I have had alot of requests lately to do new tutorials on fruityloops! This is fine. Just one thing you have to understand is, i don’t write in fruity loops anymore, i use Ableton Live 7. If however you do want some specific FruityLoops tutorials written, i would be happy to do so, but my time must be paid for. So if you would like a tutorial, please donate with paypal below and i will write up a tutorial for you. $25USD for a medium length tutorial like the Drum and Bass one, or $40USD for the big ones like techno tutorials. Thanks everyone!
Nightgen.com & USB Presents:
Nightgen Special Mix Session – 17th August 2007
Starting this friday @ 1600 & Closing @ 0400
Timetable:
1600 – K fog.
1730 – Dj Kelt
1930 – Hierro
2030 – Zina & Mandy
2130 – C. Loedemann
2300 – VoiDeT
0040 – Bassbottle
0200 – Verstörer
Check out nightgen.com for more details on the forums!
Web Flyer::
Just bought a copy of Ableton 6. What does this mean? Well i don’t think there will be too many more Fruity Loops tutorials. However be prepared for some ableton tutorials in the near future 
Any recommendations are welcome now!
Alot of you have tried the fruity loops tutorials, and come out with some great results. I really appreciate the nice comments coming back in. I am writing this, incase you are wondering who i am, and what i make exactly. Well i am a hardtechno/schranz DJ, and i mostly produce a weird form of techno, synth tech lol or something best describes it. If you would like to know a bit more about me and listen to my music, please go to:
Enjoy! 
I just got into mac software development.
I strongly recommend people read these free booklets:
Become an XCoder
Objective-C
Also i have purchased some great books from amazon which i will be getting stuck into. I tend to do this alot when i learn a new language. Read into it heaps before i get into the actual development. That way i know the full potential. But it takes me longer to get started. But at least i learn the right way, so i think.
My Books:
Objective-C
Cocoa Programming
Also subscribe up to this vodcast:
http://cocoacast.com/
When i was first researching i could find hardly anything on the topic, but there is alot of info out there. Even apple.com has lots of resources.
Today i will be guiding you through on how to make a PHP registration system for your website. You will need PHP version 5+ and mysql 5+ running and fully setup. If you haven’t got these running and a webserver system, please download acopy of xampp for your system: xampp. In this tutorial you will learn firstly how to structure your database to accept typical user information, connect to a mysql database and select the appropriate database, deal with HTML forms and user input, error check user input, and finally insert records into a database.
Firstly, and thanks to people who have commented, it has been brought to my attention my code is not secure. Please review this site: here as you go along! Next tutorial i will go about including these issues. Feel free to go through the entire tute my way, then learn these security measures, i think this is a good way to learn!
By the time we are finished, this is what it will look like + it will work:
1. Structuring your database with phpMyAdmin
So firstly load up phpmyadmin, if this is your first look at phpMyAdmin please read up on it a bit first, this tutorial really isn’t a look at the tools, but merely how to make what we want to make. Anyway, create a new database called ‘regtut’.
Next lets make our users table. This is where all the information on your users will be stored when they are allowed to register. So make a table called users. With the number of fields as 5. We will use these fields: id, username, password, email, datejoined in our database. So firstly type all these names in the field column with the data types of, int(6), varchar(63), varchar(63), varchar(31), varchar(127), timestamp, respectively. So your entries should look like:
Before we go ahead, we need to edit the id column. Make sure it is the primary key, and has an extra detail of autoincrement. By doing both of this you will firstly, make mysql associate the id column as a primary key, inturn will index the column, dedicating more system resources to the column which will result in faster queries on the column, and secondly, adding the autoincrement will +1 onto the current row number when a new record is inserted. For example. You start off on the first row, it gets an id of 1, you insert the next row its id is 2. However when you delete a row, the id number value wont decrease, but stay on the same row value.
So thats it for the database part, click save. Make sure you know your username and password, which you would of had to know inorder to get into phpMyAdmin. Now onto the php part.
2. Connect to the database
So now we are up to the PHP part of the tutorial, and this is what we are all after i guess. Make a new file on your webserver, called register.php. It will be a blank file, make sure you know where you put it on your webserver and going to the address. i.e. “http://www.godsdomain.com/register.php”. Next open the file in dreamweaver, or notepad, or whatever you use to see the text. Now we begin.
Lets add the php tags. type in:
<?php
?>
This declaration says whatever between these two tags is php code, so apache or whatever, should pass off any calculations and processing of the code in between to the php processor. Now what we want to do, is connect to the database, with our username and password used to connect to the mysql database. Inbetween these two tags, type in, but replace the values with what you use:
$config['address'] = ‘localhost’;
$config['username'] = ‘reguser’;
$config['password'] = ‘nightgen’;
$config['databasename'] = ‘regtut’;
What this does, is, simply store text into an array, variables. Variables always begin with a $ sign, and in php, can hold any data type, php is dynamic in setting the data types stored, which is nice. This code does nothing at all functionally, but we are getting to that now. Now we will add the database connections used by php. Below this code above type in:
mysql_connect($config['address'], $config['username'], $config['password']);
mysql_select_db($config['databasename']);
If something went wrong, such as a bad username or password you supplied, php will show errors on the page. If you just see a blank page, congratulations, everything worked just fine, and you have connected to your database. Next, the HTML part.
3. Building the form
Now we have arrived to building the html to our site. It is a basic userinput form. Type in the following, under the ?> tag, and i will explain below:
<form name=”reg” method=”post” enctype=”application/x-www-form-urlencoded”>
username: <input type=”text” name=”username” /><br />
email: <input type=”text” name=”email” /><br />
password1: <input type=”password” name=”password1″ /><br/>
password2: <input type=”password” name=”password2″ /><br/>
<input type=”submit” name=”submit” value=”register” />
</form>
So it should look like:
Of course your database connections should look different. Anyway, an explanation of what the HTML does. Firstly the form tag. This tells the browser, anything between the <form> and </form> tags, is one user input area. So any submit button in there, will only submit the fields inside the form tags. Which means you can have multiple forms on a page, and only submit a select number of user input fields on a page. The method variable in the <form> tag states that we should use the POST method to transfer the data to the server, which is passed through with a transaction, instead of GET which users requests via the address bar. Don’t worry too much about that or the enctype.
