FL Studio Stock Effects (effects fundamentals and uses)
I only used the FL stock effects plugins that I had familiarity with but there are many other great stock plugins and a ton more third party ones. For free third-party plugins, In The Mix channel makes good videos on recommendations. For paid third party plugins, I use Guitar Rig which is ~$100 when it's on sale but I bought it before I knew how to identify/reverse engineer the effects I like. I don't comment much in this video on the other main type of plugin--sound generators--but I plan on eventually making a video on them as well.
Timestamps:
0:05 - Intro
0:53 - Signal flow
4:14 - Video overview
7:22 - Distortion (clipping)
--8:13 - Fruity Waveshaper
--11:54 - Fruity Blood Overdrive
--12:35 - Hardcore
--13:13 - Distructor
14:53 - Filtering
--15:20 - Fruity Parametric EQ2
----16:15 - Low Pass (LP) Filtering
----16:35 - High Pass (HP) Filtering
----17:30 - Band Pass (BP) Filtering
----18:10 - Wah and Resonance
--19:36 - Fruity Love Philter and effect automation through Low Frequency Oscillation (LFO)
21:11 - Dynamics (limiting, compressing, multi-band compressing, and gating)
--22:20 - Fruity Limiter
----22:40 - Limiting
----22:54 - Compressing
----27:23 - Noise Gates
--28:32 - Maximus
--29:54 - Soundgoodizer
31:35 - Chorus-type (chorus, flanging, and phasing)
--33:40 - Fruity Chorus
--34:24 - Fruity Flanger and Fruity Phaser
35:23 - Time (reverb and delay)
--37:24 - Fruity Convolver
--39:24 - Fruity Reeverb 2
--39:55 - Fruity Delay 3
--42:38 - Gross Beat
----42:38 - Time automations
----45:54 - Volume/Gating automations
47:31 - Balance
--47:56 - Channel Rack panning
--48:20 - FPC individual pad panning
--48:43 - Fruity Stereo Enhancer (effect panning)
51:18 - Patcher
53:06 - Messing around
1:00:05 - Exploring sample projects
LINKS:
Why squaring signal makes more frequencies (Fourier Transform):
• But what is the Fourier Transform? A visu...
Izotope chorus-type effects explanation:
https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/unde...
Image-Line effects plugins descriptions (all IL articles are super well written):
https://www.image-line.com/support/fl...
Image--Line video on distortion fundamentals and Fruity Waveshaper (so much better than my description):
• FL STUDIO Guru | Fruity Waveshaper and Dis...
Default demo project directory:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Image-Line\FL Studio 20\Data\Demo projects\Demo songs
CORRECTIONS:
-"convolution," not "convolvement"
-"Speaker" effects in the Distructor plugin actually simulate amplifier/cabinet combinations and has more to do with convolution algorithms (like Fruity Convolver and indeed using algorithms taken from it) which, broadly speaking, "applies the sonic character of one sound to another"
-I frequently misuse and/or mix-up words like "preset" and "plugin" and "harmonics" and "frequencies" so take me seriously, not literally
ADDITIONS:
-I didn't emphasize enough how the concept of "wet" vs "dry" signals apply to virtually every effect. You can change how much of the signal is affected with the "wet" knob next to the effect slot in the mixer track (if there's not a labeled knob in the plugin itself)
-Non-clipping based distortion includes things like bit crushing (fucking with digital audio resolution) and crossover distortion (flattening of waveform as it crosses between positive and negative regions) and really any way of fucking a signal is "distortion" (musicians would famously stab or otherwise fuck their speaker diaphragms to make the sound they produced grittier)
-The wah effect kinda requires moving through the affected frequencies with the peaked filter which can be done with real time mouse or midi controller movement or an LFO which is referred to as "auto wah"
-Another common and useful application of Fruity Limiter is "side-chain compression" or "side-chaining" which is useful for using the output of one track as a trigger for compressing another. This is very common for using the bassy kicks in a beat to trigger the song's other bass-frequency generators to duck out of the way, especially in electronic music with a "four on the floor" kick pattern
-A common sound design technique is to start with a simple signal and add a lot of higher/harsher/unpleasant frequencies through distortion and then filtering off the unpleasant parts with a low-pass filter
-Patcher has various presets in the style of "1 knob [effect]" where it presents a simplified skin and a single dial for different effects (much like Soundgoodizer is a streamlined re-skinning of Maximus). Navigating between the "map" and "surface" tabs for a given preset will let you look under the hood for any given preset
-I was torn on talking about ADSR envelopes but settled on them being more in the realm of Sound Design than Effects per se. Anyway, you can use things like "Fruity Envelope Controller" to affect how things like volume fade in and settle into a note press etc.