Hi guys,
We know that you are working hard to provide us the best possible DAW, hands down for that we love you
Now, I have used extensively FL Studio and have so many ideas of improvements I thought I would do a list here:
I use an "annoyance/impact" scale at the beginning of each proposal: from (1)="lowest impact/annoyance" to (5)="I expect it to be in the next release"
Update 10-04-2022: added the value "6" ("I expect it to be an urgent fix!") to prioritize even better.
The digits after the letters are only to mark the order of appearance of proposals (in my brain
) and references in discussions below. Playlist
- PL21 (6) An option to not select hidden clips when you have collapsed track and you are hiding grouped sub-tracks. This is really a must otherwise, when working with hidden sub-tracks, it's very easy to forget you have some hidden tracks. Inevitably you will select a few clips in your main parent and forget about the hidden ones, then any copy/paste/move operation will mess up for good everything in the hidden tracks without you noticing. You will only realize much later. Right now hidden tracks option is therefore unusable for that reason, at least to me.
- PL21 (5) Force automation clips to span over the entire track length: working with small automation clips is sometimes a nightmare because you forgot where you last automation point was. You can find it back but it is cumbersome. Spanning systematically over the whole track duration would be very valuable and avoid small clips. It would mean that with this option a new track would be created each time an automation clip is made.
- PL2 (4) more advanced or automated control to adjust size of the playlist tracks: I am still spending A LOT of time in zooming and unzooming... For instance: "reset all tracks to the same height". Right now you can reduce or increase the size all together, but not have them all to a fixed height.
- PL20 (4) A button to "collapse all" and vice versa.
- PL1 (4) merge audio samples (not just group them): 2 waves selected on the same playlist track -> merge -> one big wave sample, with some silence in between eventually depending on preferences settings.
- PL14 (4) A "make unique" toggle button: once pressed on, each subsequent clip paste (pattern automation whatever) is paste as unique. I still use the "make unique" feature very often, and when I forget I definitely regret my mistake quickly after.
- PL16 (4) A new option of Insert space (without slicing) would move forward all patterns AND automation points without slicing automation or wav clips. Right now it's either you cut all files, or you move everything but automation will be out of sync with the track. This would be an intermediary solution and probably the most convenient (automation should follow their patterns). Cutting automation clips before moving is also not amazing because if you want to glue them back, merging them (ctrl + G) won't work.
- PL18 (4) Re-color clips headers (all of them, patterns, automation etc) automatically to the corresponding playlist track color. Ideally this would be done with an option like "ignore clip color in the playlist" so you can revert to another scheme of color for your clips if you need to, or switch back to clips colors matching their tracks.
- PL19 (4) When inserting a new track, make sure it has the same color as the track above, quite annoying that it starts grey all the time and messing up your color arrangement. A "copy/paste style" toggle à la MS office "paintbrush" would be awesome.
- PL5 (4) save the time markers from the playlist in a single file: once you have created a markers template (using a reference track for instance) you could then re-use it for other projects. Now I have to create again each of the time markers if I want to follow the same song construction (or I can make a copy of an existing projects and delete everything in playlist except the markers, mixer-tracks, channels...).
- PL6 (3) select and move multiple time markers in the playlist at once.
- PL18 (3) I would like to color the time markers.
- PL17 (2) Double clicking on a marker in the time space (where the markers are placed) selects the whole region until the next marker, which is very convenient. However, double clicking in this zone when there is no marker does nothing. If would be convenient that it actually does the same thing, i.e. selecting the whole range until the next marker (or end of the song), like it happens when you double click on an existing marker.
- PL15 (2) Some external plugins such as the (excellent nonetheless) echoboy prevent the use of the keyboard space-bar to pause/play the track, while they are on focus. A bit annoying as if one wants to adjust the plugins parameters while pause/playing the track, it needs to use an external midi device or constantly click elsewhere so that the plugin loses the focus and spacebar can be used.
- PL11 (2) Merge patterns: don't use a name like "merged pattern", it's confusing. Please use "Pattern XXX" with XXX being the latest pattern number available.
- PL9 (2) have a "start" track marker without changing the greying layout behind.
