The Fruit Tree

Here’s a simple way to make effective Drum and Bass drums using only 5 elements.

1. Kick
2. Snare
3. Hi Hat Closed
4. Hi Hat Open
5. Break

A break is a complete sample of another drum kit with kick, snare and hats playing in time. This will help to compliment your individual samples. Turn down the volume so that your kick and snare stand out over the break.

 Make a simple pattern such as the one below and select samples which fit together well.

Route all of the 5 element above, into their own seperate mixer tracks.

Now route all of the elements through a drum master channel and add effects to this channel. This will help to make everything sit together better. A distortion plugin such as TK-3 Band Distort will help to make your drums sound dirty just the way we like ‘em! Check my Distortion Demo in Fruity  to download the distortion plugin. Click here to download the Fruity project file.

 This is the result…

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And here’s what it sounds like without the break….

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Popularity: 13% [?]

The other day when I was flicking through my FL Bible I came across this amazing feature: How to automate a VST to an external controller!

1: Open your favourite VST plugin by right clicking an existing instrument in the Step Sequencer, scrolling down to Insert and selecting the plugin from the menu (For this example I am using NI Pro-53).

2: Go to the Browser window. Click on Current project, then Generators and finally on Fruity wrapper.

What you see is the entire list of midi variables for the VST plugin! Yep that’s right, you can now automate any of the controls on the VST through Fruity Loops. Just right click on any of the Midi Control Knobs. Lets choose MIDI CC#1 (Modulation wheel) as an example.Right click on Midi CC#7 (Main volume) and then left click Create automation clip.

The automation clip appears in the playlist. Try making a simple modulation sweep while playing a note in the step sequencer. Below you can see the VST playing a single note while the modulation of the NI Pro-53 instrument is automated to sweep from 0% to 100%.

Well that’s how it’s done, 3rd party VST’s just became a whole lot more powerful! Now go and tweak the hell outta your favourite VST.

Popularity: 21% [?]