Next we have the username field, which allows text inserted into it (the type) and has a label called username, which we use to receive and handle the in putted data later. The same is with email. Password 1 and 2 have the input type of password, which means it just shows stars to conceal the data entered on the screen. Both have different names, which again will help us later. Lastly comes the submit button, which will send all the data in the form, to the server, which is our next part.
4. Handling user inputs
We now have a nice form, and a database connection, next we have to handle this user input to make sure all data was entered correctly, and fits to how we want it. But first, lets make sure our form is working ok, and to show you how we will be handling the data. Back above the ?> tag now, insert this:
echo $_POST['username'];
Now go to the page in your browser, fill in the username field and click submit. You will now see the form again, and whatever you typed in the username field. We access any information sent to the server, via the $_POST array. See how our labels come into effect now? Anything we named in the form and input fields, is now accessed via the $_POST array. For example, email; $_POST['email'] and password1 $_POST['password1']. Try it out. Now we will make sure the user has imputed correct data. Firstly test to see if the form has been submitted, we do this by checking if the submit button has been clicked, or, if it has a $_POST value. So replace the echo statement we just used with:
if($_POST['submit']){
}
Your code should look like:
Excellent. So what this says, is, if $_POST['submit'] has a value, then do whatever is inside these shiny new brackets. Now lets do something within these shiny new brackets. Lets test if the username is firstly entered, if so it is at least 3 characters long, and that the username does not exist yet in the database. Type in the following, between the curly brackets we just made:
$_POST['username'] = trim($_POST['username']);
if($_POST['username'] && strlen($_POST['username']) >= 3){
$query = mysql_query(”SELECT `id` FROM `users` WHERE `username`=’”.$_POST['username'].”‘ LIMIT 1″);
if(mysql_num_rows($query)){
$error['userexists'] = ‘Username exists’;
}
} else {
$error['usernameinput'] = ‘Please enter a username of 3+ characters’;
}
Looks a hell of a lot more confusing right? Let me walk you through it, because the others i will not be explaining, as it just follows the same theory.
First Line: Get rid of any spaces before or after the user text input.
Second Line: If the username field has something in it, and the text entered has or has more than 3 characters then proceed.
Third Line: So the username was entered and it was long enough. Now search the database for the username that was entered. We use LIMIT 1 so it stops querying the database once a record is found, which is all we need to make an error.
Fourth Line: Tests to see if the query we made on the users table, found a username which matches the username the user inputted.
Fifth Line: Add to the $error array, with the identifier of ‘userexists’, the error text.
Eight Line: If the username was too small, or nothing was entered, add to the $error array with a request to enter a username.
Now we will test our user error checker works. Put this code next to user input field:
<?php echo $error['userexists']; echo $error['usernameinput']; ?>
Your code should now look like:
Great, you checked to make sure the user input went well. Now i will make the rest of the error checking, and you put it in, between those two main curly brackets, the ones that tested if the submit button was pressed:
Email Test:
$_POST['email'] = trim($_POST['email']);
if($_POST['email']){
if(!eregi(”^[a-zA-Z0-9]+[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]*@[a-zA-Z0-9]+[a-zA-Z0-9_.-])*\.[a-z]{2,4}$”, $_POST['email'])){
$error['emailerror'] = ‘Email Incorrect’;
}
} else {
$error['emailinput'] = ‘Please supply an email address’;
}
Password Test:
if($_POST['password1'] && $_POST['password2']){
if($_POST['password1'] != $_POST['password2']){
$error['passmismatch'] = ‘Passwords don\’t match’;
}
} else {
$error['passwordinput'] = ‘Please enter your password in both fields’;
}
Also add the error reports next to the form with:
<?php echo $error['emailerror']; echo $error['emailinput'];?>
<?php echo $error['passmismatch']; echo $error['passwordinput']; ?>
Yayyy so your page should now look like:
Now, all the error checking works. So what does this mean? Well we will check the $error variable now, if there are no errors, do something, otherwise keep showing the page. So just above the ?> tag, insert an if statement:
if(!$error && $_POST['submit']){
} else {
What this does, is, if the $error array is empty (checks empty with ! to see if it returned a 0) then proceed. If you didnt, have the ! sign, and if $error was empty, it would return a 0 and inturn would be false, it would then execute the else statement instead. We don’t want that, we want the form section of the site in the else statement. So add that to your page just above the ?> and we will add:
<?php
}
?>
to the very bottom of the page. So your code should now look like:
Right, so we will add something within this if statement, when there are no errors. We will now insert the user into the database! And also echo a thank you. This will conclude the tutorial also, yes, you’re at the end.
Between the curly brackets of the if (!$error && $_POST['submit']) statement, add:
$query = mysql_query(”INSERT INTO `users` (username, email, password) VALUES (’”.$_POST['username'].”‘, ‘”.$_POST['email'].”‘, ‘”.md5($_POST['password1']).”‘)”);
if($query){
echo $_POST['username'].’ is now registered’;Now let me explain. The first line inserts the records into the database with a mysql statement. Notice the md5 on the password. This encrypts the password for storage into the database, and makes sure no one can read nor decrypt user’s passwords if they got their hands on the database itself. If you are wondering, if i can’t decrypt it, what good is that. Don’t worry, you have no need to decrypt it. If you want to build a user authentication/login system, you just md5 the submitted password and see if the submitted password matches the md5′d password in the database. Confusing? don’t worry again, you don’t need to understand for this tutorial.
Next it checks if the query worked ok, i.e the user was inserted, then it says on the page, great, the user was inserted.
All worked for me! But debugging never stops, so if you find an error or a bug, let me know. Here is what i see
I hope this tutorial has helped you on your way to PHP programming! Perhaps, if i get enough requests, and nice feedback, i will extend this tutorial and show you how to make a user login system Enjoy,
VoiDeT
Source Files:
sql.txt
register.txt
register (with email mod).txt
**Note i forgot to add a check for existing emails. But if you weren’t sleeping during this tutorial, you should port what i did in the username check to the email check so that is an exercise for you to do.**
Fl Studio 7 – Start to Finish Techno Video Tutorial
Published June 1st, 2007 in Uncategorized. 1 CommentHey guys!
