FLStudio-Tutorials

Frequency range

To make your tracks clearer, you have to make all the sounds hearable, and the only way to do that is to make sure all your sounds have their own part in the frequency range to themselves. If more than a few sounds start colliding, it is not going to sound clear.

It's obvious that if you put two bass lines in a track and play them at the same time that you probably won't be able to tell them apart very well. same goes for higher frequencies dunnit? Also, there's a lot of sounds that you'll most likely use, that cover a MASSIVE range of the spectrum, so when throwing your sounds in, don't forget that you might not be able to loop that sound half the way through the track. Remember that not all your sounds are going to be playing at the same time, so when you take say a vocal out, you can fill in that range with something else that you don't play anywhere else like for the hook of the tune.

Its good to know what frequencies a sound you hear covers and what frequency it is dominant in. Specially to the point of knowing whether it's a C1 or a G2. This of course only comes with working for a long time with audio and EQs and etc which trains your ear and mind to be able to detect what's what, but, keep in mind to look at the numbers you are working with!

Noise

Although it's more work, cutting off every noise you can't hear is good practice and well worth it in the end. Because you don't normally notice a little bit of bass or noise in most sounds, it is this reason that a mix gets muddy. Imagine that you have 6 of these 'dirty' sounds playing all at the same time, all this noise is just going to add up, and you will get things like warbling sounds mixed in with your bass, all the space in the mid will just be not there and you won't be able to differentiate anything, everything becomes a blurring cloud.

EQing

Whenever you add samples or generators, just send it straight to its own new FX channel, and EQ it with a decent Parametric EQ. Cut any bass or lower frequencies off that you don't want. Even when you can't hear any, just make sure that there's nothing in there that you can't hear, its just good practice.

Try EQing it in the mix and solo 'd on its own to get it so it will sound as it will when you hear it at the end. Also, the best way to use EQ is to try to cut the sounds you don't want, not to boost the frequencies you do want.. its good practice but isn't really a rule so, when you know you want just a small part of the sound boosting, do it. When you try to boost everything that you do want, and you end up with high shelves trying to give it frequencies that aren't there, and notches all over the place trying to boost all the notes that the sample hits at, it just ends up worse. That's when you should look for what you don't want in the sound, cut them out, boost the gain, and then start adding small notches if it really needs it. Its always best to work this way round as you end up actually removing what you don't want to hear and not just making the rest louder.

If you can make spaces for sounds, Do it! If you have 2 instruments that are conflicting together that play together somewhere in the track, just get an EQ on each of them and make dips for where the frequencies can come through on the other instrument. Swap over to the other EQ on the other instrument and do the same and you should be able to get atleast some of the sound you want to come through from both of them when there together.

On the whole, at the end when your trying to get the sound of the finished track sounding right, try soloing the bass, then the mid, then the highs, and EQ each one separately first. Then move on to soloing the bass and mid together, EQing them as one, making sure the kick works with the bass and what ever.. then solo the mid and highs .. again, listen out for any problems and EQ them right, then let all the solos off and see how it sounds. Then once your sure the groups sound right together, move on to EQing them all as a whole (all solos off) if it needs it. It should sound a lot better by now so you might not even need any more EQ. If you try and keep the EQ curve nice and smooth (not tons of little notches and dips everywhere) then it should sound a lot better and won't affect all the instruments so much.

Tracking down the noise

One good way to find where the noise is exactly in your sound, is to make a notch, Increase the gain on it to around +6dB, set it a high Q, then slide it up the spectrum where you think the noise is. That will push up the volume of the specific noise and help you find the exact frequency range where it is so you can cut it out. Note where you start to hear it and where it fades away Increase the gain again if you need to, then, just widen the Q and drop the gain down, shifting it up and down the spectrum to get it perfect.

Choice of EQ

Parametric EQ's are the daddy when it comes to EQ! The're found on the more expensive consoles and allow for precise EQ'ing of signals.

