Make a Basic Beat in Fruity Loops

Fruity Loops, or FL Studio, is a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) made by 'image-line'. It originated beat making and is now a professional mixing DAW. Here are some steps to a basic beat that can get you started on making your own.

Steps

  1. Open FL Studio on your computer. You will see a large rectangle (your playlist) and a small rectangle (your step sequencer), as well as a menu running vertically down the lefthand side of the screen. From this menu, find the “Packs” tab and open it. In here, you can select from different audio samples to build your beat. The different packs contain different combinations of instrument samples, so choose one that appeals to you.
  2. Choose your samples. Click on some of the samples to hear what they sound like. To create a basic beat, it’s a good idea to start with just a few drum sounds–a kick, hat, and snare is a standard combination. Choose one of each that you like and drag it to a sample slot in the step sequencer.
  3. Draw your beat. In your step sequencer, you will notice that each slot is represented by four sets of four boxes, alternating in blocks of black and red. Each block of four boxes represents one beat, with individual boxes representing fractions of the beat. Each individual box is called a 'step'. Highlight individual boxes by clicking on them. The highlighted boxes signify where each sample will be played in the sequence. To unselect a highlighted box, simply right-click and it will go dark.
  4. Try a sample pattern. Of course your beat is your own to build as you please, but much of rock and hip hop uses beats that are in 4/4 time. To create a basic 4/4 beat, highlight boxes 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15 on the high hat channel, 5 and 13 on the snare channel, and 1, 11, and 13 on the kick channel.
  5. Listen to your beat. Select pattern mode and press play. This would make your song play on repeat. If everything sounds good to you, you’re ready to move on to the next step. If you want to change the beat, repeat step three until it sounds the way you want it to.
  6. Arrange your samples. In your playlist, select the paintbrush tool and paint your sample pattern in the space beside “Track 1.” Paint as many bars of the sample beat as you want to hear.
  7. Play back your beat. Make sure that you switch the play mode from pattern to song, then hit the play button. You will now hear your beat played on repeat as many times as it has been painted on the playlist. You can change the speed by clicking on the tempo number at the top of the screen and dragging up to make it faster, or down to make it slower.
  8. Save your beat. In the file menu, click on the “Save” tab. Name your beat and hit the save button. This way you will be able to use the beat for future projects.
  9. Export your beat. To play it on an iPod or CD, you will need to create an .mp3 file by selecting "Export" in the file menu, then selecting ".mp3" and saving it to your computer.

Tips

  • The basic setups are:
    • Kick
    • Snare
    • Closed Hihat
    • Open hihat
    • Ride
    • Crash
    • Random Perks
    • 1 measure = 4 beats = 16 steps

Things You'll Need

  • Computer
  • FL Studio

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