Here are some things I've picked up in FL Studio over countless hours of music production. Everyone's workflow is different but you're likely to find something useful here.
Other answers to this question are perfectly valid. There is however, another way via which you can transpose the ‘keys' in FL Studio 12. Step 1: Open up your sampler or your VST plugin (anything from the channel rack, actually). FL Studio Keyboard Shortcuts +1 vote. Why not to include FL Studio 12? Answered Dec 22, 2016 by -Luis-(24,050. I'm confident that with these keyboard shortcuts you will definitely improve your workflow in FL Studio, which will result in more productive music production sessions. Keep in mind that this is the selection of shortcuts that I use the most, there may be more for you! Here is a complete list of all the keyboard shortcuts in FL Studio. 100+ Blender Shortcuts – 3D Blender Keyboard Shortcuts. July 12, 2019 9 Min Read. Tag: fl studio 12 all shortcuts. 150+ FL Studio Shortcuts for Windows. Ctrl+1.9,0 Solo/UnSolo First 10 Channels Up Arrow Select Previous Channel Down Arrow Next Channel Ctrl+Del Delete Selected Channel (s).
In the example – 'Synth Lead C' doesn't belong among the drum layers! Sort instruments and samples in the step sequencer and mixer. Hold the alt key in combination with the up and down arrow keys when in the step sequencer to move inserts. Hold the Alt key in combination with the left and right keys when in the mixer to move mixer tracks.
When your song projects start getting bigger and better it helps to keep everything organised. In a song you might have lead sounds, bass sounds, drum samples, sound effect samples and automation clips all thrown in. It helps to keep every layer named so you can remember what is what or it'll quickly become a project that you open and instantly want to discard and move onto the next song (only to repeat in a vicious circle). If you spend time organising a project file you'll end up being more invested in following through with the track. That's a good thing! I organise them into groups e.g. lead, bass, drums, sound effects, automation.
It's one of those things which will slow you down at the start and speed you up in the long run. Get used to using your keyboards function keys in FL Studio to improve your workflow. Here are the shortcuts you should master early on to switch back and forth between windows fast:
| F5 | Toggle Playlist |
| F6 | Toggle Step Sequencer |
| F7 | Toggle Piano roll |
| F8 | Show/hide Sample Browser |
| F9 | Show/hide Mixer |
In addition to these here are two more shortcuts which are good to know. First; Use the 'alt' key when manipulating notes in the Piano Roll. This bypasses the snapping grid you have set and you can also use it to stretch or shorten the end of a note. Second; When you are drawing notes in the Piano Roll the note size will be equal to the previous note drawn or selected. Sometimes this is not desirable. In that case hold shift and draw a note and it'll automatically be snapped back to the grid ready to be resized as you need it.
This frustrating interface problem can be caused when you undock one of the detachable interface panels (click and drag). This can be quickly fixed by pushing CTRL+SHIFT+H – which reverts everything in FL Studio back to the default view.
In FL Studio, 'Click and hold & Special Gesture functions' is enabled by default. It means for instance in Piano Roll if you click and hold a note for a short period of time, you'll be drawing a slide note instead. If you click and hold the right mouse button in the Playlist, it'll switch to the Slice tool. Whether you change this setting or not is down to personal preference. If you aren't a fan of these gesture based functions it's handy to know you can disable them as so from within FL Studio:
Options > General Settings > uncheck 'Click & Hold & special gesture functions'
If you're frequently using the same effects, synths and samples, set up templates for when you load FL Studio. That way, all of your favorite settings will be loaded from the beginning.
You can set these up by saving any project in:
***FL Studio Folder***DataProjectsTemplates
In the image
1 – Step sequencer. I like to use Sylenth1, Massive & FM8 so every project I begin will have these ready. Set this up for yourself and your preferred synths.
2 – Sidechain Channel set up in the mixer – the Fruity Limiter effect added and a kick drum side-chained to this track. By default I have my kick drum linked to mixer track 1. Sylenth, Massive and FM8 are linked to track 2. You can add any number of effects here. You can have a signature synth lead sound with all your reverb/compression/delay/distortion effects added and pre-loaded. Really useful.
3 – VST Plugins – configured to whichever state you need. Their settings will be retained for when you load FL Studio. I have them set to their default initialisation state. New song, new sounds.
Useful FL Studio function to know. Select any pattern or sample in the playlist and then press 'select all similar clips'. It'll highlight every instance of that pattern, or sample, or automation clip etc across the entire playlist. Good for when you want to quickly edit a drum sequence without affecting other parts of the song. e.g. use 'select all similar clips' and if necessary use the 'make unique' function which creates a new pattern right there – so you can edit on without affecting the original.
Some plugins can cause FL Studio to Crash. One in particular is NI Massive – crashing FL studio whenever it loaded. It was possible to resolve this by deleting the database file located in:
X:Users***your name***AppDataLocalNative InstrumentsMassive
File – NIMassiveDataBase_ul
Moral of the Story – if FL Studio is crashing each time you load up a project or load a certain VST it's possibly defective. A quick reinstall or removing a file will usually resolve such issues.