- PL13 (2) Post-it patterns: create post-it patterns we can just use as memo to write stuff to remember, and be able to place them in the playlist. Now I am using markers & FL notebook but not as convenient. Work-around: use "fake" empty patterns and name it with the stuff to remember (but you'll have to be short and concise
)
- CH7 (10) Disable mouse wheel for changing track allocation (or give a clear GUI indication/warning): too many times I scroll through -what I think is- the playlist while I am actually scrolling on the channel rack, changing a mixer track target by mistake. Then I have some weird sounds popping up in the mix. Sometimes nice surprises, more often not at all and it takes ages to find the mistake and fix it, scavenging through previous saves...
- CH9 (3) (prev. PL10) Be able to see the ghost notes from other patterns. Very often I have to copy paste the note from another pattern and silent them just to see what they are as ghost note, and would love to just mark "this pattern is ghost for this one" instead.
- CH5 (3) Be able to set a default volume for samples when loading them into FL studio.
- CH6 (3) When assigning a channel to a track of the mixer track, it would be handy to have in the right click (or with a keyboard shortcut) an "assign to next empty track" feature, which assigns the channel to the first track that has no other channels routed on it. It would also be handy to show the track number in a red color (meaning "already used") until a not-already used track is selected. The definition of "used" is that there is already a channel assigned to this track.
- CH8 (2) Be able to set a channel in solo only for its group (for instance "solo it only within the VST group").
- VST1 (4) The logic of opening/loading VST presets: the drop down menu shows "save preset as", which saves into the .fst format (FL Studio). But, if you don't save it in the default proposed folder, it will not show in the browser (ok...). However, there is no "Load preset", only "Browse presets" which only open the Browser!
Then there is this "Load preset" button in the Presets VST menu on the wrapper setting which opens a different format: sometimes .fxb, .fxt, .vstpreset... but no .fst!
Therefore it should be changed to a menu with (standard) save and load functions as 2 separate lines, and the windows they open let us choose the format.
Workaround: add the preset folder in the browser menu and disable 'Auto name channels' to avoid drag & dropping your preset renames and recolor your channel rack.
- A1 (3) extend automation clips to the left: not just to the right.
- A3 (3) show value of automation points à la logic, in small characters, when a certain zoom is reached.
- A2 (1) select multiple automation points at once, with a "lasso" type tool. This is now possible in the automation dedicated editor, but would be cool to have it directly in the playlist.
- M14 (6) When consolidating a track, even on "mixer + external input" setting, the consolidation happens after volume fader and effects. If I want to bounce the piece and route it to the exact same channel, the volume get modified again by the fader (so volume fader gets applied twice). Very annoying when bouncing synths to save resources but want to keep controls or adjust effects later on.
- M10 (6) Store in separate state currently works only for one mixer track at a time: you cannot "paste" it to another mixer track. I would love to be able to "store" a preset momentarily and copy paste it in another mixer track. Similarly, "copy paste" plugin (and its preset) to another mixer track with a ctrl c + ctrl v shortcut (or similar) would avoid the hassle of having to save the preset in a file and load it.
- M4 (5) "style" brush ala "office", to copy the style (color and icon) from one mixer track to another. Also, when you make custom colors for mixer track or playlist tracks, FL should save these custom colors and propose it in the color shortcut palette. Quite annoying when adding tracks to an existing track group for which you want the exact same color and/or icon.
- M17 (3) To export the stems to a mixing or a mastering engineer, it's almost always needed to change the routing of some tracks, export stems, and then come back to the original routing. Would be very convenient to be able to save a routing status of all mixer tracks, and be able to come back to that if need be. Otherwise as a safety net we can save an entire project with a different routing, but that's confusing (which save do I re-open 2 weeks later when the engineer makes a remark about the arrangement and I want to fix it? a good file name will help but still...).
- M18 (3) Be able to solo mixer track with incoming signal enabled, while input track is actually disabled. For instance, on a reverb insert, putting it in this "Solo 2" mode would allow to hear only the wet signal (for instance a reverb), while the dry mixer track is disabled but still feeds the insert. Very convenient to listen the insert track only without the dry signal. Pro-tools allows this.
