there's a couple of things i'd absolutely LOVE to see in FL in some fututre updates. In ~ 10 years of using FL those are the features i'd really like to see:
First of all: I'd love to see improved organization featurtes.
I would like to have more sub-groups in the playlist. The current group function we have is awesome, i use it all the time, but i would really love to see another, deeper layer. Because i want to create let's say a drum group in the playlist, then in the layer below that i want to add the individual instruments / audio clips. That's how it currently is.
In adition to that, i'd love to add another layer, so that i can group automation clips below the individual elements and thus toggle them on / off.
All those automation clips can be confusing if you're just trying to re-arrange something or so. Grouping them below and eneabling me to hide them would be a true game changer.
In this context some let's call it "link"-feature would be perfect, that would link and lock certain elements together - be it patters, audio clips or automation clips.
If i have a 4 bar sample for example, and create a 4 bar automation clip for that and link them together, whatever i do to one element would be done to the other linked ones too - for example if i duplicate that audio clip and move it somewhere else, everything linked to it also gets duplicated and moved - as if it was one single element. You'd need to be able to link and unlink them on the fly and for every "instance" individually, so that you can introduce variations though.
I'm aware that we can already do that with a multi-selection. But if this additional, third layer gets introduced, allowing us to hide the automation clips alltogether, that might be unintuitive and fiddly.
Another thing i'd love to see is auto-grouping and linking.
I'd love to crate a group, for example in the channel rack, and if i add an instrument to that, it gets automatically linked to the mixer channel, next to all the other elements in that group. Let's say i have a drum group, a bass group and a synth group. All that's in there already linked to the mixer channels, the individual channels all linked to a "Bus"-Channel, called "Bass Out" or whatever.
If i now add another channel into the Bass group, i'd love to see it if it gets automatically inserted in right place in the mixer channel, already routed to the "Bass out" for example.
If i then decide that no, that channel isn't a Bass anymore, it's now a Synth, it should automatically take that mixer channel and all the effects that's on them and shift them into the right place, linked now to the "Synths Out" channel.
I hope it's somewhat clear what i mean.
I'd also like to have an audio editor, that isn't a plugin. I'd love to edit a sample in a way that all the changes i make are done to that very instance of the sample. Not some other, new sample that i then have to drag-drop out of Edison, crate a whole new channel and mixing track.
Lastly i'd really like to see the channel "freeze" function that Ableton Live has in FL Studio. There you klick a button, it freezes the channel, so that for example a Soft-Synth isn't alway generating / processing. It's HUGE for CPU, and if you want to tewak the Synth, you can just "unfreeze", tweak it, "freeze" again and then normally use it.
The "Consolidate" feature we have unfortunately doesn't really work that way. We here have the same problem again, as in that it's a whole new audio clip that needs a new a new mixer channel and all that. Also if it's baked into audio, you can't just change a not or so. You can do that with the let's call it "Ableton Freeze".
I really do think that these features will vastly, massively improve working in FL Studio - especially with 3rd party plug-ins. I'm using FL Studio for over 10 years now, and these are the features i'd really, really like to see in the future.
Let me know what you think. Also feel free to ask me anything in case i didn't word what i mean really well.
