The Playlist window contains a sequence of patterns and
audio/automation tracks that form the complete song structure.
Each clip channel added to the Step Sequencer becomes available
in the tracks view and vice versa - dropping samples on the audio
tracks generates an Audio Clip channel (unless a
channel exists with the same sample).
Basic Operations
To place a clip, switch to
draw (
) or
paint (
) mode and left-click in a track (of no clip was edited
previously, you will see a dialog where you can browse for a sample
to be used). Paint mode allows you to draw multiple instances of
the clip at once (hold the mouse button and drag).
Snap settings (
) control how clips move against the background grid.
Set this to 'line' if you want the clips to snap
to bar boundaries, 'None' if you want to freely
positon clips.
To erase an clip, click it with your right
mouse button or use the left mouse button in erase
(
) mode.
Change clip target channels by opening the clip
menu (left-click the down arrow in the top left corner of the clip)
and from the Select Channel menu, pick an
alternative Audio Clip channel.
To open the Channel Settings of
the channel associated with the audio clip instance, open the clip
menu and select Channel Settings.
To listen to a clip, select
Preview from the clip menu (the small down arrow
at the start of each clip) and press the Stop
button in the Transport panel to
stop the preview).
Fast Creation of Automation Clips
Right-click an automatable control and select Create
Automation Clip. This will automatically create an
automation clip channel, link that clip to the target control and
if you then click inside the clip tracks area, place new automation
clip in that track ready for editing. If you pre-select a
range in the Playlist the placed clip will span that
range.
FL Studio also provides you with a quick way to automate the
volume/pan of an audio clip. Open the clip menu and select either
Automate > Panning or Automate >
Volume. Keep in mind that this creates an automation clip
linked to the volume/panning placed over the audio clip, i.e. it
overlays the audio clip and doesn't show the envelope curve inside
the audio clip itself. You can use the focus switches (see section
7 above) to bring either clip
in front for editing. Read below for more information about working
with focus groups and overlayed clips.
Make Unique
By default all instances of a clip you place (either audio or
automation) share the same channel. This means that they share the
same LFO/envelope and sample selected.
Sometimes you'll want to place an instance of a clip and edit it
independently without affecting the other instances. To do this,
open the clip options menu (the triangle icon on top left of the
clip) and select Make Unique. The clip channel
will be cloned and the clone will be assigned to this instance so
it's now "unique".
Focus and editing options
The two buttons in section 7 (see the screenshot above) allow you to
select the focus of editing in the audio/automation tracks. You can
select to bring either audio (left button) or automation clips
(right button) to be displayed in front when there are overlapped
clips.
This allows you to overlap an audio clip with its matching
volume or pan automation clips and selectively bring either in
front as you work. CTRL+click both clips so they
are selected and can be moved together.
The options below are context-sensitive depending on the
selected focus:
- Audio focus: Zero-Cross - enable this option
to allow FL Studio to "snap" slicing and resize operation of audio
clips to the nearest zero-crossing around the desired location.
This means that sliced audio clips won't create "click" and "pop"
sounds at the slice locations.
- Automation focus:
Step - Enable this option to set the automation
clip spline editor in step editing mode - drag in the clip to
create a "free hand" curve where a new control point is defined for
every step in the timeline (steps depend on the current snap
settings). Hold SHIFT key while dragging to draw "pulse" lines
(straight vertical/horizontal lines only). Note that each new
segment created this way uses the last tension set while adding a
segment.
- Automation focus:
Slide - Enable this option to preserve the relative
distance between a dragged control point and all control points
following it (this option is enabled by default).
Splitting and Regions
A powerful feature of both automation and audio clips is the
ability to split them in pieces and arrange the pieces
independently on the tracks. Here are the methods you can use to
split a clip in multiple pieces:
1. Using the Cut tool
(
) - Select the Cut tool. Go to a clip, press and
hold the left mouse button. Now drag to define the "cut line" slope
and length, then release the button. All audio clips that intersect
with the line are split at the intersection point.
2. Split on each beat/bar -
You can split your audio clips on even pieces for each bar or beat
in the timeline. Open the clip menu and from the Chop
into menu select Bar or
Beat to split in bars or beats, respectively.
Beat (Random) splits the audio clip in beats and
reorders the resulting pieces in a random order.
3. Autodetect - FL Studio can split your audio
clip using its integrated BeatSlicer engine. To auto-split
an audio clip, open its menu and from the Chop
into menu select Autodetect.
4. Precise split using external cue
points - FL Studio reads the cue points embedded in all
samples used as audio clips. Cue points can be inserted in most of
the popular wave editors, such as Adobe Audition (previously known
as Cool Edit®) and SoundForge®. Cue points allow you to create
perfectly accurate regions inside the waveform. You can also take
advantage of 3rd party tools which create those regions
automatically based on a special analisys of the sample (for ex.
BeatSlicer, which marks the start of each detected beat with a cue
point) and then split the regioned clip in FL Studio.
To split an audio clip into regions, open the clip menu and from
the Chop into menu select Regions
(if the wave doesn't contain regions, this command is
disabled).
You can also directly set an audio clip to show only a specific
region contained in the sample. To do so, open the clip menu, and
from the Select Region menu select a region name,
or select Full Sample to show again the full audio
sample (only Full Sample is available for clips
without regions).
Automation Clips
For detail on working with
Automation Clips click here.
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