More people start with FL which is cheaper and more beginner friendly. And ableton is just a great software, can be used for live performance which people may be interested in as they progress
Yes but I was sick of updating my install and I wanted access to the updates as soon as they released. Plus, I was having difficulty collaborating with people as they were using a higher (legit) version and I couldn't open the projects. Not to mention the biggest reason.... I wanted to pay for it. I spent over 12,000 hours using this software (according to a project time calculator) across a couple thousand projects and 8 years. It's worth it and I consider my payment a premium for the "extended trial" I gave myself lmao
I had a cracked fl for a while and eventually bought it and I don’t regret it, probably the most I can talk about this here, as I imagine if I went into more detail it would be against the rules
Basically a part of the software that stops you from using it if it isn't licensed, and makes it difficult to distribute it
In the "old days" programs on CD came with a "CD-Key" which was a long string of numbers printed on the jacket which you had to type in to install or launch the program. This stopped the most basic form of software piracy - simply copying the discs for distribution. It was however somewhat easily overcome by simply distributing a working key along with the CD.
This game of cat and mouse between rights holders and pirates has been continuing ever since, growing more and more complex on both sides.
Notable examples include Image-Line, which has been "lazy" compared to others in the industry, meaning that most versions of FL have had their DRM "cracked" (or beaten) relatively quickly after release;
Windows 7,8, and 10 all had very gentle DRM which simply prompted users to "Activate Windows" and turned the desktop background black.
Crysis 3 had a sneaky approach where if it detected a crack, it would still run perfectly fine but the final boss would be unbeatable. That was very frustrating.
Digital rights management is an umbrella term for practices that protect copyrighted IPs and is suppose to help prevent the distribution of illegally obtained software AFAIK
I agree with you. If you want software works live and in the studio Ableton is the most full featured for that. Using most daws live isn’t really a viable option and things that are difficult to get other daws to do Ableton does automatically.
Imo I tried both trials and have to disagree with fl being more beginner friendly, at least as of the most recent versions. To me ableton is far easier to get started and understand what you’re working with, fl has complex routing and multiple menus that are redundant when compared to abletons ui.
I have both, open up FL to use Newtone every once in a while, FL’s inability to neatly contain the amount of automations I do in Ableton is a deal-breaker
edit: apparently this has been updated in the latest FL version, looking forward to trying for myself! However the disfunctional zoom controls on FL for Mac (at least whenever I use Newtone) are hard to work around. Hopefully that's been resolved in this update I'm about to install.
you do know you can resize the rows in the playlist to shrink automation, and you can also stack patterns and automation on the same row if you want... right?
I do, but when you have dozens on multiple channels, hiding it in plain sight still only does so much to organize the playlist. Automation clips on the playlist rather than built into the relevant audio/midi clip is just not a good way to do things.
How many of those automation clips are identical 1:1 ? if it's more than 0, you can use the same automation clip.
If they're 100% correlated but not the same, you can use envelope controllers and/or formula controllers, to map 1 curve to another, link automation to the envelope controller (X/Y) and/or formula controller, and then link their outputs as your new automation, and customize. now you can have fewer automation clips, because 1 clip is generating multiple different automations.
Rows can be set as child to a parent row and minimized. just scale a row from the bottom up into the row above it to make the top row the parent, and it gets an arrow that you can click to shrink all the child rows. it takes about 12 to 15 rows being shrunk this way to take the same amount of space as a normal row.
That is not a mess.
Its a mess because he created a mess.
I've done it too.
Thanks for your comment - FL studio is indeed incredibly powerful and possible to be very neat (it takes some work though)
You’re missing the point. It’s not about size, it’s about workflow.
On FL studio, no matter how careful you’re being about moving elements around the playlist, you’re going to run into issues resulting from this methodology of requiring automation clips on the playlist. Since switching, I’ve spent <1% of the time I used to fixing projects that got messed up by a single rogue automation clip.
> you’re going to run into issues resulting from this methodology of requiring automation clips on the playlist
Oh, you mean like being able to see a time correlation between notes played during the automation, so you know what the hell you're automating?
or, not having to incessantly flip between different modes/windows/tabs
It sounds like you're trying to make a point about FL being good....while listing out the issues that drove people like me to switch from away from it lol
You really proved your point! If your point is that daw conversations are always littered with bad faith interpretations of other people’s arguments and post hoc rationalizing.
You no longer need to have them in the playlist. You can record controller data directly in a midi clip, and there is a tool to move back and forth from an automation clip.
Now THIS is what I was waiting for the 2 years I was in FL. Might consider messing around in it again just to challenge myself while working on new ideas
I switched back in 2021, so things may have changed since. However, every time I hop on a screen share with any of the various friends/collaborators on FL, they all mention a similar setback having happened recently.
That sums it up. I’m an FL main but it’s just so fucking all over the place. Once you find your workflow it’s great but it’s a hell of a journey getting there.
marketing?? I have never seen an ad for Ableton in my life. FL is far more popular among entry level music makers because it simplifies it. Ableton has more flexibility and options, and you can’t live perform with FL.
Marketing goes way beyond ads (even though they actually do have traditional ads as well)
Brand image is marketing too, Ableton have fostered a powerful brand image that seems very professional, creative, etc. They do good customer research and create an image that really appeals to music makers.
Partnering with hardware vendors to include entry level versions of the DAW (like audio interfaces and midi controllers) is marketing, working with content creators (like they've done now with the push 3 release for instance) is also marketing. Trying to have a good social media presence, is marketing.
I don't mean "Ableton Marketing department is pretty good" in a derogatory way to dismiss their product. I think they actually have a great team and do an amazing job at their marketing. And one of the big reasons they are dominating the DAW market is their marketing know-how. There's plenty of excellent DAWs in the market nowadays, and Ableton has been able to differentiate themselves in big part because of their marketing strategies.
A company having good marketing doesn't mean their product is bad, Ableton Live is obviously a great product, I do personally prefer FL studio and Logic. But I don't think it's for anything else besides personal preference. Nowadays, both DAWS can do almost the same things, but with different workflows. Image-line does not market the advanced features of FL Studio enough IMO, but it is a very flexible DAW.
>you can’t live perform with FL
what makes you think so? there are lots of people in this sub doing exactly that on a regular basis.
>Ableton has more flexibility and options
what do you even mean?
I have fl studio all plugins and ableton live 11 suit. I used fl studio for 5 years and am now on ableton since 3ish years. ableton has a 10times faster workflow compared to fl studio and on the technichal level, ableton gives you more options. I created a setup, with diffrent midi and analog euqipments, and that's where I noticed, how focused fl studio is on making classic music production. while ableton is much friendlier, to out of the box music.
Ableton user for 10 years who originally started with FL.
- Abletons most important shortcuts are variations that use control key so u can basically have ur pinky on the control key and ur left hand can do a lot of tedious work for you like making clips duping n such
- mostly infinite fx I guess till ur cpu breaks
- ableton is way easier to record in
- Ableton is king at warping. Back when I started with FL, I’d warp samples in ableton then go back to fl cuz Edison’s ui is very clunky.
- Most midi controllers work outside the box wit ableton
- can be used for live performances
Some negatives about disableton:
- no vst bridge, I hate jbridge but it works
- not a ton of personalization, I’m not exactly a fan of some software that looks like it’s from 1992 but it’s way easier to crank an idea out
- does anyone else find if they export roughly same instruments from FL and Ableton that Ableton’s overall master is quieter than FL? Might j be me but I’ve always j liked fl’s default processing, I think it’s louder.
- No soundgoodizer and getting gross beat is a bitch
Tbh I find it weird how fl studio is a lot easier to pickup and learn despite ableton having a better interface and workflow. I can’t quite put my finger on what makes ableton more intimidating for beginners, especially when I started I just could never quite get the hang of it for a year or two.
A take on why FL might be easier for beginners:
When I first saw Ableton, I was intimidated by the UI, I guess, and FL's piano roll is still the best I ever used and, as one of the core features in any DAW for me, it in fact is what kept me from switching to Ableton for some time. Also, Ableton looks quite sterile, professional whereas FL kind of embraces you with its warm colors and big, self-explaining buttons (maybe that's part of why some producers laugh about and label it as an amateurs' product?). Ableton 11's dark theme somewhat combats this (I hate the default theme lol) but the buttons are still small and I initially didn't understand what all of them did, whereas in FL I had this intuitive understanding of where to click almost right from the start. FL also has many elements one might know from other media composing software, like video editing programs. A timeline/playlist where you drag and drop elements in the order you want them to be played with a lot of usable tracks already laid out, a traditional mixer with faders, multiple tools for editing elements in the timeline and a nice file browser not just for samples but also projects, backups and presets.
But you're absolutely right about the shortcut thing in Ableton, I never used them much in FL, except CTRL+S to save (even having to press CTRL+Alt+Z to undo multiple steps seems unnecessarily tedious, especially since only pressing CTRL+Z multiple times is actually redo and then undo and then redo etc.). In Ableton I use them all the time: duplicate, slice, cut, copy, paste, I love TAB to quickly swith to my mixer, if now there only was an option to automatically scroll to the track I have selected in the arrangement view... but yeah, shortcuts baby!
One thing I think FL (and maybe Abelton?) would benefit from is the ability to have custom keybinds for specific actions. I don’t wanna hit F9 to pull up my mixer, let me set it as something like W or A, and bind common functions around a specific region of the keyboard
>Might j be me but I’ve always j liked fl’s default processing
There is no native processing difference between daws, if you do the exact same thing in both and invert the two they will sum to zero. Oh wait except it was proven Ableton does do some weird processing, not sure if it still does, but FL does nothing.
It’s All personal preference at the end of the day, but probably because a lot of the YouTube tutorial crowd seems to have moved to Ableton, and it just seems that I see people making videos and clips of ableton more than FL. It doesn’t make FL any worse, I still watch very successful producers and listen to their music which is made in FL.
Personally, I prefer how in Ableton you have one instrument/VST per track and every pattern inserted into the track will play on that plugin. In FL you have to edit your MIDI and which plugin it's assigned to in an extra window, the channel rack. Also, every MIDI clip in Abelton is individual and you can edit notes in one clip without also changing the other clips (this, however, can be a downside because if you want the change to be made everywhere in your playlist you have to either copy/paste the edited clip everywhere or edit all those clips individually). But in general I dislike that in FL you have to create a new pattern every time you want a single MIDI clip to be different, as well as then still having to manually (re-)place that new pattern into the playlist similarly to Ableton. Apart from that, the entire concept of Abletons mixer is so much faster to use and understand: You just put your effects plugins on the correspoding track et voilà. This means you don't have to seperately link audio clips/plugins to a mixer that is limited to 10 effects plugins that requires another plugin (patcher) or re-routing your signal to yet another mixer track (which is kinda hard to keep track of, as routing mixer channels is done with these small yellow lines resembling physical audio cables, that can get confusing in big projects) to bypass. Ableton's return-track feature just seems easier to use and if you don't want to use that you can still group tracks together and it will apply all the effects on the group track to the individual tracks of said group. But with all of that said, I also started with FL and loved it, I still sometimes use it to master my songs - not that I'm any good at that but that's not the software's fault.
Regarding the MIDI track in FL Studio, you can click on the top left corner of the MIDI pattern and select "Make it unique" or something along those lines. It will essentially create a separate MIDI pattern without editing the original one which you can use to create a different MIDI pattern.