I had a crack at making a techno tutorial, but this time using video to show you. Well my capture program didn’t record the menus that i used, so it might be hard to follow step by step. I will be redoing this tutorial in the near future, but as a preview feel free to take a look.
You will need a program to view this file, no doubt. It is a flash video file, and you can use VLC player which supports all OS’s (within reason), Wimpy Player, or, GOM Player. All will work.
VLC Player
Wimpy Player
GOM Player
Feedback welcome!
But because of the no menus showing, i will not be advertising this video.
Fl Studio: Fruity Slicer & Drum & Bass Tutorial (Requiem For A Dream)
Published February 8th, 2007 in Fruity Loops. 37 CommentsThe last couple of tutorials have shown you the basics of what fruity loops 7has to offer. How the program itself works and how you can build a track from a mere series of patterns. Since i have now taught the basics of fruity loops 6 i will continue this fruity loops 6 tutorial series by examining the various elements of fruity loops 7, the packaged VSTs and various techniques that can be used within fruity loops 7. This time we will be looking through FL Studio’s Fruity Slicer instrument.
Fruity Slicer is an instrument that can load a WAV file and attempt to divide the WAV sample into various keyframe segments. From here you are then able to play each individual element, even out of order, of the sample. This technique of beats production and usage of samples can be used in various other music styles such as hip hop and jazz as many of these styles are based on the usage of samples cut from existing tracks. As i said above this tutorial will now be using the Fruity Loops version 7, which should be no problem to get your hands on if you have the lifetime updates package bought from image-line. So let’s have a look at the Fruity Slicer in FL Studio 7.
Tutorial Files:
requiem-for-a-dream-tutorial.zip
- Firstly set up your mastering channel like the one i made on the FL Studio 6 Techno Tutorial. Do this both on the mastering channel and the first channel. We don’t want to add any delay on the kick on the first mastering channel, we are making Drum & Bass here not a rolling techno kick that stomps the hell out of our listeners. Next we want a fast BPM (Beats Per Minute) on our track. Drum & Bass usually hangs around the 170 – 180bpm level, so lets set ours around there, i am setting mine to 173, just to be odd. Left click on the BPM LCD Panel and move your cursor up until it says 173 BPM.
- Now that we have our platform for quality sound lets get going with fruity slicer. Right click on the “Kick” Sample which is created by default on the Fruity Step Sequencer. Now select “Replace > Fruity Slicer”. You guessed it this simply replaces the VST with another, in this case the Fruity Slicer.
- Next Make sure the Fruity Slicer window is open, so you can see it. You should see a small window, that looks much like the other sampler windows. This fruity slicer is black, you can’t do anything with it at the moment, no sounds will come out. So what we need to do now is load a wav or mp3 track into it. Left Click on this button
and go “Load Sample”. Select the sample provided in the provided tutorial pack and click open. Or if you have the browser open on the left hand side of FL Studio 6 or 7, simply drag and drop the sample onto the blue lcd panel of Fruity Slicer. Done, you will now see on the step sequencer that fruity slicer has made a ladder in the piano roll. Patch the fruity slicer into the FX channel 1 and press spacebar to play. Doesn’t sound like 173bpm does it? - The current sample has been detected by Fruity Slicer to be a length of 8 beats. Unfortunately in this case Fruity Loops was wrong. So what we need to do is set the sample to a length of 4 beats. Stop the song and set the Fruity Slicer Sample to 4 bars by left clicking on where it says “8 Beats” and drag it down to “4 Beats”.
Sounds much more like Drum & Bass now right! You could even use this as a nice DnB beat. However we haven’t used Fruity Slicer to its potential yet; we could of just used a sampler to achieve this same effect. I don’t like the kicks in the loop so much, so what we are going to do, is rearrange the loop to our liking. We do this by messing with the Piano Roll, just like we did when we made a melody in the Techno Tutorial.
- So lets right click on the fruity slicer and select “Piano Roll” to open up the piano roll window. Here feel free to paste any rythm you want, remember this is only a tutorial, you are the muscian. But at the same time, this is a tutorial, and you want to see some drum and bass techniques. So feel free to look at my simple pattern below:
You will notice that the second window, below the notes window, has varied heights. This window here displays the velocity of each sample played, and also depicts how long each note is played. So what do you do if you have two notes played on the same beat? Or what do you do when you can’t clearly see which velocity bar belongs to which note. Simple. Let me explain how i changed the velocity setting for Slice #12, the chunky high hats.
- Select the “Select Tool” (No Joke) from the piano roll window
. Next click and hold the left mouse button over a region of notes you want. I selected the top 5 notes. Notice how both the notes and the velocity bars of the notes turn a light redish colour. Next we want to edit the height or velocity of these notes. Switch back into the paintbrush mode by clicking on the paintbrush icon in the Piano Roll window 
. Next simply left click and hold on the redish bars and move the mouse cursor up or down depending on the effect you are looking for. I turned mine down as the hats didn’t suit too well to the rest of my beat. - I edited my pattern to have a double kick at the start and more intense snares on a new pattern. Here is my second pattern. If you don’t know how to add a pattern, please review the FL Studio 6 Techno Tutorial.
Something handy to know; in the piano roll, if you want the exact size or length of a note already pasted, simply left click on that note/bar and then click again on a free place in the piano roll and the paintbrush tool will paste a note the same size elsewhere. This is handy so you don’t need to attempt to guess the size of the note. Also make sure you play around with the step sizes to get accurate note lengths. If you want to make sure your notes are cut off to the bar and are precise, press “CTRL + Q” to do a quick quantize.