In my opinion, any other type of EQ apart from a parametric one when your making tracks really don't give much control and so aren't really as usefull.

If you sit there thinking you're gonna be better off only ever using a graphic EQ than learning what a parametric EQ is and how to use it, which is fairly simple once you get your head round how sound works and what frequency is and etc, you just aren't ever going to have the control over the sound that you would with a fully parametric EQ.

All the frequency ranges and Q on a graphic EQ are pre-set, meaning you can't pin-point sounds effectivly and so you end up changing the sounds around the frequency that is the problem.

Other types of EQ are for different things:

A Semi-Parametric EQ is the kind of EQ you find on a mixer console where you can quickly adjust EQ on a channel strip but you don't have any control over the Q. (otherwise known as Resonance / Quality / Bandwidth/ Emphasis / Peak.)

A Graphic EQ is mainly for sorting out the sound of a PA and sorting out resonance / feedback problems of the location.

A Kill Switch is for DJs to cut the sound out of a whole range of the spectrum quickly.. You can use this kind of EQ to make tracks, but its the kind of EQ you use for effect, not sound control.

Filters

Filters are a great way to remove any sound above or below a set point in the spectrum. If you don't want ANY of the lower end, you use a HIGH-PASS FILTER. If you don't want any of the top end use a LOW-PASS FILTER. Of course you can use both on the same sound one after the other to cut the ends off.

With both HIGH or LOW-PASS filters you can set where you want to start cutting off the sound, and on top of this, you have a Q control. The Q control lets you choose between cutting everything off dead at the point where the filter is set, and curving it off slowly over a couple of octaves.

Most filters have a 'RES' setting that gives the filter a little notch just before the cutoff point, so it emphasizes the cut off nicely. You can also change how much res you want (how much gain to have on the notch). All filters sound different, specially because of the curving of the notch used in the Q. Find yourself some good ones here and sort through which ones you prefer instead of using the same crappy one all the time!.

Dynamic range (volume)

Compression is just making all the sounds so that you hear them all at the same time in the mix, so with EQing it goes really well and goes a long way to making them all fit together and hearable and not just a cloud of sounds that you can't really pick out. Check this compression tutorial and read back here after if you don't fully understand what it is yet. - compression-tutorial

You should get yourself a decent quality compressor. A great thing about a software compressor is the look ahead feature where the compressor can read the upcoming audio from the memory or hard disk and prepare how the sound should be altered when it comes to process it. All the best software compressors I know are made by waves. "Waves rcomp" for example shows you exactly whats going on when you are putting the compression on and how much compression is actually taking place. You actually see a level meter moving to show you how much attenuation it has made to the sound.

Reverb

Once your track sounds begins to sound nice and clear, it's time to start looking at the time gaps, the silent gaps in between noises where it sounds like there should be something there to keep things rolling. Reverb is the key here. Reverb should make the sounds fill the time gaps between your beats and any solo pieces or quiet bits you have in there. Don't just throw it in though, and never use presets, find a preset which is close to what you want, then start tweaking it with the reverb sound slightly more than you will have it so you can hear what noise the reverb is making easily. Try using a bunch of different reverbs and find which you like best, you can find loads of free ones here.

DC Offset

DC offset can affect your mix a lot, always make sure the 'remove DC offset' option is on on all your samplers in fruityloops when you come to render.

Stereo imaging

Use panning and good stereo imaging plugins to make use of both speakers! If you end up with a track that has no panning, all the sounds are going to be in one space, which means less room for them to be in, and less room for you to play with. If you have a some strings that are mono, split it into two FX channels and pan one hard left and the other hard to the right and use different FX on the left channel than the right. You could even split it again to form a mono/centre channel with FX of its own. Do what you want... just make use of the two channels you have. Then you can mix in all 3, even at different times or use a synched LFO on the vol to mix them together. Again, you can find loads of free VST plugins here.