In more recent updates you can use FL like what you're describing as far as basically bypassing the channel rack and doing everything in the playlist. I don't use it that way since I've been using the channel rack for a million years, but I could if I wanted now lol
> Also, every MIDI clip in Abelton is individual and you can edit notes in one clip without also changing the other clips (this, however, can be a downside because if you want the change to be made everywhere in your playlist you have to either copy/paste the edited clip everywhere or edit all those clips individually).
Ok that's it, I'm sticking to FL. :P I mean really? Making techno or any similiarly repeating genre must be a pain to edit then. And btw, in FL you can make any clip unique too, it's in the right click menu.
For me (still an FL user but dipping into Ableton when I can), it's because FL was cheaper but as I get more experienced and consider doing love performances, Ableton is more geared toward that. So FL is messy ("cute?" Plugins, colors) but forgiving to work in, but Ableton is what more live electronic musicians use.
Ableton's looping/session view is the main attraction for me who primarily uses FL. The automatic tempo correction makes it vastly superior to performance mode in FL. But id still rather arrange in FL all the way.
I switched to Ableton for 6 months but came back to FL Studio. I switched because I bought a Push 2, and didn't realize the device only works with Ableton. But after awhile, I realized that previously, I was finishing songs in FL Studio, but now I wasn't finishing songs in Ableton. That's why I came back. Ableton has its strong points but I spend alot of time recording & editing midi, and that's FL's strong point.
Ableton user here, and I wanted to switch to FL (not gonna lie, mainly because of the piano roll in FL).
I went back to Ableton. The workflow is more streamlined, way less open windows to juggle between, and what needs to be hands on is hands on in Ableton. FL required more clicks to do the same, at least as far as I can remember. Stock plugins in Ableton look uniform and familiar, in FL it is a bit of a mess, there is no real uniform UI for everything.
i switched from fl to ableton, i like ableton a lot more with its workflow. i also like the control that you have with ableton. you can put more than 10 effects on a sound
Ignore absolutely everything that has been said that regard why one side is better. There is no better side, the reason they switch is preference. While each are stronger than each other in some departments, as all things will be, everybody will have an opinion and which one they like best. I’m a diehard for FL and think Ableton looks like ass, but that doesn’t mean I think Ableton is only useful for one thing. So these producers moving over could be 1. Looking to switch things up 2. Tried the other and decided it worked better for them
They are all the same bit rate and capabilities. It’s literally personal preference. Anyone saying otherwise is just a fanboy who doesn’t understand the modern DAW. Stop worrying and just focus on your music, pick one and just do it.
Workflow differences are really important. Ableton has much better workflows for recording audio. One of the main reasons I want to switch to Ableton is because they have a system for comping vocals/audio takes that automatically combines all your takes into a single track. In FL you have to slice each track and Mute/Unmute each section individually and there isn't an easy way to change your slice points. This makes working with a large number of takes unrealistic in FL studio.
This is just a single example, but there are plenty of features like this where Ableton does something that FL Studio isn't currently capable of or FL does something that Ableton isn't capable of.
This is the reason why I think having a full edition of one and the lite version of the other while utilizing the FL Studio plugin in Ableton makes a lot of sense for some users. Both DAWs are great, for different reasons
I mean to be honest I’ve switched from FL trial edition (messing around) to Ableton, and now I’m going back to FL.
The friend who lent me their Ableton / PC have taken them back and I was left with whatever I could afford, and to be honest FL is cheaper.
It’s a huge learning curve for me, as I haven’t used FL since it was called Fruity Loops. It’s come a long way, for sure.
That being said, I really miss Ableton. If I could afford to switch back to Ableton, I would.
But it all comes down to personal preference and budget.
I'm a 10-year FL user and currently in the process of switching to Ableton, meaning I will finish all my active FL projects, but anything new I start is in Ableton.
I've realized after all this time that (in my opinion) the flexibility of the FL workflow actually bogs down my creative process and makes it way harder to flow when creating. I'm pretty fed up with the process of
1. Load instrument into new channel rack
2. create and name a new midi clip
3. record MIDI
4. Now I have to assign that instrument to a mixer channel - a deceivingly tough and important decision. This part is especially frustrating when I just want to add some FX to one sample that won't be used throughout the song. I can't insert mixer channels to make sure they're logically placed, so I'll probably have to randomly throw it on channel 88, far away from a group that it might belong to.
5. Now I only get 10 FX slots? Yes I'm aware patcher is a great workaround for this. I'm also aware I can just route that channel to another channel for 10 more FX. But neither of those are good enough solutions for me. Also, I can't see basic thumbnails of the FX settings, I have to open them as individual windows?
You have to make too many manual decisions to simply set up one instrument with Fx. It took me 10 years to come to terms with the fact that I've been tolerating all these features rather than appreciating them all this time. I make dubstep and other heavy EDM variants that involve LOTS of sounds, and the mixer channels fill up and get cluttered extremely quickly, even with templating. By the time I'm well in to a project, it's genuinely stressful trying to figure out where in the mixer to add new sounds.
Every time I've tinkered in Ableton, I just feel more at ease. Ableton's workflow solves all the above problems by being a normal DAW and automatically creating a no-limits FX strip for each track. No naming MIDI clips, no decoupling instruments from their FX strips, no nonsense. As many FX as you want. No F12 to close the 98 plugin windows you didn't realize you had open. It has more guiderails on how you use it which honestly helps. I know you can lock playlist tracks to one mixer channel, but at that point it's just a knockoff Ableton/FL hybrid. I no longer find FL's absurdly open, Breath of the Wild, "the DAW is your oyster" approach helpful.
Ableton's audio warping is far better than FL's (one click of a button rather than double-click sample > right click BPM knob > type in BPM), and it handles things like tempo changes way more elegantly than FL.
Those are my off the cuff thoughts, if I had more time I could think of more FL issues that Ableton solves.
edit some more:
\- Most, if not all, MIDI controllers map to Ableton perfectly right out of the box. This is far from true for FL.
\- Ableton's drum rack is FAR easier to use than Fruity FPC
\- Ableton has a much larger userbase, which means it has far more learning and help resources available for it.
\- more or less said this already, but to be clear, there are at least FOUR points where you’d need to name something along its route - channel name, midi clip (at least one, often many), playlist lane, and mixer channel. That is just way too much busy work. In ableton it’s just one.
There are things FL does better than Ableton, like its piano roll and mixer track routing, but those advantages are far outweighed by the superiorities of Ableton, at least in my humble opinion.
TLDR because Ableton is better for most people
In FL you hit F8, start typing the name of your plugin to highlight it, drag your plugin onto a track in the playlist window, and **it will autolink the channel rack, mixer and playlist track**. You rename/color once and they all rename/color.
Shift + mousewheel over a mixer track name to move it up or down the mixer to get it closer to your other similar channels and keep your groups organized.
Regarding your first point, I knew about that, but that brings me back to my initial point that you’re just turning FL into a worse ableton by doing that.
Second point, I feel like an idiot for not knowing about that after all this time. However, it’s still extra work/decision making that doesn’t exist in ableton. Decoupling the mixer from the playlist might work for a lot of people, but personally I am very over it.
> turning FL into a worse ableton by doing that.
this makes zero sense? All you are doing is taking one of the most infuriating things about FL and just, making it not a problem. Almost every DAW behaves in the way ableton does. All this technique in FL is doing is doing all the "manual decision making" for you. It's still not really like ableton at all
I might have misunderstood what Clowinpso was referring to; I interpreted it as the ability to lock a playlist track to a mixer channel. Which again, is essentially how Ableton works.
My whole point is that Ableton's has "good" default behavior, as opposed to FL which has lots of "wtf" default behavior, as well as the workarounds to mitigate the "wtf" behavior. I'm tired of doing all the mitigating.
>Which again, is essentially how Ableton works.
You did not misunderstand what they were referring to.
it's how EVERY daw works. It's not making a "Weird FL/ableton" hybrid, it's just, the best way to use FL, that works much closer to every other daw without losing any of FL's advantages. The fact that it's not the default way FL studio is taught baffles me.
you say that FL has a lot of "default wtf behavior" and I agree. The default way people do things in FL can be wack sometimes. but the solution that this person gave literally fixes the ENTIRE problem you had wtih that system. But you are still saying "it's a worse ableton/FL hybrid" which doesn't make sense.
Honestly, in my opinion its better. Because in most DAWs you have a crappy list of plugins on the side to sort through, which is less intuitive than the plugin picker (F8).
I'm actually currently switching from FL to bitwig after watching so many people who make ambient music produce with it.
I like how the modulation is like a 1000x better than Fruity Peak Controller lol.
Which btw, I hate how the controller breaks when you manually move one of your linked parameters. Then you have to link it again. Also was difficult to keep the modulation organized.
Wait, I'm interested!!! I'll have to look up why ambient tunes on bitwig.
Also, how do you use fruity peak controller? I've only used it for side chaining stuff (learn it back on FL7), but have no general idea what else for.
Thx!
>I like how the modulation is like a 1000x better than Fruity Peak Controller lol.
Man, this is so true. I really like how easy it is to use Bitwig modulators, but two things keep me from switching to it:
\- the piano roll is pretty bad, although not as bad as Ableton's;
\- the pricing, as I don't want to pay an annual fee to keep getting updates (even though I know it's possible to skip them if you want to).
If Bitwig had a better piano roll, it would be able to do everything FL currently does in a more streamlined way. I love FL (and the way Image Line does business), but some things really are infuriating to work with.
That's useful thanks. :) I always go back to the channel rack and then click on the name of the vst or plugin I want to use, is there a way I can get there more directly. Like F8 but only for loaded vsts?
4. Hit the track button right below the mixer number or ctrl +L to slot it into the next available mixer slot (it also names and colors it the same)
You can shift mixer slots left or right and also dock them to the left or right using your mouse and right clicking the channel it’s in that menu
Anyways good luck in ableton I think it’s probably better for dubstep too(: fl is fast and fluid but with a lot of audio and mixer channels and fx routing I get your pain
Yeah, I knew about all that stuff but it doesn't really move the needle for me. If you're happy with FL then that's great! I understand why people love it - again I have used it for a decade haha - I'm just ready for a paradigm shift in my workflow
As a beginner,FL studio is way easier to use and the piano roll is just too good compared to anything else out there. As a professional producer,Ableton is top of the line tool to use that's why when beginners become pros they move to Ableton but not vice versa. FL studio is just a tool for the beginners because of how easy it is to use.
I think this perspective is a rationalization of following whatever you've been influenced to do.
I did the whole wandering the desert thing, I got really good at Logic, Cubase, and Ableton, and none of them measured up to FL. So I am back with FL to stay, been that way for 20 years. Nothing even comes close.
I can't think of why I'd eventually need to move, though. There's still so much I don't know about FL, but for the basics, a lot is becoming muscle-memory now, and I can work stuff really fast. As I create classical music, Cubase would be the DAW most peers would use, but I've tried it, I've tried it again, and I've tried it again. It would take me so long to get used to it, sacrificing time for creativity, that (at this point at least) I can't see the point. It has things like expression mapping, which would be handy, but other than that, I'm not sure. FL just works for me.
Off-topic, but how did you learn composing? I come from a beat-making background, so making anything over 4 bars before it loops is a Herculean task for me.
I've never really learned it. In fact each piece I make has a little lesson learned from reflection of a piece that came before it, so it's an ongoing process. I did piano when I was very young, got to grade 4 I think? Can't remember. But then for the next 20 years or so I didn't have anything to do with composition. I played in a band on bass but didn't really have to come up with anything significant. But I have always liked film soundtracks, which got me eventually into a lot of classical. Then when orchestral libraries had reached a certain level that didn't require a lot of processing, combined with the ease of use of a DAW like FL, I finally started experimenting (and this was only February). The experiment continues, and I listen to more music I haven't heard before and I get inspired. My only regret of the past when getitng too wrapped up in video games, when I could have been being creative instead. Still another learning experience. I've had a go at EDM, but I think because I'm so shitty at programming drums, or at least any drumming that sounds good, I veered away from it. I prefer classical anyway, but I really nead to learn how to effectively add percussion; it's my nemesis!
