[digital noises]

[main]

[textos]

[softwares]

[samples]

[músicas]

[links]

[bbs]

[e-group]

[contato]

F R U I T Y L O O P S

Getting started:

The first things you'll have to set up are the MIDI output driver (if you plan to use MIDI) or the DirectSound driver (you probably want to import your own drum samples). If you don't set any of them you won't get any sound!

Then load the basic loop & play a bit with it. FruityLoops doesn't have a default soundbank - you can load any wave file into any channel (the number of channels is unlimited). Once you have set up the sounds you want to work with FruityLoops is pretty simple to use.

If you plan to use the same drum samples over & over you can define a 'template' (which is just a loop file) & replace the 'default.flp' starting loop but I'm sure you want to use many different drum samples. If you want more you can find many on the internet or order a CD from our web site.

Answers to common problems

read this carefully before posting about problems on our message board !

General problems

Q: No sound at all. What's wrong?

A: If you don't get any sound be sure you've selected at least a DirectSound driver (WAV settings) or a MIDI driver (MIDI settings).

Be sure the DirectSound driver has been initialized & working. You NEED DirectX5 or 6 or later (& not the thing called 'DirectX Media' which is actually the DirectShow stuff (stupid confusing names copyrighted by Microsoft)).

You can download DirectX6 from the Microsoft web site but I'm sure you've got it hidden somewhere on some game or magazine CD.

If you don't get any MIDI sound from the playing loop you probably forgot to enable the 'Enable MIDI' menu option (in the options menu).

Q: Why is the sound 'choppy' or strange (blips & glitches)?

A: Be sure you've got the latest DirectX drivers & not emulated DirectSound drivers.

You may try to put both mixing buffers length (WAV settings) to the max. Note that you may also try to reduce them to minimize the latency (not that important in that kind of program) (on my P200 I can go under 70ms with no underruns).

You may also have glitches problems when playing with/closing other windows or if the playing loop takes too much CPU.

Once again be sure you've got the proper DirectSound drivers accelerated for your soundcard.

Also be sure no other time consuming or special application (Cubase) is running at the same time.

Q: FruityLoops crashes at startup. What should I do?

A: Some people have reported a crash when Windows is in 16Bit display. There's no reason for FruityLoops not to work fine in 16Bit display but anyway you can try to switch to 24Bit (True Color) & see if it corrects your problem. Also according to the same people a problem may occur because of network cards. Again there's no reason for FruityLoops not to work when a network card is installed (?)

Q: Is FruityLoops working under WinNT?

A: Not officially. Win95 or Win98 only. This because there's no official DirectX5 for Windows NT4.

However, you can download an unofficial patch for DirectX5 under WinNT at Erik Unger's DirectX (from the JEDI-Project) page:

http://www.delphi-jedi.org/DelphiGraphics/DirectX/Download.htm

You could also do a search on the net for the NT4DX5.ZIP file.

FruityLoops is said to work ok under WinNT using this unofficial DirectX5 version. Now you won't find accelerated drivers for this DirectX so you will have to deal with bigger mixing buffers (meaning slower response).

FruityLoops will probably run fine under Windows NT5 aka Win2K since it will include DirectX 7.

Q: I've got problems with some bitmaps not appearing (PlayList bullets).

A: It comes from a bug in old Windows ComCtl32.DLL versions. You can download the latest official version of the DLL from the Microsoft web site at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/developer/downloads/files/40comupd.htm

You'll have to reboot after installing the update.

Notes:

- This only applies to Win95. If you're running under Win98 you have this DLL installed already.

- If you have installed IE5 you have a better version of this DLL already.

Q: FruityLoops is damn ugly. Is it a joke?

A: You're probably in 256 colors or less. Download/install the black & white skin if you want to use FruityLoops in 256 colors. Otherwise switch to 16Bit or True Color. Everything under Windows is ugly today in palettized modes.

Also remember that old FruityLoops 1.2 skins are NOT compatible so don't use one of them...

Q: FruityLoops worked fine before but now it always crashes at startup. What should I do?

A: If FruityLoops doesn't work anymore, but has worked once then you may try to do a config 'reset' by running regedit.exe in your Windows directory. Just look for every 'FruityLoops' key & delete their contents (this is where the config is stored).

Q: Is there an easier way to set wave files into the channels?

A: Yes it's called FastWAV. Download it from http://members.tripod.com/~SirGogol/fw.zip. But you can always drag/drop wave files from anywhere into FruityLoops channels.

