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MIXING & EFFECTS
Mixer Pop-Up Menu 
This section covers the Mixer pop-up menu commands (1). For reference, the mixer diagram is
at the bottom of this page.
Options
Disk recording
- Render to Wave File - Renders all tracks
prepared for recording to a wave file (see Disk Recording).
- Auto-Unarm - If enabled, all armed tracks for
recording will be automatically unarmed after the recording session
is complete.
- Auto-create Audio Clips - If enabled, FL
Studio inserts all rendered mixer tracks as audio clips in the
Playlist after recording.
- Latency Compensation - If enabled, FL Studio
attempts to align the recorded audio clips with the input latency.
Depending on your system and audio drivers, you might still need to
fine tune the clip placement.
- 32bit Float Recording - If enabled, tracks are
recorded as 32bit wave files, otherwise the standard 16bit format
is used.
View
- Big Meter - Toggles the visibility of the
large peak-meter (5).
- Names at bottom - Toggles the position of the
track names (3) from the top
(default) to the bottom (alternative).
- Tracks on right side - Toggles the position of
the FX slots, Track Properties and Track I/O (6, 7, 8 & 9) from the right (default)
to the left (alternative).
Link all parameters...
Opens a link-dialog that is designed to link automatable
software parameters to 'tweaked' hardware controllers and then
automatically move to the next item in the 'parameter list' ready
for the next link. There are options for skipping parameters or
jumping to new locations in the list as described below:
Basic operation - Select 'Link all parameters'
from the menu, and move the first hardware controller to be linked
(the link is made to the first item in the 'Current parameter'
list), when you move the second hardware controller it will be
auto-linked to the next parameter and so on, until the end of the
parameter list is reached or the link-dialog is closed. You may
choose to keep moving the same hardware controller (in this case
all parameters will link to the same hardware knob) or move to a
new hardware controller, where the new hardware controller will be
linked. To skip a link - left-click the
Skip button at the bottom of the link-dialog
(immediately left of the 'Accept' button). To jump directly
to a parameter - use the Current
parameter menu (top most in the link-dialog) and select
the target parameter you are interested in. You can then continue
auto-linking from that point in the list by moving hardware
controllers as before OR jump to another parameter
in the list using the 'Current parameter' menu as previously
described.
Mixer Track
File
- Open Mixer Track State - Allows you to restore
a previously saved mixer track state in the selected mixer
track.
- Save Mixer Track State - Allows you to save
the state of the selected mixer track, which includes the track
settings and plugin filters.
- Browse states
- - Opens the Mixer presets in the
Browser menu.
Link Selected Channels
- To This Track (
Ctrl+L) - All channels selected in
the Step Sequencer will be linked
to the currently selected mixer track.
- Starting from This Track (
Shift+Ctrl+L) - All channels
selected in the Step Sequencer will
be linked to individual mixer tracks, starting from the current
one. For example, if three channels were selected and the current
mixer track is 4, the channels will be linked to tracks 4, 5 and
6.
Select Linked Channels
Select Channels linked to the active mixer track (
Alt+L).
Rename
Lets you set a custom name and color for the current FX track
( F2).
Set icon
Select from a menu of icons to appear at the top of the Mixer
Track label area. Use these to improve the visibility of important
mixer tracks or to aid surround-mixing setups (a set of
surround-mixing icons have been provided).
Solo
Solos the output from the selected track (
S).
Alt Solo
Solos the selected track AND all other tracks routed TO and FROM
it ( Alt+S).
Move left
Moves the selected track left (
Alt+Left Arrow).
Move right
Moves the selected track right (
Alt+Right Arrow).
Switch Smart Disable for All
In FL6 this has moved into the Toolbar
menu - Tools > Misc macros directory. Use
this to disable FX that are not processing audio to save CPU
power.
Mixer Diagram
- Mixer Menu - Contains view, recording, Track
linking, renaming and coloring options, click here to learn more about
the options.
- Mixer Track Scroll Bar - This will slide the
visible range tracks within the mixer window.