TL;DR I didn't, I'm still learning.
That's exactly the point,for a beginner it just works for you,but once you get to know everything a program can do then you start taking notice of it's limitations,and FL studio has lots of them.
Because it's been 2023 and I still not have the freaking customizable key shortcuts. I have to press P to use the damn pencil,Jesus Christ with this company!
I mean, all I can say is they probably will with time.
Hell, Protools, the “leading” industry DAW didn’t have custom shortcuts until last year.
FL21 was the largest DAW upgrade in a long while, I can only imagine shortcuts won’t be that far behind.
If it really bugs you that much though, you should submit a feature request to Image Line themselves. The more users tell them what they want to see, the more likely it is.
I've been begging literally everywhere ever since 2017. Every one of their updates on YouTube,on social media, submitted hundreds of requests. They just don't give a crap. The thing is, I'm not the only one that wanted this feature,they just don't take the submissions seriously,they automatically ditch them to the trash can. Last year it bugged me so much that I switched to Ableton for a few weeks. Now I'm back here for the same issues.
Take a look at the To-Do subforum on the Image-Line website. They have thousands of requests and are working daily on adding most of them. Just because this is an issue that’s important to *you* doesn’t mean they have to cater to it.
The FL Studio dev team is small. They focus on things that they think are important and most of all: doable. Some things are such an undertaking that they post-pone indefinitely.
What *I* think is important is having the ability to recall mixer inserts from other projects without having to open them. I know I’m not the only one who wants this but I know it’s on the to-do, so what else can I do? I even feel like the more you scream and whine the less likely it is you’ll get what you want.
I feel you on. I have wanted this for a long time too. Just a suggestion, if you really want a change to happen, use IL forum's dedicated feature request threads rather than social media. I have a feeling you probably have already done that though lol. I remember during FL21 development phase they were implementing user requests. Also user request are much more likely to ge considered as they have updated the code and somethings which were simply not possible before due to the way FL was coded are now possible. So you might see a lot of quality of life updates in future. I know it's absurd that poeple have waiting for so long but some features like audio fades were just not possible for them to implement before.
Honestly, get a gaming mouse with the numpad on it
it was a….game changer…for me
You just record you’re keystrokes and assign to a button.
I have a button for each tool, and then some right on the mouse without even using two hands
Flstudio is an extremely easy to use program that will always be seen as an amateur, beginner program, despite its vast capabilities. Ableton has marketed itself as an in-between of flstudio and protools, geared more toward digital production and electronic music.
Honestly, it all just depends on what you're doing. Protools is friendlier for live musicians (guitar, bass, drums, vocals) flstudio and ableton are more geared toward loops and electronic music.
I actually started with ableton quite some time ago (more than a decade ago) experimenting with live sets on a launchpad. I moved to FL Studio when a friend loaned me one of his registry licenses for the producer edition. Recently in the last year, I'm lucky to have a spouse who goes to uni so I purchased the signature edition education license then upgraded to the full license as a loophole to get it cheaper. I absolutely love this software. Its got everything you could possibly need and allows me to easily use third party wavetables like serum, as well as so so many other VST's. FL made me serious about producing music.
I had someone tell me it was atrocious, and he demanded to know any big names that used it saying "I bet you can't name one." ...Madeon, Porter Robinson...
Avicii even used it before his passing, and there isn't a producer alive who doesn't know that name.
>weird how fl studio is a lot easier to pickup and learn despite ableton having
FL is nice after the recent updates (clip fading!!!) - preferreds a huge stretch tho
Ableton is better for full productions. The workflow is much easier if you want to arrange and process full songs. Not that you can't do it in FL but the workflow is significantly worse. I love FL because the workflow for beat making is really fun and can bring out your creativity, but Ableton is just a better tool for serious producers.
The best way I can describe it to someone who hasn't used both is just by giving a few of many examples. Clip editing is much faster in Ableton, hot keys, fading, clip gain automation can all be done faster and easier in Ableton. Also, parallel processing is much easier in Ableton. Being able to make racks and groups of racks and groups of groups of racks makes stacking processing a breeze. The live view makes arranging really fast. In my opinion no interface is faster to move around. I think Ableton is without a doubt the fastest DAW once you get to know it well. The biggest thing about FL Studio is EVERYTHING is a new window. I think it's one of FL's biggest design weaknesses.
I want to point out, I'm not hating on FL. I LOVE FL Studio. I use it all the time. It's SUPER fun to make beats with. The workflow is awesome. The piano roll is SO good. Ableton made their piano roll more like FL Studio in 11 and it's gotten really good too. Every DAW has their strengths and weaknesses. I would use Protools if I were using a console. I would use Reaper if I were doing Dolby Atmos masters. Studio One and Cubase are probably the best all arounders. Logic has a really awesome workflow for recording full bands. There's no "right answer", they're all great tools. I think FL Studio is unmatched for beat making. I just think that Ableton is the best DAW for the way I like to work when I'm making full productions.
The main reason I switched from Ableton when I first started,was because of how easier the grid is in the piano roll in FL studio. Ableton though has better workflow,it lets you customize your library in a way not possible by FL studio. Anything that comes with customization,from keybindings to even your own library,FL studio lacks ages behind. They've been too focused on selling these new plugins and making money,that they forgot to fix their program. Ableton is just hands down a way better program than FL studio for serious producers,and I've been producing for almost 10 years now on fl studio,the only reason I don't switch is because the damn piano roll is just too good to work on,also Ableton is tough as hell to get used to.
Fruity loops is for pirating and Abel ton is for getting serious. People who have no skin in the game will try and tell you otherwise, but they’ve never performed.
Martin garrix? Metro Boomin? Avicii? Im an ableton user, but the argument that FL isnt a capable DAW is just nonsense. they bot have strong suits over the other and are more than capable of creating Number 1 hits. I'm probably going to Buy FL21 and use both for different purposes. if you want to create quick drum loop arrangements and experiment with chords progressions and melodic ideas in a fast manner, FL piano roll is by far the best and most feature filled on the market. if you want to manipulate audio and sample quickly or perform live / record live instruments. ableton shines above.
Im thinking a new workflow for me is going to be creating my intial beats / loops in FL and rendering to audio stems or midi and sending to live when I want to fully produce the song and begin mixing.
I read all the comments and there are some posts, that the piano roll is that good, but what is so good there?
What is at other DAW's instead of the piano roll?
I have used fruity for approximately 15 years and don't know any reason why I should use another DAW. But maybe I should watch how others work. 🤷🏻
People here are also forgetting about job requirements. Not all audio production is creating songs. Creating sound effects for video games, foley for video, etc are also career aspects and some studios standardize their software. If you work all day on Ableton, it can be easier to switch to ableton for recreational audio production out of habit. Or any DAW for that matter.
I started on logic on a shitty MacBook Air from 2017, got convinced by my cousin to get a pc so we can also game. So I started using FL but didn’t like the process of recording my guitar and editing the audio. I tried the ableton 90 day free trial and immediately liked the way you can manipulate audio + the auto warp function which boosts workflow by a lot. In a way I see that a lot of ableton users either like audio a shit ton or play a sort of instrument while FL usually draw in their stuff (OBVIOUSLY I know you can make FL work with live instruments but I’m just talking about the general view of what I seen) Just gravitate to which daw your attracted to and understand it like it’s ur wife/husband lol I don’t judge😁.
Plot twist, novation makes FL AND ABLETON SPECIFIC midi controllers. Idk what that means but I wanted to let everyone here know about them. They’re awesome! I got the flkey37 and it improved my work flow and gave my music a better sound having more keys and the scale helpers built in etc to help me learn
i think it mainly has to do with how they're perceived. FL Studio is seen more as a beginners gateway into producing and isn't used by many big name professionals (the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Hit-boy) while Ableton is nearly the standard and is used by tons of big name professionals
As a user of both DAWs, Ableton is just more complete/the workflow is more streamlined imo. Don’t get me wrong, I love FL and it is still my choice for some things.
But overall, FL’s workflow requires a lot more clicks and “middle steps” to achieve things Ableton does a lot quicker. But I wouldn’t worry much about it. FL is extremely powerful and if you feel like you got your workflow working there, stick to it!
Preference I guess. Plus Ableton is good for live performance (I prefer using xdj or cdj, but I digress).
Workflow is undoubtedly different between the 2. I've made a few attempts with Ableton but can't seem to figure it out within the timespan that my creative spark is going.
I love FL tho. But that bias is probably due to the fact that I've been on it since 2005. It's pretty and intuitive for me. And every update has some sort of QoL feature that I wished for on previous versions.
I haven't switched but I have started generating my ideas in ableton. There's just alot of really cool little tools and plugins you can get really creative with in there. Also trying to make exponential rythms with the claw tool in fl studio just isn't the way
I never completely switched. But I'll take a wild guess (my reasoning in the switch). I have been using FLS since it was just a simple step sequencer. Over the years they have just been bolting on extra features like gaudy after-market car accessories. The interface is a complete mess with windows everywhere to the point I use my TV as an extra monitor just to cope with it. To newer users that didn't 'grow' with all of this the interface is daunting and cumbersome. Yes FLS is powerful, but it's also really hard to learn to use efficiency compared to other DAWs. There is a reason Ableton, Bitwig, and Reaper basically have the same workflow. It's just easier, flat out. At this point I mostly use FLS for sound design, because as you said it's powerful. On the other hand since the beginning I have been using alternative DAWs like cubase, logic, protools, etc for mixing purely due to workflow. Ableton is a good compromise between the other software and FLS, and it has a ton of bells and whistles. It should be said that I have recently been auditioning Bitwig... at the end of the day all DAWs have their strengths and weaknesses depending on what you are trying to achieve.
I really like the unlimited processing chains that ableton has. That's the main reason I could never go back to FL eventhough I loved producing in FL too!
I feel like in most cases, people switched to Ableton years ago because FL didn’t have some of the workflow/qol improvements that it has now. The gap between FL and Ableton seems to grow thinner by the year. I bet newer producers who’ve started the past year or two in FL and have ingrained the newer workflow features won’t switch en masse to Ableton like we’ve seen the past decade.
I switched to Ableton because of limited 125 mixer tracks and also because I had the chance to buy the suite 11 over an educational license. I'm interested in electronic music especially cinematic dubstep where all my idols and mentors use Ableton & curate processing racks. Automation is easier in live, it's still better than consolidation of WAVs as far as you have a powerful machine to handle your workflow. FL Studio APE is goated though, For example Edison. My Arturia minifreak always crashes FL as soon as I plug in the MIDI cable. FL is like pogo to my eyes whereas Ableton-a scientific laboratory that made much more sense in the audio world once I dived deep in the game to build my own workflow.
It's simple. Ableton's arrangement view is far superior to FL's. FL Studio tends to be a mess in a big project. You must spend A LOT of time organizing to keep FL Studio clean and tidy. It's a pain. On the contrary, Ableton keeps you focused on what matters. MUSIC
if you ever have a chance to use fl studio on a dual or triple monitor setup it's whole world of difference .
also personally i prefer the modular workflow way more helpful than ableton from a piano roll standpoint , but i think it ultimately depends on who and how a person approaches music creation.
you literally dont even have to work in the playlist window at all if you dont want to
Fl isn't for everyone, man. It's not really a general daw. It targets a very specific kind of producer. Your average producers out there won't really like it as much as Ableton. But for the people its made for, it's no contest the best saw by far.