- So we have a beat, but i like to get some melodies going with my tracks. So i decided to make the Requiem For A Dream theme song for this tutorial, it fits nicely with the Drum & Bass style i think. Go a head and add a Sytrus Instrument to your song. You can do this by going “Channels > Add One > Sytrus”. I used the pattern “Octaver Orchestra” in the Orchestral section of the presets. Next i turned down the pitch by left clicking on the purple rectangle and right clicking on “C6″ on the piano keyboard in the instrument options window. Complex i know so here is a screenshot:
Next go into the Sytrus’s Piano Roll (Right click on the purple rectangle > Piano Roll) whilst making sure you have selected pattern 3 or 2 if you didn’t make a variant of the drums. Input the following melody:
Press spacebar to hear our creation if you like. Next, if you know the theme song from Requiem For A Dream, there are tiny bells going through the song. Insert another Sytrus and select a new pattern. Set the base note, like above and the “C6″ to “C2″, so the notes should play out higher. I used the preset “Bach” which is found in the Organ presets. Turn down this instruments volume to 50% by left clicking on the volume knob next to the instrument and dragging down.
Next input this melody into the piano roll.
-
Next i made sure that both synths were patched through to FX Channel 1 where a fruity compressor was, with the preset complete mix set. I turned down this channels volume to 78%.
So we created a Drum & Bass beat with our new friend Fruity Slicer. We also got some melodies in the song to livin it up a bit. Now let me explain some more features of the fruity slicer that may come in handy in the future. The PS and TS options of the fruity slicer effect how the sample is broken up into pieces. How the pitch is effected or how much gap between slices should be brought in so as to maintain the 4 beats we need. PS deals with pitch and TS deals with gap. Perhaps PS means pitch stretching and TS means time stretching i am not sure, not that it matters anyhow. You can some nice effects with this tool.
The Att and Dec are two components dealing with how to treat each slice, how fast the slice should be played initially and how to treat the played sample in terms of offset. I don’t really touch these settings, but it can be useful if you are dealing with strings or other non-drum instruments.
Another fun tool is the arrangement generator in Fruity Slicer 
. This basically pastes various arrangement styles into the piano roll and helps to get new and sometimes random beats into your tracks. I don’t however use this option very much.
Lastly the two knobs down the bottom of the fruity slicer window help to break up the various slices. You can break up the slices depending on their low cutoff and or their high cutoff. You are able to simplify the slices posted into the piano roll (reducing your control over arrangement) or increase the complexity of the piano roll (reducing your ability to think). I usually leave them as default, but if there is a long and simple sample, i keep it simple by placing both knobs on the left. 
Well that is all for this tutorial. I hope you enjoyed my take on Requiem For A Dream and enjoyed learning a bit more about fruity slicer. If you have any disagreements or have some tips for myself please leave a comment. Also i would love to hear what you have made by yourself or even just a variation of my tutorial, so post a comment and i will get back to you. I think next tutorial will be more on mastering techniques, and less to do with composition techniques.
Export of Final Track:
requiem-for-a-dream-tutorial.mp3
The previous tutorial taught you mastering principles, adding and manipulating samples, including effects and effects layering techniques, using virtual soft synthesizers (VSTs), using the piano roll and arranging a pattern. This arrangement of patterns is where this tutorial will pick up from. Patterns are the platform from which an entire song is made up from. Patterns are merely an arrangement of various hits, events, automation etc that can be placed on what is called the “playlist editor” in FL Studio 6. Each horizontal line on the playlist editor hosts a new playlist, meaning, you can have a different drum arrangement on the Pattern 1 track and another on the Pattern 2 track, and then, when you play through your song the various patterns will play out, and you will have “a song” ad not just a pattern looping for 5mins. If all of this isn’t making much sense at the moment, don’t worry, all will be covered now. So lets get started!
- First of all open your song track in fruity loops. A nice shortcut i use to open the previous track i was working on is to press “alt + 1″. If you are new to fruity loops and don’t have a song, or lost the song you were making. Please download or follow the previous part of this tutorial series from http://blog.nightgen.com/?p=13. You can close all of the VST windows that load up, I.E close down the multiband compressor window etc. to make it easier to work.
- Next make sure both the step sequencer and the playlist editor are open by pressing “F5″ for the playlist editor and “F6″ for the step sequencer. Both windows should now be open. Now on the step sequencer we want to cut the melody from the sytrus VST and move it to another pattern. I like to separate my melody patterns and drum patterns so i can have more control over variations on my drum patterns, which you will see later on. So on the step sequencer, right click on the purple rectangle, orthesytrus VST with the tutorial preset and select “Edit > Cut”.
Next go to the playlist editor, and click on the text “Pattern 2″.
This selects a different pattern from the song, where you can input new arrangements and so back on the step sequencer. When you click it you will notice that all the inputted beats and hits on the step sequencer are gone. Don’t stress they aren’t gone, we just haven’t inputted any for Pattern 2 yet. Back on the step sequencer, right click again on the sytrus VST, where it says tutorial. Go “Edit > Paste”. Bam, our melody is back in our song, but on the pattern 2. Now this is where the song building begins.
- On the playlist editor, making sure you have the paintbrush tool selected, and snap to line selected:
paint 4 pink boxes on the pattern one horizontal line, and one big line on pattern 2 track. Your playlist window should now look like this: 
Sorry for all the images popping up now, just a picture says a thousand words, and i don’t want you to be pasting boxes on the step sequencer, that was what the last tutorial was about. Next, we want to see what our efforts have done, so we will go ahead and play the song. Make sure you have song mode enabled and not pattern, if you have pattern mode enabled you will just hear the selected pattern on the playlist editor, nothing more. So click song mode: 
. - Great, now lets add some variations to this beat. Right click on the last box of pattern one to remove it. Making sure the pattern 1 line is selected press “CTRL + SHIFT + C” to clone the selected pattern. A blank pattern will appear below it. Paste a box on the 4 bar (Under where we right clicked on the other box) on the new Pattern 2. Your playlist editor should now look like this:
Now make sure this new pattern is selected in the playlist editor and go back to the step sequencer so we can edit the beats. For the two top samples (The two kick drums) add a beat to the 3rd beat of the last bar. I.e:
If you just want to hear this pattern loop over and over, make sure you are in pattern mode. Otherwise let’s keep going in song mode and presss pacebar to hear our creation.
