What is Fruityloops?

Fruityloops is a sequencer. Essentially a program that plays samples or notes from virtual instruments back through your PC. The good thing about fruityloops is that you can add effects and all sorts of other parameters to the notes so that genuine creativity can be acheived.

The numbers indicate the following:

1=Channel This displays the name of the sample you are using or if you are using a generator (we'll go into more detail about those later) the name of the generator is displayed there. You also have easy access to the channels volume (the right hand button) and balance or pan (left hand button). Also the small green light under the buttons can be used to mute/un mute the channel.

2=Step editor. This consists of buttons split into groups of 4(4 lights = 1 beat). When the buttons are clicked, they light up and the sample indicated on that channel will play through the speakers. Fruityloops plays back the noted from left to right across the screen. You have 4 lots of 4 lights so 4 beats = a bar.

3= Playback controls - pretty straight forward. You can also us the space bar to stop and start playback.

4= This collection of icons give you access to other functions within fruityloops. From left to right they are - PL - Playlist editor, SS - Step editor, PR - Piano Roll, SB - Sample browser and FX - Effects selector. More info on these functions later.

5= Master volume and pitch

6= CPU Meter - tells you how much power your using. Using lots of effects at the same time will put more strain on your CPU. The POLY readout means polyphony or basically how many notes are playing at any given time.

7=VU meter for graphically measuring the volume of your track - keep this out of the red to avoid distortion.

8= Pattern selector - gives quick access to patters 1-9. the small box to the right displays the current pattern number and the arrows above and below it are also used to select patterns.

9= TS404 controls. The TS404 is a generator (more info on this later) and for some reason controls have been added to the main screen on fruity....handy I suppose?

Copy that on your screen and see how it sounds.

Obviously that's just one bar but to start to put a song together you need to organise different bars. This is done using the playlist editor.

The pattern numbers are listed down the left hand side and the vertical "stripes" you see are used as guides to keep the arrangement of your song correct.

Each vertical stripe is split into 4. In the picture above where the purple bar is you can see it covers a total of 8 small squares. This means that pattern 1 (the pattern in the other picture) will be played back 8 times. The song would then move onto pattern two (indicated by the green) and that will also play 8 times.

That is the theory behind how fruityloops triggers notes. Firstly in the step editor to get your basic notes and drums arranged, then you arrange the patterns into order using the step editor

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