In the last 5 years, I’ve been hoping to see a hint of some more significant workflow changes to the software in terms of how the playlist, mixer, and the channel rack work together as a whole.
Let me explain.
Right now, the relationship between tracks on the playlist and channels in the mixer is quite strange.
More recent updates to FL have made it possible to assign a playlist track to a mixer channel, turning the lane into an audio track channel.
That means that I can assign playlist track 1 to mixer channel 1, and drag an audio clip there, and it will automatically change the audio clip mixer track to track 1 without so much as a warning.
It’s a little more intuitive when you turn the playlist track into an instrument track, because then at least the channel rack mixer select option is greyed out for that instrument, making it harder to make a routing mistake.
The weirdest part is that even if you load an instrument into a playlist track, you are still free to move that instrument pattern onto other playlist tracks without consequence, other than the fact that your project organization will suffer.
I’m rambling now, but I’d like to talk about automation clips, which I see as the single greatest pain for project management.
I honestly believe that it should not be possible for automation clips to be separated from the instruments and fx that they are controlling. I’m not a product developer, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. But if you make it possible for users to be disorganized - they will be.
What does this mean in a practical sense?
I hate to compare DAWs, because FL is it’s own unique tool and I truly love it, but ableton’s automation lane system is fantastic. I’m not saying you should copy what they have, but they have designed their software with workflow as the #1 priority, knowing that human beings are disorganized by nature.
Ok, now I’m really rambling. But the point of this post is that I would love to learn more about the longer term workflow direction of FL. I understand that this is probably very secretive, but it is clear that there is some direction based on the last few years of updates, I’m just not sure I’m understanding it correctly.
Would love to get more insight on this, and maybe I’m just missing some amazing workflow features!
Thanks for reading
