowly and carefully.
In the image below, you can see we’ve connected this track named “Lex808_1” with channel 9 in the mixer.
To do this all you need to do is click on the track and on the box on the right labeled FX, change the number to a free channel on the mixer.
Now you just have to connect every track to a different channel in the mixer.
Pro Tip
A good idea is to give each track it’s own channel in the mixer and don’t send two tracks to the same channel unless you’re consolidating the vocals, which we’ll explain how to do next.
Don’t worry it’s really easy.
How to Consolidate Vocals For Export in Fl Studio
When I say consolidate the vocals what I mean is separate the main vocals, ad libs, doubles (should you still be recording vocal doubles?), chorus lead, chorus backing and chorus ad libs into their own tracks.
So when it’s all said and done, you’ll have these tracks all in separate WAV forms.
- Main Vocals
- Ad Libs
- Doubles
- Chorus Lead
- Chorus Backing
- Chorus Ad Lib
Mixing In Fl Studio Vocals Too Low
For example, you can send a main vocal for verses 1, 2 and 3 to the same channel in the mixer.
You can then do the same for the other vocal tracks as well (send them to their own channel in the mixer).
This way when you export them there will be one track with all your main vocals in it, one track with all the backing vocals in it, one track with all the main chorus vocals in it, you get the idea.
Another good thing to do is name each track correctly.
For example, if you have a main vocal track, name it “main vocal” in the mixer by right clicking on the channel and going to rename.
This way it’ll be easier for you to assign tracks to the correct channel and when the file exports it’ll be called “main vocals”.
Also you’re audio engineer will love you because you saved him time from organizing your stems.
Export Stems
Now you go to File > Export > Wav file
Next a dialog window will pop up asking you to name it and save it.
The beat I’m exporting is called “Tropical Trap” (don’t ask me why I named it that).
This is where you’ll want to create a new folder and name it your songs name.
You can right click and go to “Create new folder” and then you can name it accordingly.
I will usually title the folder the song’s name and put (stems) beside it.
For example, if the song is called “Tropical Trap”, I’d have a folder called “Tropical Trap (stems)” and it would contain all the exported stems from Fl Studio in it.
Don’t forget to select this folder and click “save” as this is where you’re telling FL Studio to export your stems.
The Final Part
Finally, this window will pop up, all you need to is select “Split mixer tracks”.
You can also copy the same settings I have used here as well.
Once you’ve done that, click “Start” and let the magic happen.
If you’ve done everything correctly, you’ll have a folder with all the tracks from your song separated.
Exporting Stems Mistake: Don’t Worry Everyone Does This
A common problem, I still do even to this day, is forget to link one track to it’s own mixer channel, so it’ll be missing from the folder! Ouch.
Remember up above I said to do it slowly and carefully.
You can double check to make sure every track from your song is in the folder by exporting your tracks back into your recording program and making sure they’re all there and lined up correctly.
Bonus Tip
Now that you’ve got a folder with all your song’s tracks in it, you’ll want to zip them up so you can easily send them to our mixing and mastering services.
If you’re not familiar with zipping files, here’s our helpful guide on How to Zip Up Your Music Files.
Although FL Studio has a deserved reputation for being an application that beginners can pick and start making music with quickly, experienced users will tell you that it can also be a deep and involved beast.So here’s a collection of tips that takes you below the surface and deals with some FL Studio features that you might not be familiar with, but once mastered will speed up and improve your workflow.
1. The secret volume control
A channel’s volume can be automated in the piano roll by right-clicking the grey box under the keyboard and selecting Channel volume. This is useful for adding tremolo and subtle variations in levels, which isn’t easily doable using note velocities. It’s also great for adding an organic feel to a phrase. A consequence of automating the volume in this way, though, is that it adjusts the channel’s Volume knob in the step sequencer, which can be an issue when mixing. A good fix is to use the Volume Multiplier knob in the Misc tab of the Channel Settings window to set the level before it gets to the Mixer.
2. Split and merge patterns
Patterns that contain notes on multiple channels can be split by channel, making it easy to build variations on a single pattern without having to clone it and edit the piano roll for each one. In the step sequencer, click the pattern selector and select Split by channel on the right. All of the notes and automation for each channel will appear in new patterns, named after each channel, stacked on top of each other in the Playlist. Patterns can be merged by selecting them in the Playlist and clicking Edit»Merge pattern clips in the Playlist options. Only the selected patterns will be merged – other instances of the selected patterns will stay as they are.
3. Dumping the score log
How often do you find yourself playing something really awesome on your MIDI controller and wishing you’d had Record engaged (or a better memory)? Even when not recording, FL Studio remembers all of the incoming MIDI notes from the last five minutes or so. To get that great riff back, go into an empty pattern and select “Dump Score Log To Selected Channel” from the Tools menu. Those MIDI notes will magically appear!
4. Set snapshots in the Browser
The Browser can be organised by snapshots – specific locations accessible via number keys 1 to 5. To set up a snapshot, navigate to the location in the Browser that you want easy access to and click the Current Snapshot dropdown menu, next to the Browser label. Choose the number key you want to associate with this location and click that snapshot. You can also rename and freeze the snapshot. When you want to navigate to that location in the Browser, press the associated number key while the Browser is in focus.
5. Scale automation clips
Automation clips can have their minimum and maximum values scaled, enabling you to edit the depth of the automation without going through and tweaking each point in the clip. In the Channel Settings window of the automation clip, the MIN and MAX knobs at the top will adjust the range of the automation clip. To the right of these knobs, the Timestretch knob can be used to adjust the clip’s timing and length.
6. Scale note properties
In the piano roll, the velocity levels or other parameters of the currently selected notes can be scaled by pressing Alt+X. This affords you a lot of flexibility when it comes to adjusting note properties and can be very useful when a number of notes are too loud or too soft and you want to make them fit better without sacrificing their relative levels.
7. Zoom in closer
To set the resolution of FL Studio’s sequencer, select the project’s General settings from the main Options menu and change the Timebase (PPQ) value. Higher values will enable you to zoom in closer on notes and draw smaller ones more accurately, as well as being able to adjust the start and end points of the notes to a finer resolution.
8. Slice up pattern clips
Pattern clips in the Playlist can be sliced and rearranged. Using the Slicer tool (C), click and drag across a clip, or hold Shift and click to slice without dragging. The new sections of the clip can be moved around as you see fit. Be careful when slicing a pattern: any notes that start before the slice will be omitted from the resulting piece. The slip tool (S) can come in handy for remedying this.
9. Metronome customisation
To change the level of the metronome and the audio preview in the Browser, go into the Audio Settings window – which is accessed from the Options menu – and select a Mixer track with the Preview Mixer track selector. Now you can stay on beat to the sound of a less annoying tone.
10. Smooth event editing
To quickly edit events smoothly in the piano roll or the event editor, enable Auto smoothing in the piano roll’s Options menu and edit the events with the pencil tool. Then set Snap to Step and draw in your automation. Once that’s done, FL Studio will make the events smooth and rounded, rather than jerky and broken.
Mixing In Fl Studio 10
11.Snap to events
At the bottom of the Snap to grid menu in both the piano roll and the Playlist is the Snap To Events option. With this enabled, notes and clips won’t snap to anything except the start and end points of pre-existing notes or clips. When the note or clip is at a point at which it will snap to another one, the other notes or clips will be coloured purple. This can be useful when you want to add notes to a phrase that isn’t strictly quantized without them overlapping, or when slicing audio in the Playlist.
Mixing In Fl Studio 12
Original source: here.