-
Too much rides! So on pattern 1 and 2, in the step sequencer right click all of the highlighted beats on the ride cymbal, i.e EB-trance_ride_2. We will add it in again later. For now lets keep making some different arrangements by pasting the first pattern and cloning it then editing it. I will make 3 more variations and post my final playlist and the variations i made in the step sequencer.
Playlist Editor:
Pattern 2:
Pattern 3:
Pattern 4:
Pattern 5:
- You can use the above patterns and arrangements for your song or whatever, i am just illustrating how to use the playlist editor to arrange and build a song. So go ahead and play your song, add tweaks, you are in control. Lets add in our rides however, to give the tech track a bit more power. Select what is now Pattern 7 (This should be free) and draw in the rides. Paste the pattern on track 7 from bar 17 till 24. Add in the other patterns, i.e the melody and whatever drums you made. My new playlist editor looks like this:
- Next we will add some automation to our track, because i dont like how the synth comes in at the moment. I won’t make a full track here, but i am just showing you the basics of how to compose a track with what FL Studio 6 has to offer. So lets slowly fade in our synth and add a filter! Firstly open up the FX Mixer by pressing “F9″. Select channel 6 which is the channel for our Sytrus Synth . On Bay 6 add the Fruity Filter Effect, not Fruity Free Filter (Fruity Loops 7 will have a new bigger and badder filter, yum yum). Back on the Playlist editor make sure Pattern 8 is selected. Then with the Fruity Filter window open set all of the setting to:
- Next right click on the “Cutoff freq” dial and select “Init song with this position”. This will make sure whenever the song starts, the dial will snap back to this position, and not the position that it ended on last time. Right click again on this cutoff dial and this time select “Edit Events”. You must make sure you are still on Pattern 8 on the playlist editor, or this may lead to some big confusion later on. A new window will pop up, this is where you draw a graph, which controls the parameters of the dial. So with the paintbrush tool selected, from the bottom left of the screen right click and hold to draw a diagonal line up to the top of the screen ending at the end of the 4th bar. I.e:
- Next step is to go back to the playlist editor, and paste a bar at the start of Pattern 8. You have just created an automation channel, which filters gradually the highs of the synth we made. Sounds good yeh ? You can do this for just about any parameter in fruity loops, just watch out which pattern you are drawing in the event, it can cause some headaches and frustration, believe me, i’ve stress tested this one. Here is my final playlist editor window:
- So continue to produce your song, add new elements, take some away. But now when you are ready, lets export our track. Make sure the song mode is selected, or you will export your track only with the selected pattern. Go to “File > Export > MP3 File”. You can export to WAV if you like, if you don’t like the LAME ENC which FL Studio 6 uses, or you wish to do further mastering in programs like Adobe Audition or SonySoundforge etc. But i think what we have here has enough punch, plus most of the mastering work is best to be done on individual channels and sounds, not on the final song as a whole. Anyhow, select MP3 File and select your save location. Next use these settings, although you can select a lower/higher bitrate when desired.
Yay. We have made a song, exported it to MP3 format and ready to upload to our friends/the web/record labels/radio stations whatever. This concludes my two part tutorial of how to makeaTechno track with Fruity Loops 6. Please if you have any tips for me and the others, or you would like to show me your final version of the track or you got lost before you even read the title of the post, please write me a comment here and i will get back to you! Hope you enjoyed this tutorial, i will be writing more tips and fruity loops news when i get the chance to!
Final Zipped Loop Package:
fruity-loops-6-techno-tutorial-part-2.zip
So it’s Tuesday night, another day gone by, and of course more memories made. I did alot of writing today, alot for this blog, some tutorials for Fruity Loops, almost 2000 words. I hope this brings alot of attention to the blog, my ideas and also some attention to my productions. But the problem is, next Monday i need to leave Germany. Leave Gütersloh. Leave Carolin. So the question is, what in the hell is going to happen, between the time i leave on Monday and when i come back to my Carolin on the 14th of July. Perhaps the time may bring us closer, or perhaps we might hit a wall. I mean this trip has been awesome. We have had our fair share of problems, for sure, just like any other new couple trying to find their feeting. But the good times have been so good, so much laughter and perfect understanding. Will i come back to Germany earlier? I hope my budget will facilitate such an endevour. I think we will miss each other so damn much. I mean there is only so much the internet can connect people. Grr…So ist das.
Fruity loops is a highly underrated program when it comes to music production software. I find the layout and usability of FL Studio top very ingenious. Songs are structured with on the basis of compiling various patterns and layering various elements of these patterns. Automation is used with effects and instruments to achieve various results and make the songs interesting. But today i would like to compile a fruity loops 6 tutorial, on how to make a techno track. We will start from loading up drum samples, then mastering these samples, then making a pattern structure, then implementing a melody with a softsynth provided and then finally doing some automation and exporting. Firstly a note, this tutorial will be showing true techno music, not some scooter or paul van dyk, they aren’t techno!
First things first! You need to have a Fruity Loops version 6 installed and working. When that is done open it up.
- Download fruity-loops-6-techno-tutorial-part-1.zip file which contains all of the audio samples i used in this song we are about to make. Extract these to the desktop then go into fruity loops: Options > File Settings. Then click on one of the folder icons and select the folder location of the sample pack you downloaded. Another method would just be to copy the samples into your root sample location. But meh! Both work for this tutorial.
- Next make sure you have the file browser open on the left hand side. Then search for your sample folder name and expand it to see the list of audio files in the folder. If you don’t see the file browser press “F8″.
