DIESEL die537

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2024.04.18: hi

i've got a bunch of beats down right now and i really want to post them but there's this overwhelming sense of hopelessness about my career and about the potential of creative work as a job. it's a little sad to think about but it's not looking very promising with my living situation and my lack of income. my work is usually pretty sporadic and spontaneous but there's more creative room to breathe when i space out my projects a little more and have honest enthusiasm about what i'm doing. i've been thinking about doing some kind of review channel for people who aren't exactly interested budget-wise in the highest-end products. there isn't really a lot of representation in that space for people who just need a plan on a budget but who are still enthusiastic about the tools they use for their work, like artists looking for drawing tablets, typists looking for keyboards, and stuff like that. it's hard to conceptualize, though, because most of the products i own, whether they're budget friendly or not, are pretty niche. i've got a laptop instead of a PC, so i can't be as detailed as a PC reviewer would be about the specific parts on the inside of the computer, how viable it is to attempt assembly, etc. although i guess part of the point of getting a laptop is to avoid having to construct it yourself like a PC. my keyboard is wildly different from those the average consumer would be exposed to, since it's ortholinear and split and the layout is custom-made, although to an extent that's something that can be attempted by anybody to varying degrees of success. i will say the ortholinear split layout is definitely helpful in avoiding long-term hand fatigue, or so it seems. reading about the remilia milady situation on maia crimew's blog made me pretty inspired to set up something like this for myself. i'm hoping i can do something about the show they have coming up, but if i can't, i can't, and that's okay. it wasn't exactly the material of the post that inspired me to do this, more just the value i saw in it as a form of expression. i got a few cans of spray paint recently and i've been meaning to figure out what to use them on, but i'm not sure where to start. i've got a fiio btr5 with a clear case that i could paint just to get the hang of it. the last time i had to use spray paint for anything was a woodshop project when i was 13, i can't remember what it was, though. anyway, back to what kind of dragged me into making this post:

people don't tend to really document the process of walking through how they grasped concepts from the very beginning anymore

and given the climate of social media and the way long-form instruction largely takes the form of video essays or college courses now, that's not something i really expect, either. but i think it'd be fun to run through some of the adventures of learning to make music and getting to the point of understanding that i've reached thus far. as someone now more familiar with music software who once wasn't, and frequently runs into friends who express similar hopelessness to that which i previously mentioned, i'm hoping it could be a useful tool, too.

step one: piracy

unfortunately, since this is a clearnet site, i can't exactly explain how piracy works, but i can definitely warn you not to investigate via tools mentioned in the piracy subreddit, which is also a convenient tool for verifying the validity of a cracking group and finding helpful tools to obscure your internet traffic if necessary. however, when you've got your hands on the right software, you can get pretty far without any other tools, and most are pretty easy to install. i would definitely encourage at least mentally noting the computer paths to the locations of your VST folders just in case you need them for some reason. i made the mistake of initially learning with iZotope Iris 2, but serum is a more useful tool in most instances and a good way to teach the mechanics of a digital synthesizer and how to manipulate it in a DAW. i prefer FL and will be explaining the way it works. this also serves as a learn-as-i-go experience for my ability to make a website. let's see how i fare.

step two: a DAW, or in my (our?) case, FL studio 21

FL 21 has a lot of menus and different ways to do the same thing in various places, like photoshop. i'll try to highlight the important parts to understand from top left to bottom right. my view might be different than yours, but generally things should make sense.

this is the equivalent of the title bar you are probably most acquainted with in all software. under File, notably, you can use Revert to last backup or the Recent projects tab to jump back into projects if something has crashed. this is something you will probably run into fairly often with FL, at least compared to other software you might be used to. the New from template section can be useful for building projects if you're into working with the templates, but i'm not going to be walking through any of them. it might be easier to pick ones you want to use when you've got a better grasp on everything else in this blogpost.

the Edit tab is something you'll almost exclusively use to roll back changes you've made, since the Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Alt-Z scheme for undos and redos is a little hard to grasp for some, and it also lets you know what you're about to undo or redo to give you a better sense of your edit history.

i almost never use the add tab, but it can be useful to spring from here to open instrument VSTs. i'm going to be foregoing it for now, but it's not something you need to exactly avoid, and it shouldn't be too confusing to navigate.

the Pattern tab can be useful for converting MIDI tracks bound to VSTs into workable audio files, which is a good way to lower the stress your computer will be undergoing while navigating this software, as well as for organizing your work. you can access almost all of its features by just right-clicking the patterns you're working with, which is easier for me, but you do you.

definitely note the shortcuts in the View tab. there are lots of FL-bound windows that you will want to pop in and out of your field of view, like the piano roll (F7) and maybe the touch controller (Alt-F7) if that's your style. the Tempo tapper is also a useful tool for getting an idea from your head into the workspace more seamlessly, or working out BPM from audio you might not have on your computer. this is also the place you can go to change the background image and customize the theme you're using a little without getting too technical with it - it supports practically any image file you can throw at it.