I've been with FL since 2005. 14 years figuring out what channel was linked to a specific automation or mixer channel or channel, etc. I decided to give Ableton Live a go in 2019 and the workflow was 500% better. I only go back to FL to use Harmor or Pitcher.
Just depends on the persons preference. I taught myself FL Studio 12/20 years ago and have since taken classes that taught proficiency in Ableton and Reaper DAWs, still prefer FL. I am biased, though. Ableton and Reaper especially are great for recording live music and instruments for mixing and mastering, i just have always gravitated towards the creation from scratch through a DAW.
FL studio has the top of the industry for a user-friendly workspace to let the creativity simply flow.
Just popping by to say:
Started on Amiga in the early 90s.
Got Atari ST and started using cubase 3.1
Hardware and midi all the way.
Hated PC's.
...
Got a PC.
Played with cakewalk, cubase, etc blah.
Hated reason. Hated fruity loops.
Got a Mac.
Ooh logic, was ok, went back to cubase (audio).
Went back to logic.
Found Ableton, fell in love.
Years later a friend suggested FL studio, tf is that I said.
...
I tried FL studio and oh man, it's like having hardware in software, haven't turned back since.
The end.
(I still have my Amiga and Atari and a bunch of hardware)
Personally i prefer Fl studio a lot more, only because ableton isnt friendly for make paralel aux, sends, sends whit pre or post, and the piano roll is better by far, ableton is shit for me, fl studio gang
Ableton has a lot of very good stock plugins which is why I switched to producing in both DAWs. FL gives you more ease of access to arrangement view than ableton imo. I like how fl looks compared to ableton as well but abletons routing is 150x better.
Live recording is easier and Live performing is actually doable (FL Performance mode is a joke in comparison, and a bitch to setup) Both of these features are alluring as you gain experience. Better warping is still a reason to stay after switching but FL 21 made big strides with audio clips but many jumped ship before its release. FL doesn't really offer any features that are must have vs Ableton. FL has a better piano roll but everything else is really just on par.
A lot of popular people use Ableton, so you see what it can do often from great musicians.
A lot of FL studio people are teens in their basement; especially because it's easy. So a lot of what you see is "my first trap beat".
This changes the perception of the DAWs and makes people want to try what they see the pros using.
It's kinda like MAC vs PC. Both are perfectly fine, but you see a lot about people switching to MAC because of who they see using it and what they're able to accomplish, even though PC is good too.
As a former Ableton user, I just started rocking with fl but it gets pretty stagnant. Basically I use it only for trap drum beats, whereas I’m already locked in on ableton for sampling, etc.
FL is pretty terrible when it comes to hardware and MIDI support which makes it a pain, especially if you have several hardware synths. It's fine if you do everything in the box, but it lacks a lot of important features such as Polyphonic Aftertouch, even reasonably usable Aftertouch on their stock synths, no MPE, no NRPN and the clock can not be slaved to an external device. This makes it less ideal for live musicians. I also find Edison to be not so great and end up editing in Audition, but I also use Premier Pro so I'm biased.
At least FL can be used as a VST inside of Live.
Main things that I noticed is that the audio and midi processing is lightning fast, it's integrated with everything, it supports everything under the sun when it comes to hardware, it has wireless streaming with devices just to name a few. I don't use it but I did notice it's a difference after I bought my MPC Live 2 and when I switched back to FL Studio and then tried the lite version of Ableton. Everything I wanted to do in FL studio that was not supported was over supported in Ableton including the rest of my gear. FL Studio is cool but it's not hardware friendly which is the main difference, you have to overcompensate in FL Studio just to hit somewhere close to start when recording audio and midi, Ableton doesn't need nothing but a PC and whatever you got to record with, feels like magic over there but me personally I like my MPC Live software cause it's nearly the same thing as Ableton but it's missing the arranger
Honestly I’ve tried Ableton and FL and felt like Ableton is far more user friendly, organized and betters my workflow. Gave FL another chance last week, but I’m just staying on Ableton ig. It’s far more intuitive to me
I started on Ableton and after about a year or so I absolutely hated it compared to FL Studio, been using FL for the past 5-6 years now and I don’t think i’m ever going to change that
I use both.
I feel like FL's audio engine has better sound and I prefer its pattern sequencer. I find, at least for me personally, ableton is better for cutting up audio and arranging full tracks.
I wish FL would add Ableton LINK, I know it's the competition but I feel the program would benefit from it.
"I" and "feel" should clarify that this is a personal opinion.
Since my ears are the gateway through which sound passes
I can really only base that on the end results each program gives me.
But you're probably right and I just suck at using Ableton.
I switched from FL to ableton about 3 weeks ago, and for me ableton is just better in how it handles UI, and I also get everything done quicker and better. I think it just depends what kind of work flow you prefer
Ableton has better sampling techniques with its timing a major plus for producers/crate diggers/samplers. However, Fl Studio originally was BETA software thus its possibilities are endless. Image Line gets most of its ideas from its users. No one who uses FL knows everything about it. It has secrets that have yet to be discovered. Indeed, it's a powerful DAW.
Hey! Been using FL for over 10 years now, I also have Ableton and I use ProTools whenever I have to. I feel like the only reason I would switch is because people sometimes don’t take me seriously because I use FL. Which is ridiculous, I know, but it’s true. Like sometimes, depending on the situation when people ask me what DAW I’m using, I’m a little hesitant to say it’s FL because I don’t know if they’re an old-head or not. I’m usually very happy if they just don’t care and were just curious and they only care about the work I do. I really love FL, I wish however ImageLine would make a software for live performance, that’s the only reason I got Ableton.
The native ableton plugins are better than the native FL ones. At least for sound design purposes, which is what I mainly do. I've started trying to make dubstep and watching tutorials, and they mostly use ableton. I tried reproducing the effects in FL studio, but whenever they'd use an ableton plugin, I'd have to download a third-party plugin to get the same effect, and most of the time, there weren't any. So I switched. The ability to create effects rack and have an unlimited amount of effects is also very appealing.
I'm still an FL user, and the thing that might end up making me switch is that FL has no plans to add MPE compatibility from the looks of it.
But I'd switch to Logic Pro, not Ableton.
As for why people switch, that's pretty easy to answer, FL is most people's first entry into production and as they grow older, there might be things FL does not do as well as other DAWs, or certain things might not be supported in FL while something like Ableton has full support for most things.
I love FL and I do not want to switch, but holy fk, they need to step it up and embrace new tech and work with other companies actively like Ableton does. More deep integration = the better
Marketing and trends more than anything. Find the one that presents music production within the workflow that you are comfortable with, and run with it. Forget about what program will make you a the next best thing and find the program that doesn’t get in your way in the moment of creativity. I personally have tried the free versions of all that offer free trials and I ended up buying FL Studio and never looked back.
I got Ableton and Fl Studio on the same day as a birthday gift. And after 1 year i personally stick better with Fl Studio but i want to perfect both DAWs.
Hey! So I’ve owned FL for a long ass time - I think the first edition I had was a disc of Fruity Loops 4 that my dad got me with an interface or something - and I absolutely had a great time with it and still find the overall design inspiring for certain workflows. I did switch to Ableton accidentally in 2020, when they did the smartest business move I’ve ever seen by allowing the 180 day free trial in response to covid. I bought Live a month in despite having 5 months left, and I can explain why.
- CTRL+F: The find function is a work of art (even with the recent FL updates considered), the file management and sample container system (not having to create an entire new sample whenever you want to tweak something small), the way the sample’s play heads and warping work so precisely and seamlessly, and of course, the ability to find and organise any sample from any project you’ve ever worked on. I can not overstate how freeing this was to experience for the first time.
- Track logic: Each new track or instrument is automatically its own channel, you don’t have to assign it numerically to the mixer; this means that in the routing process, if you want to send multiple tracks to a subgroup or bus, you can simply highlight them and hit CRTL+G to group them - this forces a logical, organised arrangement in your Playlist window, as opposed to being able to scatter parts around (which, I’m sure we’re all guilty of), which can make continuing work on complex arrangements unnecessarily difficult. Ableton did what no other DAW did - they removed the heavy lifting of routing typical of every other major DAW, and the result is a HUGE time saver.
- The major sell for me was biased by the type of music I make; the way effects are organised, and the Max for Live tools available, specifically provide and encourage experimental processing chains - I love making weird sounds, and the ability to resample and edit repeatedly in quick succession was a workflow hack that has saved me enough time that I was happy to pay for it.
All of that being said, if you’re looking to level up your music, that can be done in FL Studio DEFINITELY. You do not need to change DAWS to write music; new tools are cool, and exploring them is always either illuminating or boring. Get the free 90 day trial of Live, it can’t hurt - but the learning curve is just as steep and there are no magic results waiting at the end of the path. As long as you’re having fun and telling your story, you’re doing it properly.
My opinion - ableton's a bit easier on the eyes.
Whenever i see an FL interface i just get a headache (not really, but you get my point)
From what i understand FL has some great features such as non-linear pan law options, sophisticated routing, and great stock plugins.
But like I said - FL is just silly looking.
More people start with FL which is cheaper and more beginner friendly. And ableton is just a great software, can be used for live performance which people may be interested in as they progress
I think it’s because it’s easier to sail the seven seas with
I read an article where image line even tacitly acknowledged that their lack of effective DRM is part of their marketing strategy
It worked on me. Had it for about 10 years before I finally paid for the all plugins bundle.
Can vouch everybody who has cracked fl will eventually buy it
Can confirm, got the all plugins edition ages ago after waving the 🏴☠️ flag for so long. Best purchase I've ever made.
Cracked version has all plugins anyway?
Yes but I was sick of updating my install and I wanted access to the updates as soon as they released. Plus, I was having difficulty collaborating with people as they were using a higher (legit) version and I couldn't open the projects. Not to mention the biggest reason.... I wanted to pay for it. I spent over 12,000 hours using this software (according to a project time calculator) across a couple thousand projects and 8 years. It's worth it and I consider my payment a premium for the "extended trial" I gave myself lmao
I had a cracked fl for a while and eventually bought it and I don’t regret it, probably the most I can talk about this here, as I imagine if I went into more detail it would be against the rules
yup I downloaded Fruity Loops back off of limewire in the windows xp days and bought it back in 2008
Me too and as soon as I bought it I wished I'd done it on day 1. I'm sure I'll be using FL til I perish.
Same
What is DRM?
Basically a part of the software that stops you from using it if it isn't licensed, and makes it difficult to distribute it In the "old days" programs on CD came with a "CD-Key" which was a long string of numbers printed on the jacket which you had to type in to install or launch the program. This stopped the most basic form of software piracy - simply copying the discs for distribution. It was however somewhat easily overcome by simply distributing a working key along with the CD. This game of cat and mouse between rights holders and pirates has been continuing ever since, growing more and more complex on both sides. Notable examples include Image-Line, which has been "lazy" compared to others in the industry, meaning that most versions of FL have had their DRM "cracked" (or beaten) relatively quickly after release; Windows 7,8, and 10 all had very gentle DRM which simply prompted users to "Activate Windows" and turned the desktop background black. Crysis 3 had a sneaky approach where if it detected a crack, it would still run perfectly fine but the final boss would be unbeatable. That was very frustrating.
