Fl studio , Rock is it possible?

vaironl

New member
The tittle says it all, is it possible to make a decent rock beat ( Not from me ) on Fl studio or would you have to do part software part live recording.. I don't understand much at all about the music industry but im learning.

Btw anyone knows where to find samples of rock cause I din't have luck.. Or do you use hip hop samples for this?
 
Yes it is possible to make a good rock song with FL. You can any genre of music with FL. They key is the sounds, instruments and arrangements.

What type of rock samples are you looking for? Drums or samples from old rock songs? Not sure what you mean here.
 
Yes it is possible to make a good rock song with FL. You can any genre of music with FL. They key is the sounds, instruments and arrangements.

What type of rock samples are you looking for? Drums or samples from old rock songs? Not sure what you mean here.

Well I really just want to make like system of a down type so I would say some drums , and probably other type of stuff. Because really I'm not sure my self I know i need to have a basic Idea to start but really I would like to just make the basic beat with some few percussion and I guess keyboard sounds.
 
Well I really just want to make like system of a down type so I would say some drums , and probably other type of stuff. Because really I'm not sure my self I know i need to have a basic Idea to start but really I would like to just make the basic beat with some few percussion and I guess keyboard sounds.

Well I would say the key to SOAD, Blink and other groups like that are the drum sounds. You may want to get a realistic drum plugin or additional drum sounds down the line, but you can do it with what you have in FL already. FL's stock drum sounds are really pretty good for rock and dance, just not that great for hip hop and that is why some people say that FL's sounds suck...they don't in general. Here is a guy that did Chop Suey in FL Studio with stock sounds. I would say get your arrangements right and use what you have, then look for sounds later if you can't find them in FL.

YouTube - SOAD- Chop Suey Drums in FL Studio
 
I was pretty amaze by that O_O the sounds wasn't the best yet the coordination was amazing . But Thanks for that Ill actually follow your idea .

I bought a Akai Professional MPK Mini Laptop Production Keyboard and I believe it will help me so when it arrives here about Thursday or Friday I'll give some use to it. Once again thanks
 
It's hard to replicate a live band with FL but not impossible. As a recorder/sequencer it is great but you're going to need some good sounds. A lot of people use things like BFD, which is quite good but you'll be doing a lot of programming work to get a sound which a good drummer could lay down in a single take.

If you didn't mention System of a Down I would say yes, because rock music (i.e Post Rock) can sound like anything it wants to. But when you mention a band which has a pretty live, trashy feel (from what I've heard) it sounds a bit farfetched or just a bit backwards to want to do that with software.
 
It's hard to replicate a live band with FL but not impossible. As a recorder/sequencer it is great but you're going to need some good sounds. A lot of people use things like BFD, which is quite good but you'll be doing a lot of programming work to get a sound which a good drummer could lay down in a single take.

If you didn't mention System of a Down I would say yes, because rock music (i.e Post Rock) can sound like anything it wants to. But when you mention a band which has a pretty live, trashy feel (from what I've heard) it sounds a bit farfetched or just a bit backwards to want to do that with software.

Well yea it is hard. but my goal for now is just to make any type of rock beat because I'm new and that would be what I need to start with.

Though i have played around with Fl studio for some time doing bad hiphop beats which makes me recognize the interface of the program
 
Though i have played around with Fl studio for some time doing bad hiphop beats which makes me recognize the interface of the program

I have plenty of this experience.

I'm not sure what genre I make at the moment but its basically something which has developed from hip-hop through trip-hop to something like post rock, experimental, free jazz or modern classical. Hopefully anyway. but to get to the last few stages, I started to think about recording real instruments, quite a while ago.

You should listen to some Fridge (Four Tet's band) and notice that they have an album where one track is live, the next is a sampled live kit, the next is completely programmed, and it all sounds good.
 
I have plenty of this experience.

I'm not sure what genre I make at the moment but its basically something which has developed from hip-hop through trip-hop to something like post rock, experimental, free jazz or modern classical. Hopefully anyway. but to get to the last few stages, I started to think about recording real instruments, quite a while ago.

You should listen to some Fridge (Four Tet's band) and notice that they have an album where one track is live, the next is a sampled live kit, the next is completely programmed, and it all sounds good.

Thanks for all of those categories I was actually going to start a new thread for what kind of music I should listen to familiarize myself with different tones , but you just answered it.

Fridge sounds like excellent music with no rules!
 
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The important things will be you, and what sounds you use; in that order.

FL is a little awkward for me because I'm so used to Cubase, but nowadays it's pretty capable as far as what it can do.
 
For this purpose, try a good drum sample library like Drumkit From Hell or Superior Drummer. I use these for programming progressive rock/metal drums for music that I make and no one can tell it isn't a real drummer playing. They'll say something like "who is playing drums?".

Once you do this, you will have to get used to programming in Piano Roll if you haven't already. The step sequencer is just too limiting, and with the above mentioned libraries, you have to use Piano Roll anyway.

In Piano Roll you can take advantage of the above mentioned library's velocity sensitivity (ex. if you hit the snare soft, it doesn't simply drop in volume, it sounds just like a real snare that you hit soft).

If you go this route, open DFH or Superior Drummer and then drop some of FL Studio's pre-made drum loops into Piano Roll (not the loops that play when you click them, but the ones found under "scores"). This is for study purposes. Observe how the midi track looks in Piano Roll. You will see varying velocities and you will get an idea of where all of your voices are (kick, snare, hi-hats, etc.).

When you go to make your own beats, the more work you put into it the better it will sound. For instance, I start by programming a really basic idea of what I want, and it usually sounds fake. Then I tweak the velocities and add cymbal hits and fills. My goal when doing this is to make it sound like a real drummer. Also, if you really want it to sound real, don't simply program a 4 beat loop and repeat it. Put in the work to actually program every bit of the song (so that your drum "pattern" is the length of the song - paste it once and you're done). It may sound like an insurmountable task, but there are methods that make it go by faster.

It also helps a great deal if you have any experience actually playing drums. I've played drums off and on for years and I know some great drummers. So, when I program I have a good idea of what is possible and impossible to play. For instance, if you have 16th notes going on the hi hats and you don't stop them for a 16th note tom roll, then you've just programmed something only a four armed drummer could play - therefore it will sound fake.

Now, that is a rough outline of how to program drums that sound convincingly real. You may not care if your drums are conspicuously programmed - I don't usually, it really doesn't matter unless you're one of those guys who hangs out in a music store all day repeating the worn out phrase "drum machines ain't got no soul" - but those guys shouldn't be considered an authority of anything. Besides, human beings don't have souls either, so **** it.
 
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