the Options tab is a bit more difficult to navigate, but still pretty important and definitely worth explaining. if you don't have a MIDI keyboard, you don't need to worry about MIDI settings, but if you do, make sure you assign it to a port and navigate that port to the VSTs you're looking to connect it to.

this is a peek at my audio settings. the FL Studio ASIO is probably the best option in that drop-down you can ask for unless you've got some pretty fancy equipment, which i don't. you generally want your buffer length as small as possible without causing your computer to lag. the smaller your buffer length, the more resources your computer needs to process the audio it's trying to play back to you. this relationship is exponential - at longer buffer lengths, you see diminishing returns on computer resource usage, and at smaller buffer lengths, you see exponential growth in computer resource demand with very little gained in latency. if you're not working with live audio, you probably don't need a very low buffer length. that's why mine is so high in the screenshot.

you can open this window by clicking on the buffer length box. pay attention to the checkbox at the bottom. you want this to be checked. it's pretty important that your audio clips at 0dB instead of having a ghost limiter on your audio that you can't change or do anything with.

the options menu is also where you can select your theme. you should do this. it is absolutely worthwhile and significantly upgrades the user experience. there's also a section in the General tab dedicated to animation smoothness that's worth messing with just to see if it makes the interface a little more malleable or engaging to you.

Tools and Help are tabs i sparsely use, but if you like having your melodies pre-arranged for you by the program, check out the riff machine in the tools tab. what have you got to lose except originality?

here's your master volume knob (i find things easier when i just choose not to touch this guy! you already have a native desktop volume, you should use that instead!), your pattern/song switcher, your play and stop buttons, your Record button (which has a variety of capabilities), and your tempo. patterns are distinct elements that can go into a song usually composed of MIDI data bound to certain VSTs/generators or sound files, and the "song" is a combination of all your patterns. this will make more sense soon. VSTs are usually generators, as in sound generators, or noisemakers; digital sound machines. the MIDI data you plug into a pattern will have to be bound to a generator or sound file to trigger the notes and actually make music you can hear.

definitely don't press the Don't ask this in the future button here. this is a menu you might want to open for different reasons. the first will open an effect bound to a mixer track (this will make more sense in a second) that hosts audio from your input sources, like any microphones you have plugged into your computer, and provides a menu for you to more directly edit it before rendering it and then adding it to the song. generally, this isn't necessary. recording audio directly into the playlist as an audio clip is probably more than enough for most purposes. edison is a tool that can be useful in certain scenarios, but you can always just choose to take audio you've rendered into the playlist and put it into edison later. pick Notes and automation if you want to record MIDI input and Everything if you want to record... everything you have going on into the playlist.

here's your master pitch knob (again, you probably don't want to touch this! you have very little to gain from adding or dropping cents from the pitch of your playback! just play it in its actual pitch!) and your song position selector. this can be useful for jumping to certain sections of your song, but it's not always the best way to navigate your song. i personally never touch this section of the interface.

these 10 buttons are very important. the first is a metronome toggle, which isn't useful in actually listening to your song, but is useful in determining if you've quantized sounds correctly or if any vocals you're working with are in time with the rest of your song. the second is a toggle that disables playback until input (usually MIDI input) is received. this isn't useful in most cases. the third option toggles on or off a 3-quarter-note-countdown before beginning recording when you opt to record anything. this can be useful for readying equipment or your voice before recording over your song. the fourth is an overdub toggle. using this will cause the song to loop at its end while recording and let you record over your prior recording, useful for adding drum audio after recording a keyboard melody or for other similar use cases. the fifth toggle controls whether the recording loops in the first place. with the fourth toggle off and the fifth on, your recording will still loop back to the beginning of the song after it finishes, but will overwrite your previous recording. the sixth toggle enables or disables the conversion of keyboard inputs to MIDI inputs on some VSTs. this can be useful if you don't have a MIDI keyboard (like me), but is still something i rarely do, since transposing outside of the two octaves it picks for you to work with is obnoxiously difficult compared to just painting notes and using the transposition tools already present in the piano roll. this will make more sense soon. your seventh toggle will make things auto-scroll when on and will let you view positions beyond what's being played when off. this is a subject of preference. your eighth toggle will allow you to record "one step at a time," making otherwise precise recording significantly easier in the case that you want to record precise melodies from a MIDI controller or your keyboard into software. your ninth toggle controls whether you can change individual characteristics of patterns that are grouped together, like groups of layers in an art software being edited either as a group or on a layer-by-layer basis. your tenth toggle, if you're interested in using a MIDI controller, is a good one to hover over and press F1 on to learn more about.