- Now that we have the house cleaning stuff sorted lets first set up our master effects channel, so that when we are working with the samples they sound good and just how they would sound in the final mastering, well almost! So make sure you have the master effects channel open by firstly pressing “F9″ and then clicking on the bar that says master. Then click on the little arrow next to the 8th effects channel:
Then click on “Select > Fruity Multiband Compressor”. This compressor is new to Fruity Loops in version 6 and is a demon. Once you have then compressor loaded into bay 8, click on the name of it to toggle the window, make sure it is showing. In the top right hand corner of the Fruity Multiband Compressor are two arrows facing opposite ways. This is the preset toggle option. Right click on it and select “Mastering 2.4db”. Yay now we have a compressor. But for techno it is also good to have another compressor on the master channel to give it a bit more punch. So on bay 7 of the master effects load up the effect “Fruity Compressor” and select the “Complete Mix” Preset. - So we have our master channel set up, but we don’t have any sounds banging out yet. Lets get our bassdrum going. On the left hand side of the fruity loops window drag and drop the file name Fb0205.Bd on to the label “Kick” which is on the pattern selector. Make sure the pattern selector is toggled by pressing F6.
Next right click on the big rectangle thing that now says Fb0205.Bd, which before said Kick and select “Fill Each 4 Steps”. Press spacebar to play! You now have a meaty kick going at 140bpm. But we can make this sound better. So jump to step 5. - Left click on the sample, where it says Fb0205.Bd in the pattern maker window to bring up the channel settings window. The top right of the sample channel settings window has an LCD panel, which has two horizontal lines. Left click on it and whilst holding the left mouse button drag it up so it says “1″. You have now patched this sample into the FX bay channel 1. Which you should now see on the FX channel. We are going to load more compressors and EQ’s onto this thing. So in the FX channel 1, add another multiband compressor to it, and select the preset “maximize 2″. Add another fruity compressor on channel 7 and set the preset to “Brickwall”. Press spacebar to play! More power. Next in Channel 6 add a “Delay 2″ and set the cutoff to almost nothing, just so you hear a little bounce back. Yay a rolling kick! But you can’t make an entire track from a kick.
- Now its time for a second kick to give it more punch. Drag and drop the sample EB-house_kick-8 onto the Clap sample and fill it every 4 beats. Then patch that sample to the second FX Channel and add a fruity compressor on the 8th FX bay with the preset complete mix. Bam More power. If you just got lost here, do steps 4 and 5 again.
- So we have two kicks going, one with lots of bass and the other with punch. Now lets add some hats! Add Fb3407.Hh and EB-trance_OPhh_2 to the last 2 sample banks in the pattern maker. Set each to fill for every 4 beats and patch them through to FX bay 3. Now you can manually put in the pattern, or since we did fill every 4 beats, while holding the shift button and click where the green lights are in this image:
Once both have green lights hold the shift key and press the right arrow on your keyboard twice to move them on the 3rd beat of each bar. We got some hats going now! But they need some depth. In the 3rd FX channel add a Fruity Reverb 2 and turn the Wet parameter (On the right hand side slider) to 20%. You can find the measurement up in the top left of the fruity loops window, just under the file edit channels etc. menu. - Lets start adding some more elements. Drag the sample Fb2016.Perc just under the last sample on the pattern maker. Patch it to the FX Channel 4 and add a Fruity Delay Bank to the Bay 8. Click once on the right preset arrow (Top Right of the Fruity Delay Bank Window). Next on the FX Bay 8, you will see a little dial on the right of the FX i.e on the right of FX Bay 8 where it says Fruity Delay Bank. Set this to 30%. Add the reset of the samples and i will show you below what fx to make and what settings.
Sample Settings
Fb1309.Tmbr
FX Channel: 3
Channel Settings: Volume 25%EB-trance_snare_1:
FX Channel: 3EB-trance_CLhh_4:
FX Channel: 3
Channel Settings: Volume 50%Fb9410.Chd.Fexit:
FX Channel: 5Fb9502.Chd.Kvick:
FX Channel: 5bass 2.111:
FX Channel: 4
Channel Settings: Volume 55%EB-trance_ride_2:
FX Channel: 3
Channel Settings: Volume 60%FX Channel Settings:
FX Channel 5:
Bay 8: Fruity Delay Bank
Preset: 3 Echos
FB Filt Cut: 13% - So now we have the settings, you’ve added all the samples, and set up the patching to the FX Bays with the appropriate Effects settings and so. But you have no pattern! Well copy what is below!
If you can’t follow what is above, please see the fruity loops tutorial file provided. Press spacebar and enjoy your creation.
- Next comes some melody! Click up the top of the fruity loops window and click on channels > add one > Sytrus. This comes with the producer version of Fruity Loops 6 but can also be bought outright as a softsynth. Make sure the instrument window is showing, you should see a purple window. On the Left hand side, where all the samples for this tutorial file are located, locate the Tutorial.fst file in the file browser. It will have a little green s icon. Drag and drop this file on the Purple Sytrus Window. You will now have the patch, or soundtype made for this tutorial. Usually i do not use Sytrus for Techno basses, but it comes with Fruity Loops so i thought i better use it than give simple another sample file made from another VST Synth. Patch the synth through to FX Channel 6 with a fruity compressor with complete mix set as the preset and a paramatic EQ on the 7th bay with these settings: Set the FX Channel volume (The red slider of FX Channel 6) to 65%.
- Now that we have the right sound we need a melody. Right click on the purple rectangle in the pattern maker and click on Piano Roll. Making sure Line is selected here:
Enter in this melody with the paint brush tool. Resize and arrange as necessary.
- Now here is the trick. If you press space bar, the drums will stop and the melody will keep playing. This is because the melody is longer than 4 beats. So click on this orange button in the pattern maker window:
This will make the drums continue to play with the melody. So now we have a melody playing with the drums. Feel free to add more instruments or tweak the sound.
That is it for this tutorial. I have shown you how to add samples, do some basic mastering and layering. Use the effects channel, arrange beats, navigate through files and make a melody. Next i will continue this tutorial by showing how to arrange a full song with events and automation. Firstly continue to play with the samplers and options in all of the effects bays.
As i said before, the sytrus synth does not fully suit techno music. I think this synth has too much a metallic sound, not enough crunch and underlying bass. I recommend looking at Vanguard VST and Albino. Two powerful synths that i often use for my basses.
Here is an export of what you should be hearing: fruity-loops-6-techno-tutorial-part-1.mp3
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to comment here and i will gladly reply to you!
