Quote from Dinomut

Not simpler, just more compatible. FL starts you with a shitty drum machine and then focuses on the timeline as a secondary function to their weird way of organizing every single sample/audio clip/everything into the annoying rhythm interface.

Quote from Dinomut

I mean there's really no official limit to how much you can sample, and i just mean that the drum machine is a real pain in the ass if you want to use any sample in tempo

and due to the fact that you have to put everything into the drum machine sequencer (even stuff that shouldn't use a drum machine interface such as melodies)

makes it impossible to work with different tempos, change speed at any point in the song

or do anything outside of the rigidness of the drum interface, which is how it should be for making a beat, but they instead had it be used for everything else too, which makes it a huge pain in the ass.

Anyways, I downloaded Reason, so this thread is now a debate about FL.

Quote from Exilement

I don't think you know what a drum machine is.

The starting interface is a 16-note, 4-bar step sequencer that lets you manage non-tonal samples without having to use the Piano Roll. There's nothing complicated about clicking on a beat where you want it to play within the pattern you're working on.

Alright, sorry about my incorrect semantics, it's annoying that they used a SEQUENCER as their main interface for everything.

What the hell are you upset about here? Are you looking for a program that can seemlessly take 10 different samples all playing at different tempos, and have them sync together to work with your project, which is at a different tempo than any of the other samples to begin with? You could probably do that with the FL Slicer but even then, why even try?

No, it's the fact that the sequencer (which basically is the structure for every sound clip) is hard to line up with a sample, and since EVERYTHING operates on the sequencer, that means that everything is hard to line up tempo-wise.

If you have to work with samples (protip: you don't, stop doing it), then you work around them. You don't look for a program that makes using other people's work easier than it already is.

We aren't debating what I'm trying to accomplish with said music program.

You mean the piano roll? That's basically the method people use to write melodies using any DAW, outside of live recording. What are you looking for, staffs and musical notation? Get Sibelius, then.

The piano roll was fine. The fact that the piano roll is hooked up to the sequencer and that you can't make it independent of the sequencer is what's annoying.

Right click the tempo and click "Create automation clip", change the automation clip in the playlist. omg different tempos

But does that only alter a single clip or does it just change the tempo temporarily (note that i don't know how to do that so this isn't rhetorical)?

Reason uses a more complicated piano roll than FL Studio does, and it accomplishes basically the same thing. Have fun with that.

Not a concern to me, piano rolls are always pretty easy to understand.

Also, next time you briefly play with a program, make sure you understand it before you actually start bitching about its features, because right now I'd be surprised if you know what patterns or the playlist are. I think you expect songs on FL to be composed entirely on one huge pattern rather than in sections that are played together in the playlist.

Oh I'm SO sorry to have offended you with my "bitching" about the organization techniques of FL Studio. I've been using it for a year and a half now, which isn't that brief by my standards, and surprise! I know what the patterns and playlists are. The patterns are all still composed on the sequencer which i guess would be good if there was an alternative option to make a pattern independent of the sequencer, but no, you always have to structure it around the sequencer, which is cumbersome in the case of anything that isn't a drumbeat. The playlist was fine, although the cut options seemed a bit rushed and you couldn't really assign your newly cut sound clip to the sequencer, which made it a lot harder than things needed to be.

Have fun with reason but having tried using both of them, FL is a lot better in pretty much every aspect.

Quote from ScHaLL

The piano roll is completely independent of the step sequencer.

Quote from Vervanda

what are you talking about man, you can make the sequencer be as long as you want it to be for one pattern.

Quote from Dinomut

Yeah but (correct me if i'm wrong) you can only make the piano roll as long as you want. The way the sequencer is organized visually is only 1 measure long.

Quote from Gavel

And Exilement and Schall, don't tell Dinomut not to sample. Knowing Dinomut, he's probably trying to make a hip-hop beat which is obviously different from trance so I don't really think you have much say in the matter, since you probably don't know much about the genre (no offense).