Q: How do I sync it to a MIDI sequencer?

A: As with any other music app running under Windows, you need a virtual MIDI cable to achieve sync with FruityLoops. FruityLoops can act as a slave to incoming MIDI clock only in MIDI MODE.

FruityLoops can act as the MASTER CLOCK if the WAV mode is activated. Just set your sequencer (or any other app) to be the slave & be sure it uses the correct virtual MIDI device.

WARNING:

Don't use Hubi's LoopBack device as the virtual MIDI cable. For some unknown (to me) reason it can loose clock messages so the sync will be really bad when you start moving windows (probably a 32bit threading problem)...

Instead, use MIDI Yoke which seems very stable & does its job pretty well.

You can download & get information about MIDI Yoke at:

http://www.channel1.com/users/jamieo/html/midiyoke.html

Q: Can I load huge samples into channels?

A: There's no limit in the size of the samples that can be imported. However all samples are converted to 44Khz 16Bit Stereo when loaded so a 1 minute sample will occupy approx. 10Mb & may be too large to fit nicely in memory. Remember FruityLoops is a drum machine & was not made to remix songs.

Q: The sound goes strange when I move some windows or sliders. What can I do?

A: This happens with some graphic boards (for example my old Matrox Mystique). Be sure you've got the latest drivers for your graphic card it may correct that problem (well it did for me).

Q: What are *.DS files & what can I do with them?

A: DS files are scripts created by DrumSynth.

DrumSynth is a freeware drum synthesizer - you can get it from its author's (Paul Kellett) web page at http://www.abel.co.uk/~maxim

Wave files are automatically generated from DS scripts when loaded into FruityLoops. So once you've created cool drums using DrumSynth you can import the DS scripts directly into FruityLoops (or a bank of them just by selecting them all from the open box). DS scripts are so small it's a great advantage to use them when you want to send your loop over the net. Once your loop is done you can just 'collect' your samples - in this case DS scripts will be collected instead of wav files so the resulting package will be much much smaller.

Q: What are *.SYN files & what can I do with them?

A: SYN files are created by SimSynth.

SimSynth is another great freeware synthesizer - you can get it from its author's (David Billen) web page at http://ellisdee.onestop.net/SimSynth.html

Same thing as for the DrumSynth files, wave files are automatically generated from SYN files when loaded into FruityLoops. One additional feature is that you can set the 'middle note' of these samples.

Q: What are these VST plugins?

A: The VST plugin standard was developped by Steinberg for use in Cubase VST.

These are mainly effects & can now be used in FruityLoops.

You can find many of these plugins on the net...

Plugins by Paul Kellett at http://www.abel.co.uk/~maxim/

Plugins by Jerome Schmitt at http://www.multimania.com/jeje1999/plug.htm

Q: Is FruityLoops Y2K compliant?

A: FruityLoops will crash badly & destroy your whole system on the 01/01/2000.

Q: In which order are the effects added?

A: Precalc effects:

Stereo delay

Reverse

FX3

FX2 (ring modulation)

Resonant filter (this version is kept precalc for speed reasons)

Attack

Decay

Preamp

FX1

Pan fading

Final clipping

Reverb

Reverse stereo

Ending silence removal

Realtime effects:

Stretching (note & accurate pitch)

Resonant filter

Pan/volume

The most CPU demanding effect is the resonant filter (although it's only 1/3 slower) so don't overuse it... Note that while the resonant filter set in the graph edit is realtime the channel one is kept precalculated for speed reasons.

Stupid questions

Q: My loop sample always overlap when it's retriggered. How do I have it cut itself?

A: Just push the 'cut itself' button in the channel settings.

Q: FruityLoops doesn't start. Instead it asks about some 'dsound.dll' file. What's wrong?

A: As it has been said ten thousand times, you need DirectX 5 or later for FruityLoops to run.

Known bugs & limitations:

- a strange crash sometimes happens when FastWAV is open & the mouse is moved over it (it crashes FruityLoops but FastWAV may be the cause as I managed to crash other apps). Still to be corrected... Be careful & save your work before opening FastWAV.

- 'canvas does not allow drawing' rare bug - normally it has been corrected but who knows... Tell me if you encounter it.

- some people told about problems due to networks (?). If you encounter problems & you're linked to a network then it should work fine (according to them) when the TCP/IP connections are removed. However it HAS been tested on networked environments without any problem & there's no reason for it not to work on networked systems.