Part 2:
http://blog.nightgen.com/?p=25
So if you have been following my blog so far you may probably of realised i am in Germany right now, staying with my girl Carolin and her hardtechno head brother Jani. Last time in Germany i attempted, as i always do, try as much beer, german or not, as possible. This time it has been crazy. I have purchased 5 crates of beer so far, 24 bottles per crate, and am half way through my last crate. I really want to finish this last crate of beer before i leave home on next monday, just to say i accomplished something haha, a challenge of beer drinking. I just hope the family doesn´t think i am an alcoholic, i just like beer and when you have such a massive variety of beer as does Germany, for so cheap, why the hell no try and burn through as much as you can; while you can. So when i make the last crate, i will make a stockpile of all my beers and write a list of what i drank, from what i bought!
Whenever i do some university work, not too often, or if i want to chill out and get some thinking done like webprogramming or something i like to listen to minimal music. If you aren’t familiar with minimal music, it is a slow sort of music style. Usually it has a punchy sort of kick, and a laid back beat and percussion. Weird synth and click elements run throughout the tracks and really it is just a really relaxing style of music. So i thought i would share to you my favourite minimal radio station here on the web.
Web: http://www.deepmix.ru
128kbs: Here
56kbs: Here
24kbs: Here
Sometimes they have featured artists spinning live on the show! So check it out if you want to chill back or if you are curious about the electronic music style called minimal.
A friend of mine, harry_the_eskimo, a long time fan of JJJ has always been trying to convert me to the good side of Australian Radio, JJJ. I had always hated it, well thought i hated it. I thought they played weird music, and i was too focused on my own electronic style of music. But then i started listening to the radio stream at work, and fell in love with the music and the humor on JJJ. So then i started getting into it, looking at the forums, the features of JJJ outside of the radio. So here are some resources for those of you who want to get more out of JJJ.
Triple J Online
Website: http://www.triplej.net.au
This is the Triple J website. Here you will find all the information you need on the shows, the hosts, the festivals around Australia, competitions, get the hottest track names on circulation, and even download free mp3 files posted by featured Artists. There is also the Triple J Forum where you can dicuss whatever and post track information in order to help track down a song you are after.
Triple J Radio Stream
Website: http://abc.net.au/streaming/triplej/triplej.m3u
This is the radio stream for JJJ. Whatever is playing on the radio is on the internet stream here. When i tried to listen to the hottest 100 this year here in Germany, the server was damn full. Especially in the last top 10 countdown. So be prepared to get an unstable connection sometimes.
J Play
Website: http://www.jplay.com.au
This website shows the playlist from each day and session at Triple J. So if you hear a song on that you like, and don’t know the name of. Simply write down the time, or remember the time that you heard it, and then go to the site, look up the right playlist and bam, track name. Then you can go on super-request and request the song to hear it again! Or buy the music (Especially if its an Australian Band). However a note on the times. Because of Daylight savings time differences, check your timezone, and i think base it on the Sydney time, which is an hour ahead of Brisbane.
Triple J Unearthed
Website: http://www.triplejunearthed.com/
This is an excellent resource for bedroom bangers or bands that want to get out into the scene. You are able to create a biography of yourself/band and upload a maximum of 3 mp3 tracks to the website. Then you can get listeners streaming into your tunes, write comments and feedback and sometimes, if your track is good, it will get played on JJJ and then perhaps you might even get discovered. I am also on Triple J Unearthed, username is “Voidet”.
Triple J Hack Podcast
Website: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/
Hack is a featured show whereby the host picks a relevent issue in Australia and interviewsmany people in order to get a balanced view on the topic. It is evident that there is alot of research put into each hack edition, professors and industry specialists get interviewed, and alot of the time i would never of thought of the perspective that is answered/questioned. The hack editions are done each business day of the week, and i think they are compiled and produced on the same day that they are played; much work!
There are many more JJJ Resources however these are the ones that i have used most closely. It is amazing that JJJ is a government sponsored organisation, and that this in no way effects the views or bias of their political views. No brainwashing for the Australian public!
We went snowboarding in Winterberg Germany yesterday. We were a bit anxious, about the weather. It was raining all near us in Gütersloh and all until the highest point of the mountain. But once we got there, it started snowing, and even later it began to snow harder and harder.I had only been snowboarding once before, which was last year in Bayern, just on a local hill with an alpine board. This gave me the chance to find my feeting on the board and fly down the hill when need be. Funny thing was, i wasn’t the only beginner on the mountain with us. Carolin, the cute little snowboarder that she is, had big problems standing up and then getting going, but funny enough, when/if she did stand up, she could actually go snowboarding reasonably well. I think she had more board control and movement control than i did.
My biggest problem with snowboarding was breaking without crashing or falling in the most uncomfortable position possible. What i would do is instead of pushing the board flat and facing the way of the downslope, i would point my ass on the downslope and then slowly edge into the force of the break. Only thing with this is you can’t get good control and sometimes you turn off to the right or left, and then you run into some trees. I went down one of the steepest hills on the mountain, went damn fast, but of course i had to break sometimes, especially near where people are lining up to go back up the mountain. So i did one of my breaking stunts, but it didnt go too well, and i ended up with my head in a metal wire fence, which luckily was strong enough to stop me from landing in an icy pond…..with a snowboard on!!! Another bad fall was when i tried to break properly, but this time my board digged in at the front and i went face first into the snow, and jarred my neck so bad. People on the snow lift shouted out to me with laughter, so i replied the same! haha.
Damn i love snowboarding, but i am hurting so bad now, well worth it however. Main thing is, all of us: Carolin, Jan, Daniel and I learnt more about snowboarding!
So why do we write blogs? Does it start off that we want a personal record of emotions or actions, publically avaiable, for future use? Or is the desire to contribute to the pictobyte pool on the internet purely commercial. If for the first reason, why use the internet as a facility to publicise personal information? Why not just sit in bed with a journal or so? Do we really want other people reading our personal activities? And if so, why? Is it that we want other people to be interested in us? Or is it purely a buzz thing at the moment? Or perhaps an easily accesible means of inputing our data, and a nice way to display it? But then there are the comments. Do we want people commenting on what is good and bad about our lives? I am talking purely from personal blogs. Like i woke up in the morning at 8am, made a coffee and brushed my teeth sort of things. Just some points to think about. I am doing these blog entries because i want to see the reaction from the community. Also i am trying to compare the response from informative posts and personal posts!
