MIXING & EFFECTS

Levels and Mixing

This section describes how to accurately set the levels of your final mix.

Summary

1. Main volume fader.
2. Master Mixer track fader (14), see below.

Understanding Peak Meters

A major function of the mixer is to adjust the relative levels of your track/s. It is important to get the loudest parts of the mix very close to the maximum possible level while avoiding clipping in the final mix. Clipping happens when a sound wave carried inside audio equipment (analog or digital) becomes louder than the maximum volume that can be reproduced. Clipped audio appears as if the tips of the peaks have been ‘clipped’ off (you can view waveforms in Edison). Clipping usually sounds like distortion or crackling.

Usually, when a peak meter flashes red it means the track is clipping. However, the audio inside FL Studio is in the digital domain with ’32-bit floating point’ numbers used to represent the soundwave and so almost any amplitude may be carried by the mixer without clipping (there are no physical limitations). In other words, the volume carried in tracks 1 to 64 (3) can be added together to make any arbitrarily large number - there is nothing to 'clip' because we are just adding numbers together. However, when the mix is sent to the outputs of your soundcard, or is represented in a fixed bit-depth (e.g. 16 or 24 bit), then clipping can happen. Given that the Master mixer track (1) is usually the output to the 'physical world', the Master track peak meter is the only one that matters in terms of peaking over the top of the scale, the rest are merely guides to the relative volume in each track. Of course, if you have routed the output of a particular track (7) directly to your soundcard, then it too becomes a 'real world' meter and red over-peaks indicate clipping.

How to adjust levels of the final mix

FL studio has a Main volume, in the menu bar AND a Master Track Volume (14). To ensure the Master mixer track level is an accurate reflection of the final output -

1. Make sure the Main volume is at the default level (right-click and select 'Reset'). Use this only as an easy volume control when listening to projects, not when mixing them.
2. Adjust Mixer Track Faders and or Channel volume knobs to obtain the relative instrument levels you desire in the mix.
3. Use the Master Track fader (left most track in the Mixer, 14) to adjust the final level. Consider also, placing Fruity Limiter in the last FX bank of the master track. Limiting is a form of automatic volume control.

1. Mixer Menu - Contains view, recording, Track linking, renaming and coloring options, click here to learn more about the options.
2. Mixer Track Scroll Bar - This will slide the visible range tracks within the mixer window.
3. Mixer Insert Tracks - The output of all audio instruments in FL Studio is routed to one of the 64 available insert tracks. In the default Mixer setup, once the audio signal is processed with the integrated filters (equalizer, volume and panning - 9) it is then sent to the master mixer track (10). It is also possible to route the audio of a mixer track to any ASIO output (7 - for users with ASIO enabled sound cards) or even another insert track (18). This internal re-routing is a very powerful feature allowing you to create advanced mixer setups with groups and subgroups of insert tracks.

   The labels can be right-clicked (or press F2) to rename the track or recolor it. Quick linking of channel/s: From the Channel window use the Channel selector to select the channel/s you want to route to the mixer track, then select the desired destination mixer track and click Ctrl+L. There is also an option to sequentially link Channels to tracks starting from the selected track. Shift+Ctrl+L.

4. Send Tracks & Selected Track - Send: There are 4 mixer tracks dedicated to send functions, although any track can serve as a send, (18). The send tracks can't be directly linked to instrument channels, but they can receive audio from other mixer tracks (1 to 64). Adjust the amount of signal sent by each Send track with the Send Level knobs (15). The purpose of send tracks is the ability to setup common effects (for ex. reverb and delay) once in a send track and then being able to route multiple insert tracks audio to it, as opposed to adding the same effect in each insert track, wasting CPU power. Selected: This is a special track that automatically receives the currently selected mixer track. Use this to host an instance of Edison for easy recording of any track OR the Wave Candy visualization tools.

5. Big Peak Meter - Can be hidden using the Mixer menu (1) > View > Options. Output is in dB. See Levels and Mixing to learn more about using peak meters in FL Studio.
6. External mixer input - ASIO hardware inputs and some VSTi inputs can be selected here.
7. External mixer output - ASIO hardware outputs can be selected here. Typical uses include live-use where one channel is sent to headphones for monitoring previewed samples/mixes while the main mix goes to the PA OR to create a surround sound sub-mix by sending several mixer tracks to the relevant surround channels of your soundcard.
8. FX slots - Up to 8 independent FX may be added to each mixer track. To load an Effect: Left-click on pop-up menu arrow at the left end of the slot and use the 'select' option. If you need more than 8 Effects, use the 'Send' feature (18) to route the output of one mixer track to another. To open an Effect GUI interface: Left-click on the name of a loaded Effect, a loaded Effect is displayed in FX slot 7 above.
9. Mixer Track Properties - For more detail click here. Parametric EQ, Stereo Separation , Pan , Swap Stereo Channels, Invert Phase . The All these features are automatable. Panel (A) is the graph for the Parametric EQ, left-click to control center frequency (left-right)/amplitude(up/down) or right-click to control bandwidth (left-right)/amplitude(up/down). Panel (B) can be left or right clicked to gain simultaneous X/Y control over Pan and Volume. Panel (C) holds the controls for Plugin Delay Compensation.
10. Master Mixer Track - All audio output of FL Studio is routed through the master mixer track for final processing before the final output (unless an insert track is routed out of the mixer to an ASIO output - 7). In light of this, the Master track isn't a good place to record external ASIO inputs (6) as the external and internal audio will be mixed together and recorded to disk.
11. Small Peak Meter - See Levels and Mixing to learn more about using peak meters in FL Studio.
12. Mute Switch - left-click to mute/un-mute the individual track, right-click to solo/un-solo the individual track.
13. Pan Knob - this function is also duplicated in the Mixer Track Properties area.
14. Level Fader - Can be automated right-clicked and linked to controllers. This function is also duplicated in the Mixer Track Properties area.
15. Send Knobs - When the 'Send' switch is activated (18) this knob (on the destination track) controls the signal level received from the source track.
16. FX Enable/Disable Switch - When deselected this disables all the FX in the FX slots (8). This only becomes active once an FX is added to a FX slot.
17. Track Recording Switch - When selected (orange) the track is armed and any audio (internal or external (6)) will be recorded to disk.
18. Track Send Enable Switch - Left-click to enable audio to be passed from one track to another, turns orange. Right-click to route to a specific track, master routing disabled.



NOTE: Most controls are automatable (right-click and select 'Create automation clip').