- some people are also reporting crash at startup when Windows is in 16Bit display... Once again it HAS been tested in 16Bit display...

- not really a bug but the mixing could sometimes become up to 40 times (!) slower during silence when the main resonance is used because of the math copro & a couple of numbers becoming denormalized. This denormalization is now normally avoided, but let me know if you encouter it.

- Some VST plugins cause FruityLoops to crash when it's closed. Don't know whether it's because of FruityLoops or the plugin itself.

Please note that we don't support any of the VST plugins available. If they crash your computer, we're *not* responsible. Plugins are DLL's. They contain code, meaning they can contain viruses too!

A few tips if you're using too many effects & the mix takes too much CPU:

- First you can see how much CPU time the mix takes in the OPTIONS - WAV SETTINGS (F6).

- Trim (with any sample editor) the remaining silence or quasi-silence in your samples not to have it mixed (you don't hear it but it takes valuable CPU time). Any remaining ZERO silence is automatically removed within FruityLoops but nothing more...

- Try to reduce the number of delay echoes because they're actually samples retriggered (it's not a global delay line). Delay sounds good but often eats a lot of CPU.

- If you don't use the reso/cutoff filter (both kept to zero) it won't slow down.

- Most of the CPU time is often spent on mixing overlayed samples. Usually with common trackers a sample on a channel is cut by the next sample in the same channel. This is not the case in FruityLoops unless you tell it to do it (cut/cut by). Most of the time it sounds better to keep samples overlaying but sometimes for speed reasons you might want to have a long bass cut by the next one.

- The new TS404 takes up to 20 times the CPU of a drum channel! Don't overuse it! On a Pentium 200 you shouldn't set up more than 3 TS404 channels.

When you want to send your loops over the net...

- For practical reasons (many loops use often the same wave files) FLP files don't contain any sample. Use the 'collect samples' menu to gather all your sounds into a directory & put your FLP file in it. Then zip the whole directory.

- You can also put your loop & its samples in a zipped package from FruityLoops itself!

- Now the size can be a problem. If you want your wave files to be smaller, you can either downsample them (kicks & basses can often be downsampled at 22Khz without loosing that much quality) or compress them. Normally everyone has the Microsoft ADPCM & mu-LAW codecs installed so you may use them - FruityLoops (1.3.73 & above) will use the right codecs to uncompress them. mu-LAW should be preferred as it is the less lossy of the two. Do not use MP3 codecs as not everybody has them.

Keyboard layout (quick reminder):

L switch loop led

SpaceBar start/stop

V switch pan/vol wheels

P switch pitch/mix wheels

SHIFT switch graph edit

K switch piano keyboard

CTRL 'line' mode during wheels/graph/piano view

ALT note off (for strings) (sets volume to zero)

+- (numpad) change current pattern

Left/Right arrows change current pattern or scroll horizontally when the bottom scroller is visible

/* (numpad) change current playlist bar when playing

1..9 (numpad) select current pattern

1..0 mute/unmute channels from 1 to 10 (CTRL for solo)

Up/Down arrows change selected channel

PgUp/PgDown scroll channels up/down

PgUp/PgDown change current channel (settings window only)

Enter play sample (settings window only)

F3 select all the channels (useful to copy/paste the whole pattern)

F next effect (graph edit window)

+ all the main menu shortcuts...

FruityLoops Pro

Programming & graphics by:

Didier Dambrin (gol)

TS404 engine by:

Richard Hoffmann

DrumSynth renderer & included VST plugin by:

Paul Kellett

SimSynth renderer by:

David Billen

People at Image-Line:

Jean-Marie Cannie

Frank Van Biesen

Ief Goossens

Tutorials:

Frank Bongers

Many thanx to:

Olli Niemitalo (resonant filter formula & sound stuff)

Perry R. Cook (reverb models in STK98)

kuroda Dycoon (DirectSound header translation)

David Churcher (MIDI components)

Frédéric Vanmol (VST plugins SDK translation)

Jerome Schmitt (equalizer plugin)

Jordan Russell (components)

Angus Johnson (components)

Brad Stowers (components)

Ryan J. Mills (components)

Jean Lacoste (components)

Peter Thörnqvist (components)

Justin Mchale (web space)

MAZ (web space & samples)

the songwriters team for the cool tunes

& all the betatesters (you)...

Zip/unzip support by:

Eric W. Engler & Chris Vleghert at:

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Network/2114/

The Info-Zip group at:

http://www.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/

visit our web site at www.fruityloops.com