CHANNEL SETTINGS

Miscellaneous Channel Settings (MISC)

The Miscellaneous Channel Settings page contains various generator settings. These settings appear in all instruments (including third party ones).

1. Levels Adjustment

This section contains four knobs that control the:

• Panning (PAN) - Channel panning (Left to Right)
• Volume (VOL) - Channel volume.
• Modulation (MODX/MODY) - Assignable modulation parameters.

Essentially, these duplicate the functionality of the other controls found in the Channel Settings window, but are useful for two main reasons:

Easier automation - You can, for example, create a fade in/out effect for a channel using the volume adjustment knob instead of the channel volume control. This allows you to independently set the overall volume level using the channel volume knob, without needing to recreate the automation data. Similarly, you can set the pan adjustment knob to create panning LFO without automating the channel pan knob, i.e. adjust the overall panning without recreating automation data.

Wider range - The volume adjustment knob has a range of 0% to 200% compared with the channel volume knob (0%-100%). Thus, you can preamp the volume up to twice as loud as the original level without needing additional effects.

2. Cut / Cut By

Cut groups are arbitrary numbers used to identify Instrument Channels as belonging to a Cut or Cut by group. Cut groups are used so that an instrument channel can either silence other instrument channels when it plays (Cut) or be silenced by other instrument channels (be 'Cut by').

• Cut - The current channel will silence (cut) any activity in channels that have their Cut by set to this number.
• Cut by - The current channel will be silenced (cut by) any activity that appears in channels with their Cut value set to this number.

Example: Of two channels, one has a open hi-hat sample and another a closed hi-hat sample. You want the closed hi-hat sound to stop (cut) the open sound, so that it sounds as if the hi-hat has slammed shut (open to closed hat sound).

1. Set the closed hi-hat Cut group (LCD on the left) to 1 (for example) and leave the Cut By group (LCD on the right) at the default "--" .
2. Set the open hi-hat sound Cut by group to "1" and leave the Cut group to the default "--".

The open hi-hat is then listening for any activity on cut group 1 and if the open hi-hat channel hears activity on Cut group 1, it will stop playing. Alternatively activity on the open hi-hat channel won't affect the closed hi-hat channel since its Cut by value is set to none "--".

Cut itself: This button causes a channel to cut itself by setting the Cut/Cut By values to the same number. FL Studio will do this automatically if you check the Cut Itself button (this can also be accessed by right-clicking the channel button and selecting 'Cut itself' from the pop-up menu).

NOTES:

1. Stepsequencer vs Piano roll - The Cut itself (Cut 1 By 1) feature will work with Stepsequence notes but does not work with Piano roll notes. You can, however, use Piano roll activity from one Channel to cut note activity in another using the Cut/Cut by feature.
2. The release envelope - The Cut function works with the note data sent to the plugin (it is not an audio function like turning down a channel volume). 'Cut' sends an all-notes 'off' (release) command to the plugin on the channel so all playing notes jump to the release phase of their envelopes. If your instrument has long release envelopes, you will still hear the notes fading out after they have been cut.
3. Cut/Cut by - Does not appear in the TS404 instrument (dry your eyes).

3. Polyphony

• MAX - Drag up/down in the Max Polyphony LCD (MAX) to reduce the maximum number of voices the channel will play simultaneously. Setting this property to a lower number reduces the amount of CPU used to play the song. If the LCD displays dashes, it indicates that polyphony is unrestricted.

• Mono - Turning on the Mono button sets the instrument to monophonic mode (maximum one note played at a time). In this mode, when two notes overlap (the overlap amount does not matter) they will "slide" one to another (including their properties - cutoff, resonance and panning). You can set the transition length with the Portamento Time (SLIDE) knob (see below).

• Porta - Turning on the Porta button enables the portamento feature for this channel (sliding the pitch from note to note). In FL Studio the portamento transition also includes all other properties of the note (cutoff, resonance and panning).

• SLIDE - Portamento Time (SLIDE) is used to set the slide length when portamento is turned on. Also used for overlapping notes in monophonic mode. The more the knob is turned right, the longer the slide.

NOTES: Portamento and sliding of overlapping notes is not supported by DXi and VSTi instruments. It may also not be supported by some Fruity Plugin instruments (those that do not support pitch bending).

This section will not appear in a TS404 channel, because it works only in monophonic mode.

4. Preview Keyboard (Root note: & Zone:)

The preview keyboard allows you to preview the channel instrument (left-clicking on the piano-keyboard), set the root key (right-click a key), and set key region (left-click and drag on the ruler).

• Root Key - The default Root Key is C5. The bright orange rectangle in the ruler above the piano key (C5 in the example above) shows the root key of the channel. Right-click on the ruler above the desired Root Key to change the setting. As each sample has particular pitch, FL Studio needs to know what key should play at the original pitch. All other notes are generated by changing sample's speed (and so pitch), setting the root key higher will cause a given key to sound lower in pitch. NOTE: You can use this feature to change key of your MIDI controller (with sample based instruments make sure Add to key is also selected, see below).

• Key Region - The lighter orange bar in the ruler above the piano keys. Left-click and drag on the ruler to define the key region. Once created, edit the region limits by dragging the end points. Setting a key region for a channel will cause notes outside the region to be ignored (so not played). This can be useful when using a channel as part of a Layer, to create multi-sampled instruments (e.g. selecting a different sample to play over each octave).

• Enable Main Pitch - If you turn off this option, channel's pitch won't be altered when you change the main pitch value (see Main panel).
• Add to Key - This option only affects multi-sampled instruments where more than one sample is spread across the keyboard (e.g. SoundFont players, DirectWave, Fruity Slicer, Slicex). Plugins with single-samples stretched across the keyboard or synthesizers are not affected by this option. ON: Root key transposes note input (use this option if you want to transpose your live MIDI keyboard playing). The Root Key offset transposes the MIDI keyboard input to the instrument so if you play C5 with an offset of +4 semitones the instrument will receive instructions to play D5. OFF: Root Key transposes source samples. The Root Key offset will re-pitch all the samples used in the instrument by the offset amount. This will sound bad with most multi-sampled instruments.
• Reset - Sets back the default base note and removes the key region (all notes will be played). For the Sampler & DrumSynth that is C5. For SimSynth it depends on how the preset was set in SimSynth.
• Sampler & SimSynth/DrumSynth - (not shown) These buttons appear only in Sampler instrument, when SimSynth or DrumSynth preset is used to fill the sample bank in Sampler Channel Settings. If the Sampler button is clicked, the base note you set in preview keyboard is used as usual by the Sampler as a base tone of the sample (in this case the sample generated by the SimSynth/DrumSynth preset). When the SimSynth/DrumSynth button is clicked, the base note is used by the SimSynth or DrumSynth engines respectively for a pitch of the sample generated.
• Fine tuning (FINE) - You can use this knob to fine-tune the base note in cents (1 cent = 1/100th of a semitone).