SYSTEM SETTINGS

System Settings - Audio

To open the Audio Settings choose 'Options > Audio settings' from the main menu or press the F10 function key on your keyboard. The Audio Settings page contains options and settings for your soundcard. The settings chosen here can have a big impact on CPU load, so it is worth taking the time to learn what options are available. Note that some options change depending on whether an ASIO or Direct Sound driver is selected in the Output selector. If this is your first time to adjust the Audio Settings you may like to view the audio setup pages from the 'Getting Started' section.

Above left shows the Audio Options with the ASIO4ALL 'ASIO' driver selected (your card may have native ASIO drivers, if so use them), above right the less efficient 'DirectSound', standard Windows driver.

Soundcards & Soundcard Drivers

Soundcard: The term 'soundcard' is used rather loosely, you may have a soundcard in your PC, a chip on your motherboard or it may be an external device connected by USB/FireWire/Bluetooth. The soundcard is any device that makes the sound you hear from your PC speakers. Soundcard Driver: The soundcard driver is the software interface between the Windows operating system and the soundcard hardware. The driver tells Windows, and so FL Studio, what inputs/outputs the soundcard has and what sample rates it can support. DirectSound drivers place a layer of 'middle-man' software handling communications between the audio application (FL Studio for example) and the soundcard hardware while ASIO drivers allow direct communication between the audio application and the soundcard. This is why ASIO drivers are faster and more efficient than DirectSound drivers.

NOTE: The default FL Studio installation selects the DirectSound driver to ensure maximum compatibility. Frankly DirectSound sucks the life from your CPU, so switch to your soundcards native ASIO driver, if that does not exist then try ASIO4ALL.

Options

Input / Output

• Output - is a drop-down menu used to select the soundcard (output/input device) to be used by FL Studio. The list will show installed soundcard drivers, both DirectSound and ASIO driver standards are supported. If you have more than one soundcard installed, the Output menu can be used to switch between them (press F10 to open the settings panel). The soundcard 'driver' is a program that connects Windows (and therefore FL Studio) to your soundcard. The driver tells Windows what the soundcard is called, what it can do and how many inputs/outputs it has, for example.
  
  Select an ASIO driver if possible, they are usually identified by the word 'ASIO' in the name. ASIO (Audio Stream Input Output) drivers allow the soundcard to communicate with the host computer with lower latency and CPU load when compared to standard audio drivers (e.g. the 'Primary Sound Driver').
• Auto close device - Allows other applications to share the soundcard when FL Studio loses focus (FL Studio is minimized or another application is selected).

ASIO4ALL

ASIO Properties

Visible only when using ASIO driver.

• Buffer Length - Shows the buffer latency for the ASIO driver. To change the buffer length, click on the 'Show ASIO panel' button below this readout. The delay between playing a MIDI keyboard or tweaking a control in FL Studio and hearing the result is at least equal to this setting (in ms). The ideal buffer is the smallest your computer can manage without causing the buffer underrun count to increase (techniques for optimizing the buffer are described below).
• Clock Source - Some audio cards might provide external clock source which can fix sync/output problems. However for most cards work properly with the default "Internal" source selected.
• Show ASIO Panel - Opens the ASIO driver settings panel, use this to change latency settings. Settings between 1-4 ms without underruns are 'cutting edge', 5-10 ms are excellent and 11-20 ms are good. 10 ms (441 samples) is a good target.
• Priority - Sets the priority of the audio mixing thread. Higher = more CPU devoted to the audio mixing thread, but increases the risk of lockups/freezing when CPU demands become high. Lower = greater risk of buffer underruns. Adjust this (in combination with the buffer settings) if you have problems with lockups and/or buffer underruns.
• Safe overloads - Off: The audio mixing thread is given a very high priority, so that the user interface doesn't cause hiccups in the audio engine. When the audio mixing thread is using all the CPU, it may leave nothing to the Graphical User Interface (GUI), which will then appear frozen. On (default): 'Safe overloads' adapts the mixer priority when CPU overloads occur, leaving a little CPU to run the GUI, so that you can sill interact with FL and minimize the CPU usage.
• Underruns - Shows the total underrun count. An underrun is counted when the temporary store that holds audio prior to output to your soundcard runs out of data (clicking or popping sounds are usually associated with underruns), it means the CPU couldn't process information fast enough and your soundcard ran out of audio data to play. Testing to reduce underruns should be carried out with a typical project (song) playing. There are a number of ways of reducing underruns as described here.

DirectSound Properties

Visible only when using Standard drivers (DirectSound, WDM, Primary, etc).