- M15 (3) I would like to be able to assign my own shortcuts to plugins when I want to add one in the mixer track, corresponding to the folders I made in the plugin database. For instance by with right click and a combination of 1 (folder EQ) + 2 (folder ImagineLine) + 1 (plugin Parametric EQ2) I would add quickly my EQ2 equalizer.
- M8 (3) Rename/re-colour a mixer track renames the corresponding channel track(s) automatically (if validated by user or a general option is turned on)
- M16 (3) Be able to see the peak level (in db) per channel also in compact mode (now only available in wide mode) without having to click on the channel.
- M21 (3) by default, tracks are routed to the master. I would like to change the default routed track: I am using a pre-master track, and therefore would like by default that my tracks get routed to my pre-master instead of master track.
- M20 (3) having separator linked to a mixer track in annoying: once a separator is placed, moving the track moves the separator which messes up the organization and groups. I would like to be able to insert a separator the same way, but then the separator would be an empty space that is not linked anymore to any mixer track. Right click on it would give the option to delete it.
- M19 (3) add more icons, I would say double the number. They are crucial to navigate quickly between tracks and keep your song well organized.
- M9 (3) save multiple track settings (similar as save mixer state) so that you can re-open these tracks, in bulk mode, in another project.
- M12 (2) When selecting channels corresponding to mixer track selected (shortcut is Alt+L), if there is no channel racks associated to this mixer track a pop-up or furtive message should mention "no channel racks associated". Right now I have to look through the whole channel rack to find if there is any (or not) connected.
- M5 (2) right click to "insert new track" in the track list.
- M3 (2) move multiple effect plugins in mixer track at once down or up, rather than one by one.
- M2 (2) Rendering send tracks: now we can render multiple tracks in one click, which is awesome. However, when dry tracks are routed in parallel to some send tracks (right tracks menu), the send track is exported in one wave file instead of producing as many send tracks as there are dry tracks routed to it. Therefore, for instance with a reverb send, we currently end up with a send track with all tracks using this reverb in the same rendered wave file. A post-render treatment separately for each wet (reverb) track on the different instruments is not possible any more. The only remediation to that is to export dry+send tracks separately one by one, which kills somehow the bulk render feature. This would be an advanced feature, not sure if many DAWs allow it anyway.
- M7 (1) I do not understand the purpose of "view editor" in the menu, as it does the same thing as clicking on the plugin name, can be removed imo.
- M11 (1) Remove all plugins from a track without touching the routing or the name or the color of the track. Reset to default or reset the routing doesn't give you this option. I would also group the "reset" features under the same group of features in the right-click menu.
- PI5 (6) Using the note editor (bottom of the piano rolls) on notes properties is a hassle for all continuous-based parameters. For instance editing a pitch precisely is always very cumbersome, good luck to put it back to "zero" without touching the note before. For instance, an automation point style editor would be of great help.
- PI6 (5) The view->scale highlighting -> automatic detection of scale of the piano roll doesn't work properly (and it would be extremely convenient if it would): I often ends up with notes on black areas, which are supposed not in the scale. Update 10-04-2022: might have been corrected?
- PI10 (4) when copy pasting notes from a pattern to another pattern, it would be great if the notes could be pasted (via a keyboard shortcut) at the same position as the pattern they come from (provided it's possible) and not based on "zoom" or whatever algorithm you are applying currently. They are almost always paste where I don't want and I then have to manually move the notes horizontally, which can be finicky with arp notes for instance.
- PI9 (4) change (muted) piano colours easily:double click should propose to change notes colours on top of the other parameters. Or clicking on top left colour corner when notes are selected should change the colours of the notes... it doesn't. For muted, the colour should be more tern, or crossed...
- PI1 (4) ctrl+mouse-roll and alt+mouse-roll do horizontal and vertical zooming in the playlist. In piano roll only ctrl+mouse-roll do vertical zooming, the alt+mouse-scroll in the piano roll decrease the current value in the control section, why such difference? Another keyboard short-cut should be used in the piano roll for control value edition.
Same remark goes for control + selection for multiple notes selection/de-selection: not the same keyboard shortcut to select or deselect. - PI2 (4) when the piano roll is already opened and you open a new pattern, the first channel where notes are present is opened even if these are only ghost notes: it should open the first channel only when there are real notes present (not ghost ones), ignoring as well any muted channel.