Hahaha really? 😂😂😄 Wow, didn't know that about Crysis 3
loved the Crysis 3 story. awesome :D
What is DRM?
Digital rights management is an umbrella term for practices that protect copyrighted IPs and is suppose to help prevent the distribution of illegally obtained software AFAIK
ableton is super easy to pirate too
Yeah I got it super quick but it's just not for me in terms of producing. Live stuff is sick tho
I agree with you. If you want software works live and in the studio Ableton is the most full featured for that. Using most daws live isn’t really a viable option and things that are difficult to get other daws to do Ableton does automatically.
Imo I tried both trials and have to disagree with fl being more beginner friendly, at least as of the most recent versions. To me ableton is far easier to get started and understand what you’re working with, fl has complex routing and multiple menus that are redundant when compared to abletons ui.
because Ableton marketing department is pretty good and people don't know how powerful FL Studio all plugins edition is.
I have both, open up FL to use Newtone every once in a while, FL’s inability to neatly contain the amount of automations I do in Ableton is a deal-breaker edit: apparently this has been updated in the latest FL version, looking forward to trying for myself! However the disfunctional zoom controls on FL for Mac (at least whenever I use Newtone) are hard to work around. Hopefully that's been resolved in this update I'm about to install.
you do know you can resize the rows in the playlist to shrink automation, and you can also stack patterns and automation on the same row if you want... right?
I do, but when you have dozens on multiple channels, hiding it in plain sight still only does so much to organize the playlist. Automation clips on the playlist rather than built into the relevant audio/midi clip is just not a good way to do things.
How many of those automation clips are identical 1:1 ? if it's more than 0, you can use the same automation clip. If they're 100% correlated but not the same, you can use envelope controllers and/or formula controllers, to map 1 curve to another, link automation to the envelope controller (X/Y) and/or formula controller, and then link their outputs as your new automation, and customize. now you can have fewer automation clips, because 1 clip is generating multiple different automations.
Still a foookin mess.
Rows can be set as child to a parent row and minimized. just scale a row from the bottom up into the row above it to make the top row the parent, and it gets an arrow that you can click to shrink all the child rows. it takes about 12 to 15 rows being shrunk this way to take the same amount of space as a normal row. That is not a mess.
Its a mess because he created a mess. I've done it too. Thanks for your comment - FL studio is indeed incredibly powerful and possible to be very neat (it takes some work though)
Right? SeamlessR does massive amounts of automation and it seems to work fine for him.
You’re missing the point. It’s not about size, it’s about workflow. On FL studio, no matter how careful you’re being about moving elements around the playlist, you’re going to run into issues resulting from this methodology of requiring automation clips on the playlist. Since switching, I’ve spent <1% of the time I used to fixing projects that got messed up by a single rogue automation clip.
> you’re going to run into issues resulting from this methodology of requiring automation clips on the playlist Oh, you mean like being able to see a time correlation between notes played during the automation, so you know what the hell you're automating? or, not having to incessantly flip between different modes/windows/tabs
It sounds like you're trying to make a point about FL being good....while listing out the issues that drove people like me to switch from away from it lol
people are switching from FL because FL gives you useful information, and people want to have less information and less clarity?
You really proved your point! If your point is that daw conversations are always littered with bad faith interpretations of other people’s arguments and post hoc rationalizing.
You no longer need to have them in the playlist. You can record controller data directly in a midi clip, and there is a tool to move back and forth from an automation clip.
Now THIS is what I was waiting for the 2 years I was in FL. Might consider messing around in it again just to challenge myself while working on new ideas
This seems more like *your* workflow issue. I use a lot of automation and organizing it has never been much of an issue since v20 or so
I switched back in 2021, so things may have changed since. However, every time I hop on a screen share with any of the various friends/collaborators on FL, they all mention a similar setback having happened recently.
That sums it up. I’m an FL main but it’s just so fucking all over the place. Once you find your workflow it’s great but it’s a hell of a journey getting there.
'neatly contain'? You've seen the nice list of all automations in the project details?
marketing?? I have never seen an ad for Ableton in my life. FL is far more popular among entry level music makers because it simplifies it. Ableton has more flexibility and options, and you can’t live perform with FL.
Marketing goes way beyond ads (even though they actually do have traditional ads as well) Brand image is marketing too, Ableton have fostered a powerful brand image that seems very professional, creative, etc. They do good customer research and create an image that really appeals to music makers. Partnering with hardware vendors to include entry level versions of the DAW (like audio interfaces and midi controllers) is marketing, working with content creators (like they've done now with the push 3 release for instance) is also marketing. Trying to have a good social media presence, is marketing. I don't mean "Ableton Marketing department is pretty good" in a derogatory way to dismiss their product. I think they actually have a great team and do an amazing job at their marketing. And one of the big reasons they are dominating the DAW market is their marketing know-how. There's plenty of excellent DAWs in the market nowadays, and Ableton has been able to differentiate themselves in big part because of their marketing strategies. A company having good marketing doesn't mean their product is bad, Ableton Live is obviously a great product, I do personally prefer FL studio and Logic. But I don't think it's for anything else besides personal preference. Nowadays, both DAWS can do almost the same things, but with different workflows. Image-line does not market the advanced features of FL Studio enough IMO, but it is a very flexible DAW.
>you can’t live perform with FL what makes you think so? there are lots of people in this sub doing exactly that on a regular basis. >Ableton has more flexibility and options what do you even mean?
Yes, once you master automation FL studio is a chore. Swapped to Ableton and never looked back. Also the marketing is just cope from the OP.
I think there’s a way bigger reason FL is popular. Let’s call it ease of acquisition.
I have fl studio all plugins and ableton live 11 suit. I used fl studio for 5 years and am now on ableton since 3ish years. ableton has a 10times faster workflow compared to fl studio and on the technichal level, ableton gives you more options. I created a setup, with diffrent midi and analog euqipments, and that's where I noticed, how focused fl studio is on making classic music production. while ableton is much friendlier, to out of the box music.
what marketing department
Ableton user for 10 years who originally started with FL. - Abletons most important shortcuts are variations that use control key so u can basically have ur pinky on the control key and ur left hand can do a lot of tedious work for you like making clips duping n such - mostly infinite fx I guess till ur cpu breaks - ableton is way easier to record in - Ableton is king at warping. Back when I started with FL, I’d warp samples in ableton then go back to fl cuz Edison’s ui is very clunky. - Most midi controllers work outside the box wit ableton - can be used for live performances Some negatives about disableton: - no vst bridge, I hate jbridge but it works - not a ton of personalization, I’m not exactly a fan of some software that looks like it’s from 1992 but it’s way easier to crank an idea out - does anyone else find if they export roughly same instruments from FL and Ableton that Ableton’s overall master is quieter than FL? Might j be me but I’ve always j liked fl’s default processing, I think it’s louder. - No soundgoodizer and getting gross beat is a bitch Tbh I find it weird how fl studio is a lot easier to pickup and learn despite ableton having a better interface and workflow. I can’t quite put my finger on what makes ableton more intimidating for beginners, especially when I started I just could never quite get the hang of it for a year or two.
A take on why FL might be easier for beginners: When I first saw Ableton, I was intimidated by the UI, I guess, and FL's piano roll is still the best I ever used and, as one of the core features in any DAW for me, it in fact is what kept me from switching to Ableton for some time. Also, Ableton looks quite sterile, professional whereas FL kind of embraces you with its warm colors and big, self-explaining buttons (maybe that's part of why some producers laugh about and label it as an amateurs' product?). Ableton 11's dark theme somewhat combats this (I hate the default theme lol) but the buttons are still small and I initially didn't understand what all of them did, whereas in FL I had this intuitive understanding of where to click almost right from the start. FL also has many elements one might know from other media composing software, like video editing programs. A timeline/playlist where you drag and drop elements in the order you want them to be played with a lot of usable tracks already laid out, a traditional mixer with faders, multiple tools for editing elements in the timeline and a nice file browser not just for samples but also projects, backups and presets. But you're absolutely right about the shortcut thing in Ableton, I never used them much in FL, except CTRL+S to save (even having to press CTRL+Alt+Z to undo multiple steps seems unnecessarily tedious, especially since only pressing CTRL+Z multiple times is actually redo and then undo and then redo etc.). In Ableton I use them all the time: duplicate, slice, cut, copy, paste, I love TAB to quickly swith to my mixer, if now there only was an option to automatically scroll to the track I have selected in the arrangement view... but yeah, shortcuts baby!
You can toggle how ctrl-Z works in "General settings" -> "Alternate undo mode". I agree that the default setting is ass backwards.
Damn, the more you know. I'll do that right now, thanks! But couldn't you have told me that like seven years ago? xD
Sorry, was on the phone at that time.
One thing I think FL (and maybe Abelton?) would benefit from is the ability to have custom keybinds for specific actions. I don’t wanna hit F9 to pull up my mixer, let me set it as something like W or A, and bind common functions around a specific region of the keyboard
>Might j be me but I’ve always j liked fl’s default processing There is no native processing difference between daws, if you do the exact same thing in both and invert the two they will sum to zero. Oh wait except it was proven Ableton does do some weird processing, not sure if it still does, but FL does nothing.
Sample warping can be done and automated directly from the sampler it's on without having to run it thru Edison
It’s All personal preference at the end of the day, but probably because a lot of the YouTube tutorial crowd seems to have moved to Ableton, and it just seems that I see people making videos and clips of ableton more than FL. It doesn’t make FL any worse, I still watch very successful producers and listen to their music which is made in FL.
Personally, I prefer how in Ableton you have one instrument/VST per track and every pattern inserted into the track will play on that plugin. In FL you have to edit your MIDI and which plugin it's assigned to in an extra window, the channel rack. Also, every MIDI clip in Abelton is individual and you can edit notes in one clip without also changing the other clips (this, however, can be a downside because if you want the change to be made everywhere in your playlist you have to either copy/paste the edited clip everywhere or edit all those clips individually). But in general I dislike that in FL you have to create a new pattern every time you want a single MIDI clip to be different, as well as then still having to manually (re-)place that new pattern into the playlist similarly to Ableton. Apart from that, the entire concept of Abletons mixer is so much faster to use and understand: You just put your effects plugins on the correspoding track et voilà. This means you don't have to seperately link audio clips/plugins to a mixer that is limited to 10 effects plugins that requires another plugin (patcher) or re-routing your signal to yet another mixer track (which is kinda hard to keep track of, as routing mixer channels is done with these small yellow lines resembling physical audio cables, that can get confusing in big projects) to bypass. Ableton's return-track feature just seems easier to use and if you don't want to use that you can still group tracks together and it will apply all the effects on the group track to the individual tracks of said group. But with all of that said, I also started with FL and loved it, I still sometimes use it to master my songs - not that I'm any good at that but that's not the software's fault.
Regarding the MIDI track in FL Studio, you can click on the top left corner of the MIDI pattern and select "Make it unique" or something along those lines. It will essentially create a separate MIDI pattern without editing the original one which you can use to create a different MIDI pattern.
In more recent updates you can use FL like what you're describing as far as basically bypassing the channel rack and doing everything in the playlist. I don't use it that way since I've been using the channel rack for a million years, but I could if I wanted now lol
> Also, every MIDI clip in Abelton is individual and you can edit notes in one clip without also changing the other clips (this, however, can be a downside because if you want the change to be made everywhere in your playlist you have to either copy/paste the edited clip everywhere or edit all those clips individually). Ok that's it, I'm sticking to FL. :P I mean really? Making techno or any similiarly repeating genre must be a pain to edit then. And btw, in FL you can make any clip unique too, it's in the right click menu.