- Mixer Insert Tracks - The output of all audio
instruments in FL Studio is routed to one of the 64 available
insert tracks. In the default Mixer setup, once the audio signal is
processed with the integrated filters (equalizer, volume and
panning - 9) it is then sent
to the master mixer track (10). It is also possible to route the
audio of a mixer track to any ASIO output (7 - for users with ASIO enabled sound
cards) or even another insert track (18). This internal re-routing is a very
powerful feature allowing you to create advanced mixer setups with
groups and subgroups of insert tracks.
The labels can be right-clicked (or press F2) to rename the
track or recolor it. Quick linking of channel/s:
From the Channel window use the
Channel selector to select the channel/s you want to route to the
mixer track, then select the desired destination mixer track and
click Ctrl+L. There is also an option to
sequentially link Channels to tracks starting from the selected
track. Shift+Ctrl+L.
- Send Tracks - there are 4 mixer tracks
dedicated to send functions, although any track can serve as a
send, (18). The send tracks
do not receive a direct audio input from the instruments, but they
can receive audio from one or more of the 64 insert tracks (you can
adjust the amount of signal sent by each insert track with the Send
Level knobs (15). The purpose
of send tracks is the ability to setup common effects (for ex.
reverb and delay) once in a send track and then being able to route
multiple insert tracks audio to it, as opposed to adding the same
effect in each insert track, wasting CPU power.
- Big Peak Meter - Can be hidden using the Mixer
menu (1) > View >
Options. Output is in dB. See Levels and Mixing to
learn more about using peak meters in FL Studio.
- External mixer input - ASIO hardware inputs
and some VSTi inputs can be selected here.
- External mixer output - ASIO hardware outputs
can be selected here. Typical uses include live-use where one
channel is sent to headphones for monitoring previewed
samples/mixes while the main mix goes to the PA OR
to create a surround sound sub-mix by sending several mixer tracks
to the relevant surround channels of your soundcard.
- FX slots - Up to 8 independent FX may be added
to each mixer track. To load an Effect: Left-click
on pop-up menu arrow at the left end of the slot and use the
'select' option. If you need more than 8 Effects, use the 'Send'
feature (18) to route the
output of one mixer track to another. To open an Effect GUI
interface: Left-click on the name of a loaded Effect, a
loaded Effect is displayed in FX slot 7 above.
- Mixer Track Properties - For more detail
click here.
Parametric EQ, Stereo Separation
, Pan , Swap Stereo Channels , Invert Phase . The All these features are automatable.
Panel (A) is
the graph for the Parametric EQ, left-click to control center
frequency (left-right)/amplitude(up/down) or right-click to control
bandwidth (left-right)/amplitude(up/down). Panel
(B) can be left or right
clicked to gain simultaneous X/Y control over Pan and Volume.
Panel (C)
holds the controls for Plugin Delay
Compensation.
- Master Mixer Track - All audio output of FL
Studio is routed through the master mixer track for final
processing before the final output (unless an insert track is
routed out of the mixer to an ASIO output - 7). In light of this, the Master track
isn't a good place to record external ASIO inputs (6) as the external and internal audio
will be mixed together and recorded to disk.
- Small Peak Meter - See Levels and Mixing to
learn more about using peak meters in FL Studio.
- Mute Switch - left-click to
mute/un-mute the individual track, right-click to
solo/un-solo the individual track.
- Pan Knob - this function is also duplicated in
the Mixer Track Properties area.
- Level Fader - Can be automated right-clicked
and linked to controllers. This function is also duplicated in the
Mixer Track Properties area.
- Send Knobs - When the 'Send' switch is
activated (18) this knob (on
the destination track) controls the signal level received from the
source track.
- FX Enable/Disable Switch - When deselected
this disables all the FX in the FX slots (8). This only becomes active once an FX
is added to a FX slot.
- Track Recording Switch - When selected
(orange) the track is armed and any audio (internal or external
(6)) will be recorded to
disk.
- Track Send Enable Switch -
Left-click to enable audio to be passed from one
track to another, turns orange. Right-click to
route to a specific track, master routing disabled.
NOTE: Most controls are automatable
(right-click and select 'Create automation clip').
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