- PI7 (4) I would like to see what the swing button does exactly to my notes. At the moment you can swing the channel to humanize it but you can't see where it places the notes (and eventually adjust them), if you need to adjust you need to do it "blindly".
- PI8 (4) Alt + M mutes the notes while Alt + shift + M unmute. But actually, what I would like is a shortcut to revert the current state: mute becomes unmute and vice-versa. So Alt + M to mute all, and Alt + shift + M to revert the current note state.
- PI3 (3) the control section on the bottom left could display much more buttons: for instance a "select parameter" to pick any of the automation available from the instrument.
- PI4 (1) ignore ghost notes from a selection of (other) channels: this way we can keep notes ideas of other channels without seeing them in the current piano roll opened.
- CL2 (5) the middle mouse click button replace a sample currently focused by the sample clicked. However, if there are stretching/pitch settings applied on the original sample, they are not applied the same way to the new one. Very often my new sample is speed up much higher, or multiplication is set to a strange value... It has to do with sample rate but I would expect FL to react and correct this automatically like when we drag and drop a sample. Update: 10-04-2022, might have been corrected as it's a while I didn't face the problem?
- CL3 (4) The time button has an erratic behavior: often shows a very little value but copy pasting the same value gives a different result on the sample. You should check this carefully.
- CL1 (4) Envelope menu should be always available, for each and every time a sound sample is added in the channel rack, not just when it is dragged and dropped in there from the browser.
- CL3 (3) zoom on waveform within the clip window: for quiet samples, such as pad, often if you mix at love volume the vertical zoom on the waveform is too small, and there is not much to see. A zoom cursor which would increase the scale of the zoom on both the clip window and the playlist would be very convenient to better see the waveform without constantly increasing track sizes/decreasing track sizes in the playlist.
- CL5 (3) A volume (and pitch and...) envelope directly embedded in the waveform preview would be very useful. It would avoid having to open edison or spend considerable amount of time playing with In and Out faders for approximate results.
- CL7 (2) A "make mono" switch.
- CL4 (1) An AI-powered pitch and time stretching algorithms. The ultimate goal: if you (or your pitch provider) can have an algo which can pitch an hardstyle kick and still sound awesome, stop here you found the Holy Grail
- CL6 (1) pre-computed effect EQ has a strange sound behaviour, almost like compressing instead of changing the tone. Doesn't sound like a tilt filter to me.
- G18 (5) (it took me time to put my finger on this one but is nonetheless key): when working on a track heavily loaded and almost reaching the limit, and re-loading it later, the processor is on the re-load completely stuck while it was fine in the previous session. It's like we lose 5-10% of performance just because we left the session and re-loaded a new one. Surely has to do with buffer etc but I would assume there is a massive gain of performance to be caught here.
- G1 (4) Stop stretching (long) calculation: currently when you stretch a long sample by mistake, you get a looooong time to wait before the process is finished if sample is long (lets say several minutes). A "cancel" (=stop) function would be very useful to stop immediately stupid stretch (when your computer is not set to NASA standards), for instance long acapella mixes or reference tracks. Hitting keyboard on cancel key does nothing atm.
- G13 (4) I didn't think I would write this one day: I wouldn't mind if we would have to pay (50-100 EUR) for the biggest updates (v20 to v21 for instance). In exchange, I would expect a faster pace of development and improvements. For the last few years I have adding more and more features in this list but the number of them interesting to me and effectively developed is small / time to release is quite long.
- G16 (3) Be able to listen to the delta of each effect plugin, i.e. the difference between the dry in and wet out signals, which avoid the user to make its own null test with annoying routing and phase inversion.
- G15 (3) Propose to save all stretched samples as separate files, so that the load of (heavy) projects takes shorter time.
- G14 (3) When saving anything in the current song, in the favorite box of the save windows the folder where the current project file (.flp) should show up. A sort of "dynamic" favorite folder, depending on which track is currently open.
- G3 (3) Even with all plugins set to "smart disable", when playing nothing (iddle) the processor is still used more and more while the project gets bigger and more plugins are added, while idle state should mean no processor use. Maybe that comes from the coding of plugins though?