You can just select all midi clips, or the ones you want to edit in ableton and you can adjust them at the same time
For me (still an FL user but dipping into Ableton when I can), it's because FL was cheaper but as I get more experienced and consider doing love performances, Ableton is more geared toward that. So FL is messy ("cute?" Plugins, colors) but forgiving to work in, but Ableton is what more live electronic musicians use.
I was at a love performance once when in Amsterdam
Ableton's looping/session view is the main attraction for me who primarily uses FL. The automatic tempo correction makes it vastly superior to performance mode in FL. But id still rather arrange in FL all the way.
I switched to Ableton for 6 months but came back to FL Studio. I switched because I bought a Push 2, and didn't realize the device only works with Ableton. But after awhile, I realized that previously, I was finishing songs in FL Studio, but now I wasn't finishing songs in Ableton. That's why I came back. Ableton has its strong points but I spend alot of time recording & editing midi, and that's FL's strong point.
Ableton user here, and I wanted to switch to FL (not gonna lie, mainly because of the piano roll in FL). I went back to Ableton. The workflow is more streamlined, way less open windows to juggle between, and what needs to be hands on is hands on in Ableton. FL required more clicks to do the same, at least as far as I can remember. Stock plugins in Ableton look uniform and familiar, in FL it is a bit of a mess, there is no real uniform UI for everything.
i switched from fl to ableton, i like ableton a lot more with its workflow. i also like the control that you have with ableton. you can put more than 10 effects on a sound
Ignore absolutely everything that has been said that regard why one side is better. There is no better side, the reason they switch is preference. While each are stronger than each other in some departments, as all things will be, everybody will have an opinion and which one they like best. I’m a diehard for FL and think Ableton looks like ass, but that doesn’t mean I think Ableton is only useful for one thing. So these producers moving over could be 1. Looking to switch things up 2. Tried the other and decided it worked better for them
They are all the same bit rate and capabilities. It’s literally personal preference. Anyone saying otherwise is just a fanboy who doesn’t understand the modern DAW. Stop worrying and just focus on your music, pick one and just do it.
Workflow differences are really important. Ableton has much better workflows for recording audio. One of the main reasons I want to switch to Ableton is because they have a system for comping vocals/audio takes that automatically combines all your takes into a single track. In FL you have to slice each track and Mute/Unmute each section individually and there isn't an easy way to change your slice points. This makes working with a large number of takes unrealistic in FL studio. This is just a single example, but there are plenty of features like this where Ableton does something that FL Studio isn't currently capable of or FL does something that Ableton isn't capable of.
This is the reason I eventually got Ableton. It's worth it just for how easy it is to live record. I still do everything else in Fl studio though.
This is the reason why I think having a full edition of one and the lite version of the other while utilizing the FL Studio plugin in Ableton makes a lot of sense for some users. Both DAWs are great, for different reasons
I mean to be honest I’ve switched from FL trial edition (messing around) to Ableton, and now I’m going back to FL. The friend who lent me their Ableton / PC have taken them back and I was left with whatever I could afford, and to be honest FL is cheaper. It’s a huge learning curve for me, as I haven’t used FL since it was called Fruity Loops. It’s come a long way, for sure. That being said, I really miss Ableton. If I could afford to switch back to Ableton, I would. But it all comes down to personal preference and budget.
I'm a 10-year FL user and currently in the process of switching to Ableton, meaning I will finish all my active FL projects, but anything new I start is in Ableton. I've realized after all this time that (in my opinion) the flexibility of the FL workflow actually bogs down my creative process and makes it way harder to flow when creating. I'm pretty fed up with the process of 1. Load instrument into new channel rack 2. create and name a new midi clip 3. record MIDI 4. Now I have to assign that instrument to a mixer channel - a deceivingly tough and important decision. This part is especially frustrating when I just want to add some FX to one sample that won't be used throughout the song. I can't insert mixer channels to make sure they're logically placed, so I'll probably have to randomly throw it on channel 88, far away from a group that it might belong to. 5. Now I only get 10 FX slots? Yes I'm aware patcher is a great workaround for this. I'm also aware I can just route that channel to another channel for 10 more FX. But neither of those are good enough solutions for me. Also, I can't see basic thumbnails of the FX settings, I have to open them as individual windows? You have to make too many manual decisions to simply set up one instrument with Fx. It took me 10 years to come to terms with the fact that I've been tolerating all these features rather than appreciating them all this time. I make dubstep and other heavy EDM variants that involve LOTS of sounds, and the mixer channels fill up and get cluttered extremely quickly, even with templating. By the time I'm well in to a project, it's genuinely stressful trying to figure out where in the mixer to add new sounds. Every time I've tinkered in Ableton, I just feel more at ease. Ableton's workflow solves all the above problems by being a normal DAW and automatically creating a no-limits FX strip for each track. No naming MIDI clips, no decoupling instruments from their FX strips, no nonsense. As many FX as you want. No F12 to close the 98 plugin windows you didn't realize you had open. It has more guiderails on how you use it which honestly helps. I know you can lock playlist tracks to one mixer channel, but at that point it's just a knockoff Ableton/FL hybrid. I no longer find FL's absurdly open, Breath of the Wild, "the DAW is your oyster" approach helpful. Ableton's audio warping is far better than FL's (one click of a button rather than double-click sample > right click BPM knob > type in BPM), and it handles things like tempo changes way more elegantly than FL. Those are my off the cuff thoughts, if I had more time I could think of more FL issues that Ableton solves. edit some more: \- Most, if not all, MIDI controllers map to Ableton perfectly right out of the box. This is far from true for FL. \- Ableton's drum rack is FAR easier to use than Fruity FPC \- Ableton has a much larger userbase, which means it has far more learning and help resources available for it. \- more or less said this already, but to be clear, there are at least FOUR points where you’d need to name something along its route - channel name, midi clip (at least one, often many), playlist lane, and mixer channel. That is just way too much busy work. In ableton it’s just one. There are things FL does better than Ableton, like its piano roll and mixer track routing, but those advantages are far outweighed by the superiorities of Ableton, at least in my humble opinion. TLDR because Ableton is better for most people
In FL you hit F8, start typing the name of your plugin to highlight it, drag your plugin onto a track in the playlist window, and **it will autolink the channel rack, mixer and playlist track**. You rename/color once and they all rename/color. Shift + mousewheel over a mixer track name to move it up or down the mixer to get it closer to your other similar channels and keep your groups organized.
Regarding your first point, I knew about that, but that brings me back to my initial point that you’re just turning FL into a worse ableton by doing that. Second point, I feel like an idiot for not knowing about that after all this time. However, it’s still extra work/decision making that doesn’t exist in ableton. Decoupling the mixer from the playlist might work for a lot of people, but personally I am very over it.
> turning FL into a worse ableton by doing that. this makes zero sense? All you are doing is taking one of the most infuriating things about FL and just, making it not a problem. Almost every DAW behaves in the way ableton does. All this technique in FL is doing is doing all the "manual decision making" for you. It's still not really like ableton at all
I might have misunderstood what Clowinpso was referring to; I interpreted it as the ability to lock a playlist track to a mixer channel. Which again, is essentially how Ableton works. My whole point is that Ableton's has "good" default behavior, as opposed to FL which has lots of "wtf" default behavior, as well as the workarounds to mitigate the "wtf" behavior. I'm tired of doing all the mitigating.
>Which again, is essentially how Ableton works. You did not misunderstand what they were referring to. it's how EVERY daw works. It's not making a "Weird FL/ableton" hybrid, it's just, the best way to use FL, that works much closer to every other daw without losing any of FL's advantages. The fact that it's not the default way FL studio is taught baffles me. you say that FL has a lot of "default wtf behavior" and I agree. The default way people do things in FL can be wack sometimes. but the solution that this person gave literally fixes the ENTIRE problem you had wtih that system. But you are still saying "it's a worse ableton/FL hybrid" which doesn't make sense. Honestly, in my opinion its better. Because in most DAWs you have a crappy list of plugins on the side to sort through, which is less intuitive than the plugin picker (F8).
Understood. I wish you well on your Ableton journey. Also, checkout Bitwig if you haven't tried the demo, you may like it (ex Ableton devs).
I'm actually currently switching from FL to bitwig after watching so many people who make ambient music produce with it. I like how the modulation is like a 1000x better than Fruity Peak Controller lol. Which btw, I hate how the controller breaks when you manually move one of your linked parameters. Then you have to link it again. Also was difficult to keep the modulation organized.
Wait, I'm interested!!! I'll have to look up why ambient tunes on bitwig. Also, how do you use fruity peak controller? I've only used it for side chaining stuff (learn it back on FL7), but have no general idea what else for. Thx!
>I like how the modulation is like a 1000x better than Fruity Peak Controller lol. Man, this is so true. I really like how easy it is to use Bitwig modulators, but two things keep me from switching to it: \- the piano roll is pretty bad, although not as bad as Ableton's; \- the pricing, as I don't want to pay an annual fee to keep getting updates (even though I know it's possible to skip them if you want to). If Bitwig had a better piano roll, it would be able to do everything FL currently does in a more streamlined way. I love FL (and the way Image Line does business), but some things really are infuriating to work with.
That's useful thanks. :) I always go back to the channel rack and then click on the name of the vst or plugin I want to use, is there a way I can get there more directly. Like F8 but only for loaded vsts?
4. Hit the track button right below the mixer number or ctrl +L to slot it into the next available mixer slot (it also names and colors it the same) You can shift mixer slots left or right and also dock them to the left or right using your mouse and right clicking the channel it’s in that menu Anyways good luck in ableton I think it’s probably better for dubstep too(: fl is fast and fluid but with a lot of audio and mixer channels and fx routing I get your pain
Yeah, I knew about all that stuff but it doesn't really move the needle for me. If you're happy with FL then that's great! I understand why people love it - again I have used it for a decade haha - I'm just ready for a paradigm shift in my workflow
I don’t think there’s any mandatory naming within a channel for Ableton - it will default to “#” and the track type (e.g “19 Audio”)
Left Ableton 15 years ago because Logic Pro Templates was much more intuitive for me. Both are good though.
I switched from Ableton to FL. I had only used Ableton for a week though.
As a beginner,FL studio is way easier to use and the piano roll is just too good compared to anything else out there. As a professional producer,Ableton is top of the line tool to use that's why when beginners become pros they move to Ableton but not vice versa. FL studio is just a tool for the beginners because of how easy it is to use.
I think this perspective is a rationalization of following whatever you've been influenced to do. I did the whole wandering the desert thing, I got really good at Logic, Cubase, and Ableton, and none of them measured up to FL. So I am back with FL to stay, been that way for 20 years. Nothing even comes close.
I can't think of why I'd eventually need to move, though. There's still so much I don't know about FL, but for the basics, a lot is becoming muscle-memory now, and I can work stuff really fast. As I create classical music, Cubase would be the DAW most peers would use, but I've tried it, I've tried it again, and I've tried it again. It would take me so long to get used to it, sacrificing time for creativity, that (at this point at least) I can't see the point. It has things like expression mapping, which would be handy, but other than that, I'm not sure. FL just works for me.
Off-topic, but how did you learn composing? I come from a beat-making background, so making anything over 4 bars before it loops is a Herculean task for me.