Important. It's possible backups won't be active by default in FL Studio.
In FL Studio – Options > file settings > Backup autosave > select
This will generate a new (hidden) folder in your FL Studio directory. Backup files are stored inside the 'Data' folder.
X:***Program Files***Image-Line***FL Studio Folder***DataBackup
Your backups will be saved here per the preferences you set within FL Studio. If you don't take the time to sort this out now, you'll end up setting it up after you lose a project.
When working with automation clips in FL Studio, you can right click any knob or parameter and select 'copy value' – and then paste the value into your automation clip for precise automation.
Add a background to FL Studio. I use a black background with a subtle texture. The background I use is below – feel free to download. The more straight forward the background is, the more you can focus your mind and get creative.
Also, in FL Studio general options under animations try 'entertain me!' and check the 'ultrasmooth' setting for scrolling. Danganronpa: trigger happy havoc crack download. It is also worth trying different skins, different view options in the piano roll/step sequencer and different font sizes in the browser. Play with these settings. I don't use many of the default values.
- Use the reverse clip option on any sample to get interesting effects. Especially good for big cymbal crashes and impact sounds – reverse those for awesome power-up / build up effects.
- Record portions of your song and then reverse them, stretch them and change the pitch to create unique sound effects.
- Make a repeating arpeggiating sequence in the Piano Roll, like ascending triplets and then select the notes. Hold the 'alt' key and drag back to make the entire sequence 2x/4x/8x faster. Copy/paste to fill the rest of the measure with those super-fast notes. Surprisingly good way to make amazing sounds.
Some quick tips to make sequences sound less artificial.
- Panning and volume for drums. However you make your drums mix up the panning and volume to make it sound a bit more natural. It's easy to do in the step sequencer, piano roll, or a drum VST like FPC. 'alt+r' will open the randomiser in FL Studio which you can use to quickly add a subtle bit of variation to each note.
- Remove some drum hits from your sequence and add some 'mistakes' to your melodies. For instance if you have a long sequence of ascending patterns delete a few notes, or move them completely off pitch. If you have a rolling sequence of hi-hat notes, delete some completely.
- Use the 'Alt' key when manipulating notes in the Piano Roll. This will allow you to stretch or shorten the length of any note which is useful to simulate how a human will play an instrument. For instance when you play guitar, you do not completely let go of the previous note when playing the next.
Note: Keyboard shortcuts are referred to as key commands here.
In this tutorial we will be covering key commands in some aspects of the FL Studio Workflow that will help make you into an efficient power user of FL Studio.
The first place you can improve your efficiency is by learning some of the various key commands available. For example:
- The 'Tab' key allows you to quickly cycle through open windows in your project.
- Use 'Shift + Tab' to reverse the cycle order.
The windows and cells can be individually activated or opened and closed by using the corresponding key commands:
- 'F5' for the Playlist,
- 'F6' for the Step Sequencer,
- 'F7' for the Piano Roll,
- 'F8' for the Browser,
- and 'F9' for the mixer.
You might find it easier to just flip through windows with the 'Tab' key, and then just use 'F7' to open and close the Piano Roll whenever you need it.
To close any currently active window; either press the associated key command for that window or press the escape 'Esc' key.
Sequencer
When working in the Step Sequencer there are a number of useful commands:
- Use the Up and Down arrow keys to select the Next or Previous channel.
- To select more channels hold down 'Shift' and Left Click the other channels.
- To delete a selected channel hold down the control 'Ctrl' key and press 'Delete'.
When working on a big song it is useful to group different sounds, according to function. For example; a drum kit made up of separate sampler channels.
- Group select the channels by holding down the 'Alt' key and pressing 'G'.
When grouped the channels will only appear when you select the group's name in the channel display filter.
- To quickly jump through groups use the 'Page Up' and 'Page Down' keys.
When editing sequences in the Step Sequencer there are a few little tricks to make things easier:
- To randomize the channel press the key combination of 'Alt + R',
- and to quickly send a sequence to the piano roll editor press the combination of 'Alt + P'.
- The Left and Right Arrow keys by themselves will take you to the Next and Previous pattern,
- and to quickly name the current pattern press 'F2, and type in the name.
- To create a new pattern and name it, press 'F4'.
Playlist
Moving over now to the Playlist, first of all, given that you can spend an extensive period of time editing in the Playlist you might find it useful to fill the FL Studio window with just the Playlist by pressing the 'Enter' key. Pressing it again returns it back to its original size. For now we'll just keep it at the full size.
One really neat navigational aspect in the Playlist is the ability to use the wheel on your mouse to move around the window:
- Just scrolling the wheel Up and Down will scroll through the pattern lists.
- If you hold down the 'Shift' key whist scrolling you'll be able to move horizontally through your arrangement.
- Holding down the control 'Ctrl' key whilst scrolling the wheel allows you to zoom in around the spot where the mouse is currently placed.
Moving through the timeline can also be achieved by pressing the 'Left' and 'Right' Arrow keys, much of this functionality is also available on the Piano Roll editor and the Event editor as well.