- G11 (3) Export track using markers: at the moment, you cannot use the "start" and "end" markers to define your export range when rendering your track.
- G10 (3) no single "export pattern" function. It's possible via export project bones, but this is overkilling when you just want to export a single pattern.
- G7 (3) A menu to customize our own shortcuts, so many applications allow this... (Blender, Photoshop etc)
- G17 (2) Have a parameter (on/off button) for plugins to be able to activate them only when offline rendering. Very useful when a CPU hungry plugin has been perfectly calibrated, but we can't use it too much and we can't bounce the related track because, for instance, it is an effect on the master mixer track. Typically useful for effects on master I assume. A good workaround exists though: using the control surface, link all "on/off" buttons to one button in the surface and click on/off on it before rendering.
- G5 (2) When I install a new plugin, I don't want to re-scan all folders to have it available in the list of plugins: I would like to target, select and add the new plugin only.
Update 20.8 -> the way the scan is managed now is much better, although this is not completely covered. - G9 (1) A video version of FL studio, aiming at producing videos (with a bit of sound)
- G8 (1) A help button which will display the keyboard shortcut for any action you just did (note: you can already see what the shortcut is when mousing-over some icons)
- PP1 (1) I have too many plugins (maybe that's the issue...), the plugin picker default screen is useless: when pressing F8, as the default menu is "ALL", my screen just get filled-in with plugin names, some of which are even not displayed correctly. I would like to rather have the "plugin picker" which retains my favorite folder, instead of displaying all by default. I actually arrange my folders in the plugins database folder (in windows) to organise them the way I want, with folders and sub-folders being plugins categories (Favorites, Imagine-Line, Fabfilter, Plugin alliance... etc).
- BR2(4) Move up & down the folders so that we can organize them the way we want.
- BR1(3) Show/Hide option for each folder, because there are really MANY folders that I never use (the 'legacy' speech folder to name one...).
- Edison
- PG1 (3) When modifying the volume curve using the small button at the bottom of the screen, the play button plays the sample without this editing in place. I suppose it's the same for other treatments (panning etc), you have to export the sample to hear the result. It should play it taking into account the current editing.
- Fruiy notebook 2
- PG2 (3) Copy pasting from notebook or an html email into fruit notebook2 doesn't keep the carriage return (next line), so everything appears as a block.
- FO1 (1) Another interface for new features, showing a cascade/tiles of feature/improvement proposals with a twitter-short description and a +1 button, so about 20 features show-up on a 1900x1200 screen.
save a combination of plugins/presets from a mixer track: for instance, an equalizer is combined with a compressor which is combine with a distortion -> save this combination so we can re-use it in a single click on another or several mixer tracks.-> right click on a mixer track, click on "File" then click on "Save Mixer track state as"route a mixer track before and/or after the entire effect plugin chain : so the dry signal can be re-used easily.-> feasible with plugin "Fruity send"PL8 (1) Hide "pattern selector" in the playlist. Why I don't use it: either I need to create a new pattern (knowing that it costs nothing to do one more, just F4) either I need to duplicate or re-use a pattern already in the playlist so I click on my loved pattern and click again where I need: pouf it's there, cloned (and that's amazing btw-> you can hide it using alt+P.) G10 (5) Export midi from VST instruments having midi generators integrated (like ARP or chords...). Currently you have to use Loopmidi or likewise, quite cumbersome.-> Since 20.6 you can right click on a channel and select "burn midi" (if you have a midi output port set). Finally!! Awesome !! Good bye Midiloop and Tobias Eriksen, thanks a lot for your help in the meantime!M1 (5) Plugins are not loaded with "smart disable" by default. I still don't understand why. So from times to times I have to go remember to go to macro -> smart disable all plugins.-> the reason is that some plugins behave badly apparently. In version 20.6 you can configure the plugin to use it or not use it on a permanent basis (but still needs to activate it for the instance of the plugin)PL4 (4) completely hide one or several tracks in the playlist (not just "compact" it). To me the classic "+" and "-" buttons with collapse/expand them all is a must.-> now possible with the drop down arrow.
