MIXING & EFFECTS

Effect slots 1 to 8

This section covers the Mixer effect slot functions and interface. Each mixer track can have up to 8 independent effect plugins hosted in slots 1 to 8 (8 as shown in the diagram at the bottom of this page). For a list of supported plugin standards, see Supported Effects Standards.

Using Effects

Loading effects: To load an effect plugin in banks 1 to 8, choose a free slot and open the effect popup menu (A) on that slot. In the Select sub-menu, click on the plugin you want to insert, or click More to see a full list of effects available in FL Studio (for more information see the menu description below). Note: Once an effect is loaded on any slot in a mixer track the FX icon (16) will light orange on that track to let you know effects are loaded (clicking on the FX icon will disable all effects in the track).

Delete an effect: Open the effect popup menu (A) on the slot of the target effect and select "None" in the Select submenu.

Edit effect parameters: The effect interface can be opened by clicking on the effect name label (B), to close the effect interface click on the label again.

Bypass an effect: Use the mute switch (C) to disable an effect (this switch is automatable). Note that the audio will still pass through the mixer track and any other active effects in the stack. The FX icon (16) will light orange on any mixer track with effects. Click on the FX icon (16) to disable all effects in the mixer track.

Effect mix: Adjust the wet/dry mix of each effect using the Effect Mix Level knob (D). Fully left = 0% effect, fully right = 100% effect mix. Note: Effects usually have their own internal wet/dry mix so adjusting the Effect Mix level to 100% does not guarantee a 100% wet signal.

Reorder / move effects: Place the mouse cursor over the effect to be moved and scroll the mouse wheel, the effect will move up/down depending on the direction of rotation. Don't move the mouse while performing this action as the effect will be released.

Effect Pop-up Menu (A) :

• Select - Contains a list of all effects selected as favorites. Selecting an effect from this menu will assign it to the corresponding plugin slot. Click More... to open the Select plugin window, which contains a list of all effects available to FL Studio. Double-click a plugin name to assign it to the effect slot. Click the check box preceding each plugin to mark it as a favorite (all effects preceded by a check mark will appear in the favorites list). NOTE: To see newly installed plugins, click Refresh in the bottom of the Select plugin window and select Fast Scan (it is recommended that you use Fast Scan instead of Scan & Verify, because the latter may crash FL Studio with some badly programmed plugins).
• Presets - Contains a sub-menu with a list of presets for the effect. Randomize gives random values to the published (i.e. known to FL Studio) effect settings. When enabled, selecting a preset will load a random 50% of the settings, so you can quickly mix different presets and create new effects. Hybridize blends between the previous and next selected settings. Tree Display displays the settings in a ‘tree’ view. The Presets menu is disabled if there is no effect assigned to the plugin slot.
• Browse Presets - Opens the plugin presets folder in the Browser panel. The Browser is able to display a large number of presets.
• Save Preset as - Allows you to save custom presets for the plugin assigned to the plugin slot. Presets are saved as FST files. It is recommended that you save preset files in the default location FL Studio chooses, so they can be properly detected and added to the Presets menu.
• Last Tweaked Parameter - Displays the standard popup menu for the last parameter tweaked on the plugins interface (applies only to automatable parameters). This option is useful for VST effects that have their own interface (as you cannot open the FL Studio property menu by right-clicking a control in them).
• Link all parameters - Opens a link-dialog that is designed to link automatable parameters to 'tweaked' hardware controllers and then automatically move to the next parameter in the 'parameter list' ready for the next link. The are options for skipping parameters or jumping to new locations in the list. Basic operation - Select Link all parameters from the menu, and move the first hardware controller to be linked (the link is made to the first item in the 'Current parameter' list), when you move the second hardware controller it will be auto-linked to the next parameter and so on, until the end of the parameter list is reached or the link-dialog is closed. To skip a link - left-click the Skip button at the bottom of the link-dialog (immediately left of the 'Accept' button). To jump directly to a parameter - use the Current parameter menu (top most in the link-dialog) and select the target parameter you are interested in. You can then continue auto-linking from that point in the list by moving hardware controllers as before or jump to another parameter in the list using the 'Current parameter' menu, as described previously.
• Browse Parameters - Opens the plugin parameters folder in the Browser panel. The Browser will list all automatable properties defined by the plugin, even if they are not automated in the current project.
• View Editor - Shows/hides the effect's editor window.
• Set Name - Opens a box where you can edit the name of the plugin.
• Smart Disable - If this option is checked, FL Studio will pause the effect if the mixer track it belongs to receives 4 seconds of audio silence. The plugin will resume again at the moment any sound is received in the track. This feature works smoothly, without clicks, pops or other artifacts while enabling/disabling the effect, but it will not work correctly with plugins that apply "long effects", such as reverb that has more than 4 seconds long decay, delay lines and similar effects. However, it will work fine with all kinds of equalizers, flangers, phasers, compressors etc. Using Smart Disable may significantly reduce the CPU usage of your songs.
• Move Up - Moves the effect one slot up.
• Move Down - Moves the effect one slot down.

Note that you can also access this popup menu from the effect's own options:

Mixer reference diagram

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').