The number keypad on your computer has some helpful functionality built into it:
- To Fast Forward the play hear press the asterisk '*' key,
- and to Rewind press the forward slash '/'.
- To Fast Forward or Rewind in full hold down the control 'Ctrl' key while pressing these.
To make arrangements in the playlist easier you'll often use markers to define song sections.
- You create a marker by going to the Playlist Options Menu and choosing 'Add time marker..', a new time marker will be placed at the start of your song.
- To place a new marker in another point of the song click and drag the left most part of the marker to the position you want it.
Markers make is easy to jump to different sections of your arrangement:
- To jump to the next or previous song marker hold down the 'Alt' key while pressing the asterisk '*' or forward slash '/' on the number keypad.
- You can select areas in the timeline by holding down the control 'Ctrl' key and then clicking and dragging to define a cycle playback region.
- The same can be achieved by double clicking in the timeline and on the second click keep the mouse key held down and then, drag to define the selection.
- To move the marker region hold down ‘Shift' and drag.
- To set selections that don't align with the timeline grid hold down the 'Alt' key.
- Double clicking on a marker name will also select the area under the marker duration.
- Hold down 'Ctrl + Alt' while pressing asterisk '*' or forward slash '/' to select the next or previous marker section.
- You can quickly jump around in the song during playback by clicking at the point where you want to jump to.
At the next bar the timeline will jump to this new spot without interrupting the timing of your song, this also works by using the Fast Forward and Rewind key commands I mentioned earlier. Note that, this way works only when you have Live Mode switched on in the Playlist Options Menu. See the Live Mode video tutorial for more on this mode. With Live Mode off the song will jump to wherever you click on the timeline without seeking to the tempo.
When you are heavily editing a song you will find yourself wanting to pause in the current play position, as opposed to stopping and automatically jumping back to the song or selection start.
- Hold down control when you press the space bar to do this. 'Ctrl + Space Bar' will then resume playback from the current position.
The tools that you use when editing in the playlist also have their own key commands:
- The Draw tool which you might like to think of as the pencil is selected by pressing 'P',
- the Brush tool by pressing 'B',
- the Delete tool by pressing 'D',
- the Cut tool by pressing 'C',
- the Select tool by pressing 'E',
- and the Zoom tool by pressing 'Z'.
Within a particular tool you also have other tools available by using modifiers:
- 'Ctrl' will switch to the Selection tool.
- 'Alt' will allow you to make edits that do not snap to the current grid settings, for example moving a pattern.
Most of the functionality I've described here in the pallets window also works in the Piano Roll, and the Event edit windows as well.
Piano Roll
The Piano Roll though has the additional playback tool which has the key command 'Y'. Also, all of the Piano Roll edit tools have their own key commands so you might want to gradually learn them as well.
A few neat editing tips in the Piano Roll are:
- Press 'Shift' and the 'Up' or 'Down' Arrow keys to transpose the semi-tone,
- 'Ctrl' and 'Up' or 'Down' will transpose the octave,
- and 'Shift' + 'Left' or 'Right' will shift the notes left and right by current snap-to grid settings.
So now you have learned a few new keyboard shortcuts it is now time to look at some other aspects of FL Studio workflow.
Browser
You are probably used to using the browser for dragging and dropping samples you have stored on your hard drive. The browser also contains a wealth of functionality that relates to the construction and management of your FL Studio projects.
This appears under the browser entry labelled 'Current Project'.
The first entry is 'History' which provides an undo history list that you can browse to pinpoint and come back to a previous edit state in your session.
- This will show up to as many undo states you have set in the General Settings 'Undo History'.
- Click on an undo state to revert back to that edit point.
Fl Studio 12 Velocity Shortcut
Underneath the Undo folder is the 'Automation' folder:- Here you can manage all the automation contained in your project.
Automation that appears here is automation that is contained within patterns, playlists, sequences, as well as the automation contained in the main automation such as Track Mix automation, which also appears as a pattern in the playlist.
Clicking on an automatic parameters name, will open up an Event editor allowing you to view and edit the automation.
This kind of axis becomes useful when your project is quite large and complex, allowing you to quickly home in a particular aspect of your arrangement.
Underneath the Automation folder is the 'Generators' folder:
- This lists all the Generators included in your project.
Clicking on a Generator name reveals all controls that can have automation or external media controls attached to them.
- Right click on the Control name to assign it to or add it to its automation.
Under the Generators is the same thing for all 'Effects' contained within your project.
Under Effects is a folder called 'Remote Control':
Fl Studio 12 Change Hotkeys
- This lists all parameters that you have either linked external media remote control signals or automation clips to.- Left clicking on the parameter name allows you to assign a new signal to control with.
That concludes this FL Studio Tutorial.
You will be able to get help with using FL Studio and learning how to make beats by posting a thread in the Producer Talk forum, and by asking other Producers who upload their beats in the Homemade Beats forum.
Fl Studio 20 Hotkey Guide
Disclaimer:The tutorials I post, are not tutorials that I have written or recorded. They are simply rough audio transcripts of the videos embedded in the tutorials. The videos have been found freely available online, unless otherwise stated.