G4 (3) when audio is bounced, volume of wav file is lower than originally played before bouncing. Again, might be my config but I looked for any reason for this lower volume to happen and did not find any.-> seems to be fixed.A3 (3) easily re-assign an existing automation clip to another audio/VST target: for instance a sidechain pump via volume automation used on a bass can be copy paste and "reassign" to the lead (it's feasible but not easy)-> I believe this is possible in v20.8G6 (2) option to disable the automatic recording of initialized controls. So many times I was wondering why a midi value would be back to something although there was no automation clip before realizing it was because it had an initialization value that had been created automatically without notification.-> this is fixed in v20.8M6 (2) Bulk operations on a selection of tracks: for instance, routing several tracks selected in only one click.-> possible in version v20.8CH2 (1) When renaming a channel, all related samples in the playlist could be renamed with incremental numbering suffix (with a Y/N msgbox maybe?).Eg: I rename my channel "Piano" -> all wav clips in the playlist routed to this channel would be renamed Piano 1, Piano 2, Piano 3 etc.-> removed as actually it is M8 which should apply.PL3 (5) a keyboard shortcut (the control key?) to unselect clip(s) from an existing selection, while pen tool is selected: it's easy to select patterns this way, but way more difficult to deselect a few patterns within the selection you just made for instance.-> CTRL+SHIFT should do the trick (at least from v20.8, maybe older)G2 (5) Not sure if it comes from my config but I put it here: when I bounce a VST to audio, it is slightly shifted in time, more or less depending on the buffer. Very annoying for any instrument with strong transients, for instance, and it might create phase effects (I had the issue today with layered kicks). Besides, it is strictly impossible to adjust the wav sample created exactly where you need: the precision is not granular enough in the playlist.-> on v20.8.3 it doesn't do it anymore, but maybe it's just because I have changed of sound interface... I'll never know! .PL12 (4) When you want to move multiple clips from a certain point, you can either insert a silence or move everything to the right with a lasso approach, but in both cases you have to cut all your existing automation clips, which is annoying as it makes a gap in them while you would like to keep these automation clips continuous. Creating these holes make the track very messy on the long run (it' been a long time I am trying to put the finger on this annoyance without framing the fuss, finally got it!)-> recently found out that's not true anymore, the insert silence will expand the existing automation clips without making "holes". Brilliant!PL10 (5) an easy keyboard shortcut to 'make unique' samples or patterns. That's amongst the most used function that I click on.-> Moved out since "right click + M" works not too bad. However, a "make unique" toggle button would still be very much welcomed!CH4 (5) make the replacement of a sample by another (drag & drop or wheel click) cancellable or with a warning message: I do not count anymore number of times I had to go back to a previous version of a track because I had replaced the wrong sample too quickly...-> possible via right clicking on the name of the sample in the clip window.M13 (2) When routing tracks in a plugins parameters (for instance to route an external sidechain to a compressor) display the name of the track with the track number, not just the number.-> possible via right clicking.ED2 (2) An "override current sample" which erases not the sample on the drive but the sample in the channel rack.-> Right-click on the most right/bottom button in the button group inside Edison does that. (1. under the Edison logo = Drag and drop the sample, 2. under the Edison logo = left-click -> create a new channel with sample and right-click -> send to currently selected channel)G12 (5) More features being "cancellable": for instance replacement of the sample with another is not cancellable (and no warning message), replacement of a preset with another, deletion of a channel etc.-> really since 20.9.8 can't find much important stuff still not cancellablePL7 (5) Select, move or delete multiple tracks at once in the playlist: up and down, easy peasy. The easy deletion of tracks has not been improved since 2014...-> finally possible! Since version 20.9 or maybe a bit earlier... Yey!CH3 (1) Deactivating midi generator channels (such as Xfer Cthulu) doesn't de-activate them, while it should?This lack clarification from my side, I might add back it later.CH1 (5) The behavior of channels groups is confusing. When adding a new channel, if a group is currently opened, the new channel should go in this group instead of another group (sometimes Audio, sometimes "other"...)-> this seems to have been fixed since version 20.9.1. Yey!
Thanks for reading
My music (WIP): https://linktr.ee/davidsolena