• Buffer Length - This slider controls the audio buffer latency. The delay between playing a MIDI keyboard or tweaking a control in FL Studio and hearing the result is at least equal to this setting (in ms). The ideal buffer is the smallest your computer can manage without causing the buffer underrun count to increase (techniques for optimizing the buffer are described below). Setting between 5-10 ms without underruns are 'cutting edge', 11-20 ms are excellent and 21-50 ms are good. 20 ms (882 samples) is a good target.
• Use Polling - Polling is a technique for managing DirectSound's audio buffer, which usually allows much smaller buffer without underruns. On some PC-s, however, it can have the opposite effect.
• Use Hardware Buffer - Uses the hardware audio buffer of DirectSound enabled sound cards.
• Use 32-Bit Buffer - Uses a 32-bit floating-point buffer. Only works with Windows XP or above.
• Priority - Sets the priority of the audio mixing thread. Higher = more CPU devoted to the audio mixing thread, but increases the risk of lockups/freezing when CPU demands become high. Lower = greater risk of buffer underruns. Adjust this (in combination with the buffer settings) if you have problems with lockups and/or buffer underruns.
• Safe overloads - Off: The audio mixing thread is given a very high priority, so that the GUI doesn't cause hiccups in the audio engine. When the audio mixing thread is using all the CPU, it may leave nothing to the Graphical User Interface (GUI), which will then appear frozen. On (default): 'Safe overloads' adapts the mixer priority when CPU overloads occur, leaving a little CPU to run the GUI, so that you can sill interact with FL and minimize the CPU usage.
• Underruns - Shows the total underrun count. An underrun is counted when the temporary store that holds audio prior to output to your soundcard runs out of data (clicking or popping sounds are usually associated with underruns), it means the CPU couldn't process information fast enough and your soundcard ran out of audio data to play. Testing to reduce underruns should be carried out with a typical project (song) playing. There are a number of ways of reducing underruns as described here.

Plugin output

• Slave Tempo - When turned on, FL Studio will synchronize with the tempo of the host.
• Record Automation - When turned on, remote control messages (MIDI) from the host will be recorded during recording sessions.

Mixer

• Sample Rate - Sets the sample play-back rate used by the mixer. Where possible use the default sample rate of 44100Hz. Many older soundcards (the Creative Audigy series for example) have a minimum sample rate of 48000Hz. In this case, please be aware that some (early plugins) may not perform correctly (usually tuning related issues) although the vast majority of plugins available today are multi-rate compatible.
• Interpolation - is the process of smoothly creating changes in sample data when the system is called to 'invent' intermediate volume levels between any two known sample points. This is necessary when samples are transposed from their original pitch to avoid 'quantizing' and/or 'aliasing' noise, so the benefits of higher quality interpolation will only be useful for transposed sounds.

  There are two independent locations where interpolation method can be set. Here in the Audio Settings the interpolation method affects the 'live' audio quality (and CPU load). The other interpolation setting is found on the export dialog and affects audio file quality (and render time). The options are the same for both locations, they are:

  • Linear interpolation provides the lowest CPU hit with basic linear averaging between samples, however this may result in aliasing (high frequency noises) when samples are transposed far from their original pitch. We recommend linear settings for most live mixing situations.
  • 6-point hermite is the fastest interpolation method and so is suitable for 'real-time' playback, providing superior quality to 'linear' interpolation. If you have a fast PC, use this method during critical mixing sessions.
  • 64, 128, 256, 512-point sinc interpolation methods provide, increasingly, the highest quality interpolation, at the expense of CPU load. Anything above 6-point Hermite is not suitable for live-playback (perhaps one day when we have 32-core 10 GHz CPUs). So why are these methods available? So that if someone requires the highest quality live interpolation they can have it...don't believe us?, turn on 512-point sync and watch your PC grind to a stuttering halt next time you transpose a sample...don't say we didn't warn you!

  As noted above, a separate interpolation setting has been provided for the render dialog. This allows you to use the highest quality interpolation when rendering independent of the live setting.

• Reset Plugins on Transport - Resets all plugins when using the transport functions - start/stop, moving the song position pointer, etc. Uncheck for faster, less glitchy response when changing song position.
• Use Mixer as Playback Position - Enable this option if you experience unstable position indicators with WDM drivers (usually under Windows 2000/XP). If you don't have any problems leave this option disabled as it reduces position indicators' refresh rate with large audio buffers.
• Preview Mixer Track - Selects the mixer track that will receive the Metronome, and audio previews from the Browser, Wave Editor, etc. By default, the Master Mixer track is used for preview (default /"--"/ to send to the Master Track).

CPU

These options are intended to reduce CPU load and maximize FL Studio performance on your PC.

• Multithreaded generator processing - Spreads generator (instrument) load over CPU multiple cores. Issues with plugins? See plugins behaving badly.
• Multithreaded mixer processing - Spreads effect & mixer load over CPU multiple cores. Issues with plugins? See plugins behaving badly.
• Smart disable - Globally disables both instruments and effects, when inactive, to reduce CPU load.
• Align tick lengths - May reduce CPU load and improve the performance of certain 3rd Party plugins that assume aligned tick lengths. A tick is the smallest internal unit of time used for sequencing automation & note events (PPQ counts the number of ticks (pulses) per quarter-note for example). Issues with plugins? Try on.

NOTES:

1. For a plugin to be multithreaded there are 3 places where the option must be selected, here, the Wrapper menu 'Allow threaded processing and Wrapper Additional Settings Menu 'Processing > Allow threaded processing'. All three are selected by default.
2. Some of these options may cause problems with 3rd party plugins. What plugins? It all depends on how closely they conform to the VST design standard, don't look at us, we are not the 'VST police'. What sort of 'problems'? We are not prophets either, but possibly plugin-crashes, audio glitches, out-of-sync playback or CPU spikes. See plugins behaving badly.