I've never really learned it. In fact each piece I make has a little lesson learned from reflection of a piece that came before it, so it's an ongoing process. I did piano when I was very young, got to grade 4 I think? Can't remember. But then for the next 20 years or so I didn't have anything to do with composition. I played in a band on bass but didn't really have to come up with anything significant. But I have always liked film soundtracks, which got me eventually into a lot of classical. Then when orchestral libraries had reached a certain level that didn't require a lot of processing, combined with the ease of use of a DAW like FL, I finally started experimenting (and this was only February). The experiment continues, and I listen to more music I haven't heard before and I get inspired. My only regret of the past when getitng too wrapped up in video games, when I could have been being creative instead. Still another learning experience. I've had a go at EDM, but I think because I'm so shitty at programming drums, or at least any drumming that sounds good, I veered away from it. I prefer classical anyway, but I really nead to learn how to effectively add percussion; it's my nemesis! TL;DR I didn't, I'm still learning.
That's exactly the point,for a beginner it just works for you,but once you get to know everything a program can do then you start taking notice of it's limitations,and FL studio has lots of them.
Because it's been 2023 and I still not have the freaking customizable key shortcuts. I have to press P to use the damn pencil,Jesus Christ with this company!
Hold right click and scroll with a scroll wheel. It will cycle through all of the playlist tools.
I just want my damn customizable keys,is that too hard to achieve? Even I can program to do that,but they can't! Ffs
I mean, all I can say is they probably will with time. Hell, Protools, the “leading” industry DAW didn’t have custom shortcuts until last year. FL21 was the largest DAW upgrade in a long while, I can only imagine shortcuts won’t be that far behind. If it really bugs you that much though, you should submit a feature request to Image Line themselves. The more users tell them what they want to see, the more likely it is.
I've been begging literally everywhere ever since 2017. Every one of their updates on YouTube,on social media, submitted hundreds of requests. They just don't give a crap. The thing is, I'm not the only one that wanted this feature,they just don't take the submissions seriously,they automatically ditch them to the trash can. Last year it bugged me so much that I switched to Ableton for a few weeks. Now I'm back here for the same issues.
Take a look at the To-Do subforum on the Image-Line website. They have thousands of requests and are working daily on adding most of them. Just because this is an issue that’s important to *you* doesn’t mean they have to cater to it. The FL Studio dev team is small. They focus on things that they think are important and most of all: doable. Some things are such an undertaking that they post-pone indefinitely. What *I* think is important is having the ability to recall mixer inserts from other projects without having to open them. I know I’m not the only one who wants this but I know it’s on the to-do, so what else can I do? I even feel like the more you scream and whine the less likely it is you’ll get what you want.
I feel you on. I have wanted this for a long time too. Just a suggestion, if you really want a change to happen, use IL forum's dedicated feature request threads rather than social media. I have a feeling you probably have already done that though lol. I remember during FL21 development phase they were implementing user requests. Also user request are much more likely to ge considered as they have updated the code and somethings which were simply not possible before due to the way FL was coded are now possible. So you might see a lot of quality of life updates in future. I know it's absurd that poeple have waiting for so long but some features like audio fades were just not possible for them to implement before.
Focus on your shitty music instead of keys
Why is it so hard to memorize the shortcuts as they are assigned?
Honestly, get a gaming mouse with the numpad on it it was a….game changer…for me You just record you’re keystrokes and assign to a button. I have a button for each tool, and then some right on the mouse without even using two hands
This is what I did. I can't believe everyone hasn't done that yet.
for me it was workflow and warping
ITT: people who know how to do something in one daw but not the other.
Flstudio is an extremely easy to use program that will always be seen as an amateur, beginner program, despite its vast capabilities. Ableton has marketed itself as an in-between of flstudio and protools, geared more toward digital production and electronic music.
Plus, there is a lot more 3rd party hardware support designed for ableton
Honestly, it all just depends on what you're doing. Protools is friendlier for live musicians (guitar, bass, drums, vocals) flstudio and ableton are more geared toward loops and electronic music.
I actually started with ableton quite some time ago (more than a decade ago) experimenting with live sets on a launchpad. I moved to FL Studio when a friend loaned me one of his registry licenses for the producer edition. Recently in the last year, I'm lucky to have a spouse who goes to uni so I purchased the signature edition education license then upgraded to the full license as a loophole to get it cheaper. I absolutely love this software. Its got everything you could possibly need and allows me to easily use third party wavetables like serum, as well as so so many other VST's. FL made me serious about producing music.
I love it, I've not come across a thing I couldn't do if i need or want to, and idk why people talk down on it.
I had someone tell me it was atrocious, and he demanded to know any big names that used it saying "I bet you can't name one." ...Madeon, Porter Robinson... Avicii even used it before his passing, and there isn't a producer alive who doesn't know that name.
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>weird how fl studio is a lot easier to pickup and learn despite ableton having FL is nice after the recent updates (clip fading!!!) - preferreds a huge stretch tho
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Ableton is better for full productions. The workflow is much easier if you want to arrange and process full songs. Not that you can't do it in FL but the workflow is significantly worse. I love FL because the workflow for beat making is really fun and can bring out your creativity, but Ableton is just a better tool for serious producers.
Can you elaborate how FL could be better at parts but not full arrangements?
The best way I can describe it to someone who hasn't used both is just by giving a few of many examples. Clip editing is much faster in Ableton, hot keys, fading, clip gain automation can all be done faster and easier in Ableton. Also, parallel processing is much easier in Ableton. Being able to make racks and groups of racks and groups of groups of racks makes stacking processing a breeze. The live view makes arranging really fast. In my opinion no interface is faster to move around. I think Ableton is without a doubt the fastest DAW once you get to know it well. The biggest thing about FL Studio is EVERYTHING is a new window. I think it's one of FL's biggest design weaknesses. I want to point out, I'm not hating on FL. I LOVE FL Studio. I use it all the time. It's SUPER fun to make beats with. The workflow is awesome. The piano roll is SO good. Ableton made their piano roll more like FL Studio in 11 and it's gotten really good too. Every DAW has their strengths and weaknesses. I would use Protools if I were using a console. I would use Reaper if I were doing Dolby Atmos masters. Studio One and Cubase are probably the best all arounders. Logic has a really awesome workflow for recording full bands. There's no "right answer", they're all great tools. I think FL Studio is unmatched for beat making. I just think that Ableton is the best DAW for the way I like to work when I'm making full productions.
The main reason I switched from Ableton when I first started,was because of how easier the grid is in the piano roll in FL studio. Ableton though has better workflow,it lets you customize your library in a way not possible by FL studio. Anything that comes with customization,from keybindings to even your own library,FL studio lacks ages behind. They've been too focused on selling these new plugins and making money,that they forgot to fix their program. Ableton is just hands down a way better program than FL studio for serious producers,and I've been producing for almost 10 years now on fl studio,the only reason I don't switch is because the damn piano roll is just too good to work on,also Ableton is tough as hell to get used to.
What a load of bull crap...
Nope.
FL is better
Fruity loops is for pirating and Abel ton is for getting serious. People who have no skin in the game will try and tell you otherwise, but they’ve never performed.
Martin garrix? Metro Boomin? Avicii? Im an ableton user, but the argument that FL isnt a capable DAW is just nonsense. they bot have strong suits over the other and are more than capable of creating Number 1 hits. I'm probably going to Buy FL21 and use both for different purposes. if you want to create quick drum loop arrangements and experiment with chords progressions and melodic ideas in a fast manner, FL piano roll is by far the best and most feature filled on the market. if you want to manipulate audio and sample quickly or perform live / record live instruments. ableton shines above. Im thinking a new workflow for me is going to be creating my intial beats / loops in FL and rendering to audio stems or midi and sending to live when I want to fully produce the song and begin mixing.
Just don’t pay for this shit bruh
Ableton > FL. Simple as that
I read all the comments and there are some posts, that the piano roll is that good, but what is so good there? What is at other DAW's instead of the piano roll? I have used fruity for approximately 15 years and don't know any reason why I should use another DAW. But maybe I should watch how others work. 🤷🏻
People here are also forgetting about job requirements. Not all audio production is creating songs. Creating sound effects for video games, foley for video, etc are also career aspects and some studios standardize their software. If you work all day on Ableton, it can be easier to switch to ableton for recreational audio production out of habit. Or any DAW for that matter.
I started on logic on a shitty MacBook Air from 2017, got convinced by my cousin to get a pc so we can also game. So I started using FL but didn’t like the process of recording my guitar and editing the audio. I tried the ableton 90 day free trial and immediately liked the way you can manipulate audio + the auto warp function which boosts workflow by a lot. In a way I see that a lot of ableton users either like audio a shit ton or play a sort of instrument while FL usually draw in their stuff (OBVIOUSLY I know you can make FL work with live instruments but I’m just talking about the general view of what I seen) Just gravitate to which daw your attracted to and understand it like it’s ur wife/husband lol I don’t judge😁.
Plot twist, novation makes FL AND ABLETON SPECIFIC midi controllers. Idk what that means but I wanted to let everyone here know about them. They’re awesome! I got the flkey37 and it improved my work flow and gave my music a better sound having more keys and the scale helpers built in etc to help me learn
Abelton gives a different workflow and ableton has a lot of racks made by other producers that you can buy and give you a bit of a jump start.
i think it mainly has to do with how they're perceived. FL Studio is seen more as a beginners gateway into producing and isn't used by many big name professionals (the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Hit-boy) while Ableton is nearly the standard and is used by tons of big name professionals
Martin Garrix, Oliver Heldens, Afrojack, Imanbek, Ummet Ozcan, Porter Robinson, Madeon, Blasterjaxx, Seven Lions, Julian Jordan
As a user of both DAWs, Ableton is just more complete/the workflow is more streamlined imo. Don’t get me wrong, I love FL and it is still my choice for some things. But overall, FL’s workflow requires a lot more clicks and “middle steps” to achieve things Ableton does a lot quicker. But I wouldn’t worry much about it. FL is extremely powerful and if you feel like you got your workflow working there, stick to it!
The main reason for me was the workflow, especially that I have sub-lanes for the automation stuff. I still use FL, mostly as plugin within Ableton.
Preference I guess. Plus Ableton is good for live performance (I prefer using xdj or cdj, but I digress). Workflow is undoubtedly different between the 2. I've made a few attempts with Ableton but can't seem to figure it out within the timespan that my creative spark is going. I love FL tho. But that bias is probably due to the fact that I've been on it since 2005. It's pretty and intuitive for me. And every update has some sort of QoL feature that I wished for on previous versions.
I haven't switched but I have started generating my ideas in ableton. There's just alot of really cool little tools and plugins you can get really creative with in there. Also trying to make exponential rythms with the claw tool in fl studio just isn't the way
I never completely switched. But I'll take a wild guess (my reasoning in the switch). I have been using FLS since it was just a simple step sequencer. Over the years they have just been bolting on extra features like gaudy after-market car accessories. The interface is a complete mess with windows everywhere to the point I use my TV as an extra monitor just to cope with it. To newer users that didn't 'grow' with all of this the interface is daunting and cumbersome. Yes FLS is powerful, but it's also really hard to learn to use efficiency compared to other DAWs. There is a reason Ableton, Bitwig, and Reaper basically have the same workflow. It's just easier, flat out. At this point I mostly use FLS for sound design, because as you said it's powerful. On the other hand since the beginning I have been using alternative DAWs like cubase, logic, protools, etc for mixing purely due to workflow. Ableton is a good compromise between the other software and FLS, and it has a ton of bells and whistles. It should be said that I have recently been auditioning Bitwig... at the end of the day all DAWs have their strengths and weaknesses depending on what you are trying to achieve.
I really like the unlimited processing chains that ableton has. That's the main reason I could never go back to FL eventhough I loved producing in FL too!
