Not liking Fruity Loops....any advice from users?

[Scooter B]

After having a very unpleasant , difficult and frustrating time of "unlocking" my store bought Fruity Loops - I am just not liking this program.

It is very time consuming, confusing and somewhat overwhelming with too many non-drum options poping up before I can even get a basic bass drum, snare and high hat groove going.

Previously I had used a DR-5 wich I am about ready to go back to.

Does any one have any advise on how to qucikly get going on some drum programing? The tutorial has not been of much help either.

Oh yeah - also does any one use a non mouse/keyboard interface device like the Midi Man Oxygen 8? I don't know much about those but I am not naturally a computer type person...I need more of a "live playing" feeling to get into a creative writing mode. I need to hear and run through some drum grooves before I can know what I want to program. This maybe my hang up with this Fruity Loops process.

 

[Slackmaster2K]

What exactly are you having trouble with? I mean you just toss in a few drums and click where you want them to trigger...I'm not sure how it could be easier?

Now if you want drums to trigger based on velocity and such, then a real drum sampler would be best (which could be used in conjunction with fruity of course).

Slackmaster 2000

 

[elevate]

Have you read the manual? Fruity Loops is one of the easiest audio apps I've ever used.

 

[muskgrave]

ease of use

they even have full drum setups pre programmed in there. You just go up to the menu and pick a drumset and it automatically populates the window with the kick/snare/cymbals/toms...etc.

dlv

 

[Scooter B]

It's been a while since I browsed the manual....

I have tried the "kits" that already exist but they only come up with one bass drum sound, one snare sound a high hat and a cymbal. I know these can be be manipulated later. One song I want to re-record has more of a middle eastern sound and I want a Tabla hand drum sound and all hand percussion instrumnets....I can't find anything but your typical drum set.

My main problem with Fruity Loops is my writing process:

For me when I write (I am a bass and guitar player/songwriter) I will have a chord progession or bass groove I want to develop and coming up with a drum part is strictly trial and error to find what works and mostly what doesn't with my rhythm part.

With the DR-5 I could write a whole verse at a time in a single pattern. Lets say I am writing in 4/4 I could program a 16/4 pattern that would be four measures of a verse in one pattern. Then I would write the chorus all in one pattern. Sometimes I would use a shorter one bar pattern to transition from verse to chorus or bridge. Since all the pads played live I could doodle with the pads playing bass, snare and high hat all at once with out programming to find a groove and then I knew what to program.

So what I need is to not write a bar or loop at a time but to hear the whole verse under construction as I write and then play my guitar along with it to see how it gels. Also as I programmed I would hear the drum beat the instant I played it...not on the next run throught the loop and know right away if it fit the groove or not.

I don't want all the visual distraction when I write I just want a click track and some keys to trigger the drum sounds. I want to close my eyes and focus on listening and trigger the drum sounds live but be able to fix timing mistakes. This is probably unorthadox for drum programming but I am not an "educated" musically...I don't always know if the bass drum part or snare is supposed to be on the down beat or up beat or 16th note after the down beat ...I just know when I want to hear it with the click track and I definately don't know ahead of time what the part is supposed to sound like...it's all trial and error.

With Fruity Loops sure I can click all over the screen and the specific drum part plays where I clicked on the graph.... but I can't write this way. It just feels like Fruity Loops would be quick and efficient IF I already knew what I wanted the part to be but I just can't seem to write the way I am used to.

That is what got me thinking about another way to enter the timing and the specific parts by hand and not by point and click. Maybe Fruity Loops just is not designed to do what I need it to do.

Any thoughts?

 

[Scooter B]

bump!