Here are the streams for the hottest 100 2007. Windows media player! fun fun!
Enjoy!!
Finally Snow in Germany! This means snowboarding on Winterberg on the weekend. Hopefully Carolin and Jan will come! Well at least Jan has to come. Happy now. Cold ass winter and no snow = depression, or just bloody cold haha. Will see what happens, if i can manage to break something snowboarding and come back with a souvenier. Num num.
Its out! And i didn’t get it right. Eskimo Joe got #2. Good work!
Here is the playlist!
- Augie March – One Crowded Hour
- Eskimo Joe – Black Fingernails, Red Wine
- Hilltop Hoods – The Hard Road
- Killers – When You Were Young
- Scissor Sisters – I Don’t Feel Like Dancing
- Gnarls Barkley – Crazy
- Snow Patrol – Chasing Cars
- Gotye – Hearts A Mess
- Muse – Starlight
- Grates – 19-20-20
- Little Birdy – Come On Come On
- John Butler Trio – Funky Tonight
- My Chemical Romance – Welcome To The Black Parade
- OK GO – Here It Goes Again
- Lily Allen – Smile
- Peter Bjorn & John – Young Folks
- Grates – Science Is Golden
- Muse – Supermassive Black Hole
- Lupe Fiasco – Kick Push
- Regina Spektor – Fidelity
- Youth Group – Forever Young
- Tool – Vicarious
- Hilltop Hoods – Clown Prince
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Gold Lion
- Placebo – Meds
- Camille – Ta Douleur
- Strokes – You Only Live Once
- Saboteurs – Steady As She Goes
- Tool – The Pot
- Arctic Monkeys – When The Sun Goes Down
- Killers – Bones
- Butterfly Effect – Gone
- Cops – Call Me Anytime
- Red Hot Chili Peppers – Dani California
- Lily Allen – LDN
- Bob Evans – Nowhere Without You
- Bob Evans – Don’t You Think It’s Time
- Josh Pyke – Memories & Dust
- Butterfly Effect – A Slow Descent
- Basement Jaxx – Take Me Back To Your House
- Hilltop Hoods – What A Great Night!
- Grates – Inside Outside
- Angus & Julia Stone – Paper Aeroplane
- Lady Sovereign – Love Me Or Hate Me
- Karnivool – Roquefort
- AFI – Miss Murder
- Pony Up! – The Truth About Cats & Dogs (Is That They Die)
- Regina Spektor – On The Radio
- Arctic Monkeys – Fake Tales Of San Francisco
- Strokes – Heart In A Cage
- Something For Kate – Cigarettes And Suitcases
- Herd – Unpredictable
- Living End – Wake Up
- Eagles Of Death Metal – I Want You So Hard (Boy’s Bad News)
- Wolfmother – Woman (MSTRKRFT Remix)
- Hilltop Hoods – Stopping All Stations
- Josh Pyke – Private Education
- Sarah Blasko – Always On This Line
- Placebo – Song To Say Goodbye
- Hot Chip – Over And Over
- Foo Fighters – Everlong (Acoustic Live)
- Justice Vs Simian – We Are Your Friends
- TV On The Radio – Wolf Like Me
- Something With Numbers – Apple Of The Eye
- Bloc Party – The Prayer
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Phenomena
- AFI – Love Like Winter
- Darren Hanlon – Happiness Is A Chemical
- Beck – Nausea
- Ben Folds – Such Great Heights (Like A Version)
- Grates – Lies Are Much More Fun
- Jet – Put Your Money Where Mouth Is
- Matisyahu – King Without A Crown
- Snow Patrol – Hands Open
- Ben Kweller – Sundress
- Jet – Rip It Up
- Hilltop Hoods – Recapturing The Vibe
- Placebo – Infra-Red
- Sarah Blasko – Explain
- Wolfmother – Love Train
- Gnarls Barkley – Gone Daddy Gone
- Freestylers/Pendulum – Painkiller
- Butterfingers – Get Up Outta The Dirt
- Thom Yorke – Black Swan
- Infadels – Love Like Semtex
- Kanye West – Touch The Sky
- Ben Harper – Better Way
- Pendulum – Tarantula
- Arctic Monkeys – Mardy Bum
- Jurassic 5 – Work It Out (Feat. Dave Matthews Band)
- Panic! At The Disco – The Only Difference Between Martyrdom & Suicide
- Lily Allen – Alfie
- Lily Allen – Everything’s Just Wonderful
- Gotye – Learnalilgivnanlovin
- Eskimo Joe – New York
- Red Riders – Slide In Next To Me
- Pearl Jam – Worldwide Suicide
- Gossip – Standing In The Way Of Control
- Audioslave – Original Fire
- Blue King Brown – Come And Check Your Head
Bam! Will post the torrent or link to the hottest 100 stream if available!
Wow! Its been a while since i did a post. This time i can’t sleep. I went to bed at 4am after chilling out with Carolin’s brother Jan, drinking beer and listening to music. Then i had to/wanted to wake up at 6am to see my Carolin and say goodbye to her friend from Estonia. I had two cups of coffee to stay awake at the table, but it didn’t do too much until now, now i can’t sleep! haha. It’s Australia day, so, like every Australian i am listening to the JJJ hottest 100, it is a bit weird i must say. Here i am in Germany, listening to Australian radio, while many of Australians have the day off partying i am trying to get some sleep in Germany. I propped up my Australian flag on my window! I love this feeling, a sense of attatchment to the otherside of the world, and yet people around you still don’t or can’t comprehend the importance or significance of whats going on. Anyhow, up to the last two tracks on JJJ, i vote #1 Eskimo Joe – Black Finger Nails red wine! Wooooo I will post the playlist of the hottest 100 asap #1 is over! Woooooohoooo
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