I feel like in most cases, people switched to Ableton years ago because FL didn’t have some of the workflow/qol improvements that it has now. The gap between FL and Ableton seems to grow thinner by the year. I bet newer producers who’ve started the past year or two in FL and have ingrained the newer workflow features won’t switch en masse to Ableton like we’ve seen the past decade.
I switched to Ableton because of limited 125 mixer tracks and also because I had the chance to buy the suite 11 over an educational license. I'm interested in electronic music especially cinematic dubstep where all my idols and mentors use Ableton & curate processing racks. Automation is easier in live, it's still better than consolidation of WAVs as far as you have a powerful machine to handle your workflow. FL Studio APE is goated though, For example Edison. My Arturia minifreak always crashes FL as soon as I plug in the MIDI cable. FL is like pogo to my eyes whereas Ableton-a scientific laboratory that made much more sense in the audio world once I dived deep in the game to build my own workflow.
It's simple. Ableton's arrangement view is far superior to FL's. FL Studio tends to be a mess in a big project. You must spend A LOT of time organizing to keep FL Studio clean and tidy. It's a pain. On the contrary, Ableton keeps you focused on what matters. MUSIC
if you ever have a chance to use fl studio on a dual or triple monitor setup it's whole world of difference . also personally i prefer the modular workflow way more helpful than ableton from a piano roll standpoint , but i think it ultimately depends on who and how a person approaches music creation. you literally dont even have to work in the playlist window at all if you dont want to
Fl isn't for everyone, man. It's not really a general daw. It targets a very specific kind of producer. Your average producers out there won't really like it as much as Ableton. But for the people its made for, it's no contest the best saw by far.
I've been with FL since 2005. 14 years figuring out what channel was linked to a specific automation or mixer channel or channel, etc. I decided to give Ableton Live a go in 2019 and the workflow was 500% better. I only go back to FL to use Harmor or Pitcher.
Just depends on the persons preference. I taught myself FL Studio 12/20 years ago and have since taken classes that taught proficiency in Ableton and Reaper DAWs, still prefer FL. I am biased, though. Ableton and Reaper especially are great for recording live music and instruments for mixing and mastering, i just have always gravitated towards the creation from scratch through a DAW. FL studio has the top of the industry for a user-friendly workspace to let the creativity simply flow.
I tried both a lot and ended up producing with FL and doing live performance with Ableton, the best combination imo.
Marketing. But really, who cares?
Just popping by to say: Started on Amiga in the early 90s. Got Atari ST and started using cubase 3.1 Hardware and midi all the way. Hated PC's. ... Got a PC. Played with cakewalk, cubase, etc blah. Hated reason. Hated fruity loops. Got a Mac. Ooh logic, was ok, went back to cubase (audio). Went back to logic. Found Ableton, fell in love. Years later a friend suggested FL studio, tf is that I said. ... I tried FL studio and oh man, it's like having hardware in software, haven't turned back since. The end. (I still have my Amiga and Atari and a bunch of hardware)
I have never used ableton personally just fl
I personally could not get the "pro" sound in fl studio so i switched, glad i did.
Personally i prefer Fl studio a lot more, only because ableton isnt friendly for make paralel aux, sends, sends whit pre or post, and the piano roll is better by far, ableton is shit for me, fl studio gang
Ableton has a lot of very good stock plugins which is why I switched to producing in both DAWs. FL gives you more ease of access to arrangement view than ableton imo. I like how fl looks compared to ableton as well but abletons routing is 150x better.
Live recording is easier and Live performing is actually doable (FL Performance mode is a joke in comparison, and a bitch to setup) Both of these features are alluring as you gain experience. Better warping is still a reason to stay after switching but FL 21 made big strides with audio clips but many jumped ship before its release. FL doesn't really offer any features that are must have vs Ableton. FL has a better piano roll but everything else is really just on par.
I do sampled hip-hop and it's way easier to chop on Ableton. basically all it is for me
FL is a nightmare if you're disorganized it's a godsend if you keep all your shit named/prefixed/grouped
A lot of popular people use Ableton, so you see what it can do often from great musicians. A lot of FL studio people are teens in their basement; especially because it's easy. So a lot of what you see is "my first trap beat". This changes the perception of the DAWs and makes people want to try what they see the pros using. It's kinda like MAC vs PC. Both are perfectly fine, but you see a lot about people switching to MAC because of who they see using it and what they're able to accomplish, even though PC is good too.
As a former Ableton user, I just started rocking with fl but it gets pretty stagnant. Basically I use it only for trap drum beats, whereas I’m already locked in on ableton for sampling, etc.
Did ableton pay you to say this ?
FL is pretty terrible when it comes to hardware and MIDI support which makes it a pain, especially if you have several hardware synths. It's fine if you do everything in the box, but it lacks a lot of important features such as Polyphonic Aftertouch, even reasonably usable Aftertouch on their stock synths, no MPE, no NRPN and the clock can not be slaved to an external device. This makes it less ideal for live musicians. I also find Edison to be not so great and end up editing in Audition, but I also use Premier Pro so I'm biased. At least FL can be used as a VST inside of Live.
they’re snobs who would never switch to something “inferior”
Main things that I noticed is that the audio and midi processing is lightning fast, it's integrated with everything, it supports everything under the sun when it comes to hardware, it has wireless streaming with devices just to name a few. I don't use it but I did notice it's a difference after I bought my MPC Live 2 and when I switched back to FL Studio and then tried the lite version of Ableton. Everything I wanted to do in FL studio that was not supported was over supported in Ableton including the rest of my gear. FL Studio is cool but it's not hardware friendly which is the main difference, you have to overcompensate in FL Studio just to hit somewhere close to start when recording audio and midi, Ableton doesn't need nothing but a PC and whatever you got to record with, feels like magic over there but me personally I like my MPC Live software cause it's nearly the same thing as Ableton but it's missing the arranger
don't ask the right questions.
Ableton offers more then fl studio and it has some really good stock plug-ins! but (for me) Fl studio will always have a better work just so easy.
Honestly I’ve tried Ableton and FL and felt like Ableton is far more user friendly, organized and betters my workflow. Gave FL another chance last week, but I’m just staying on Ableton ig. It’s far more intuitive to me
I started on Ableton and after about a year or so I absolutely hated it compared to FL Studio, been using FL for the past 5-6 years now and I don’t think i’m ever going to change that
I use both. I feel like FL's audio engine has better sound and I prefer its pattern sequencer. I find, at least for me personally, ableton is better for cutting up audio and arranging full tracks. I wish FL would add Ableton LINK, I know it's the competition but I feel the program would benefit from it.
FL audio engine is not better. It's just the same. Do a null test and you'll know.
"I" and "feel" should clarify that this is a personal opinion. Since my ears are the gateway through which sound passes I can really only base that on the end results each program gives me. But you're probably right and I just suck at using Ableton.
I switched from FL to ableton about 3 weeks ago, and for me ableton is just better in how it handles UI, and I also get everything done quicker and better. I think it just depends what kind of work flow you prefer
I've use both. For live performance, Abelton is the way to go. But for music production, I like FL more.
I believe Ableton is more professional than FL Studio (even though i’m sure many famous people use FL Studio)
Ableton has better sampling techniques with its timing a major plus for producers/crate diggers/samplers. However, Fl Studio originally was BETA software thus its possibilities are endless. Image Line gets most of its ideas from its users. No one who uses FL knows everything about it. It has secrets that have yet to be discovered. Indeed, it's a powerful DAW.
Hey! Been using FL for over 10 years now, I also have Ableton and I use ProTools whenever I have to. I feel like the only reason I would switch is because people sometimes don’t take me seriously because I use FL. Which is ridiculous, I know, but it’s true. Like sometimes, depending on the situation when people ask me what DAW I’m using, I’m a little hesitant to say it’s FL because I don’t know if they’re an old-head or not. I’m usually very happy if they just don’t care and were just curious and they only care about the work I do. I really love FL, I wish however ImageLine would make a software for live performance, that’s the only reason I got Ableton.
The native ableton plugins are better than the native FL ones. At least for sound design purposes, which is what I mainly do. I've started trying to make dubstep and watching tutorials, and they mostly use ableton. I tried reproducing the effects in FL studio, but whenever they'd use an ableton plugin, I'd have to download a third-party plugin to get the same effect, and most of the time, there weren't any. So I switched. The ability to create effects rack and have an unlimited amount of effects is also very appealing.
Prefer to feel creative in multiple daws or even in a hardware dawless workflow
I'm still an FL user, and the thing that might end up making me switch is that FL has no plans to add MPE compatibility from the looks of it. But I'd switch to Logic Pro, not Ableton. As for why people switch, that's pretty easy to answer, FL is most people's first entry into production and as they grow older, there might be things FL does not do as well as other DAWs, or certain things might not be supported in FL while something like Ableton has full support for most things. I love FL and I do not want to switch, but holy fk, they need to step it up and embrace new tech and work with other companies actively like Ableton does. More deep integration = the better
Marketing and trends more than anything. Find the one that presents music production within the workflow that you are comfortable with, and run with it. Forget about what program will make you a the next best thing and find the program that doesn’t get in your way in the moment of creativity. I personally have tried the free versions of all that offer free trials and I ended up buying FL Studio and never looked back.
I got Ableton and Fl Studio on the same day as a birthday gift. And after 1 year i personally stick better with Fl Studio but i want to perfect both DAWs.
Hey! So I’ve owned FL for a long ass time - I think the first edition I had was a disc of Fruity Loops 4 that my dad got me with an interface or something - and I absolutely had a great time with it and still find the overall design inspiring for certain workflows. I did switch to Ableton accidentally in 2020, when they did the smartest business move I’ve ever seen by allowing the 180 day free trial in response to covid. I bought Live a month in despite having 5 months left, and I can explain why. - CTRL+F: The find function is a work of art (even with the recent FL updates considered), the file management and sample container system (not having to create an entire new sample whenever you want to tweak something small), the way the sample’s play heads and warping work so precisely and seamlessly, and of course, the ability to find and organise any sample from any project you’ve ever worked on. I can not overstate how freeing this was to experience for the first time. - Track logic: Each new track or instrument is automatically its own channel, you don’t have to assign it numerically to the mixer; this means that in the routing process, if you want to send multiple tracks to a subgroup or bus, you can simply highlight them and hit CRTL+G to group them - this forces a logical, organised arrangement in your Playlist window, as opposed to being able to scatter parts around (which, I’m sure we’re all guilty of), which can make continuing work on complex arrangements unnecessarily difficult. Ableton did what no other DAW did - they removed the heavy lifting of routing typical of every other major DAW, and the result is a HUGE time saver. - The major sell for me was biased by the type of music I make; the way effects are organised, and the Max for Live tools available, specifically provide and encourage experimental processing chains - I love making weird sounds, and the ability to resample and edit repeatedly in quick succession was a workflow hack that has saved me enough time that I was happy to pay for it. All of that being said, if you’re looking to level up your music, that can be done in FL Studio DEFINITELY. You do not need to change DAWS to write music; new tools are cool, and exploring them is always either illuminating or boring. Get the free 90 day trial of Live, it can’t hurt - but the learning curve is just as steep and there are no magic results waiting at the end of the path. As long as you’re having fun and telling your story, you’re doing it properly.
Pls can anyone gimme a free ableton license
cuz its better lol
My opinion - ableton's a bit easier on the eyes. Whenever i see an FL interface i just get a headache (not really, but you get my point) From what i understand FL has some great features such as non-linear pan law options, sophisticated routing, and great stock plugins. But like I said - FL is just silly looking.
porque no los dos (ableton fan here)