Fruity-Loops appeared about a year and a half ago as a basic s/w drum-box around the time of the hammerhead s/w drumbox invasion...
(note - Image-Line is now the s/w company making the new FruityLoops range of software)
Fruity-Loops was a basic but good drum-box s/w with a few facilities and interestingly, the ability to clock to midi and to select a midi note for each drum in the composition, so that you could assign a sample AND a midi note per track/drum-sound... good start, and it sold but like most s/w drums at that time it had limitations in the form of shuffle feel and time-sig, velocity per-beat etc... and... like it's younger sibling FruityLoops, it has unlimited tracks - (the limit is your pc's power)....
Well Fruity-Loops PRO is the bigger version, and it really gets in-depth now with a whole bunch of facilities to make some banging drum-tracks and way way more as it add's synth sounds mapped across keys to create melodic passages, as well as the ability to integrate a stand-a,one 303 type synth called the "404" which integrates in with Fruity-Pro to provide a rebirth-like 303 synth will full compliment of controls etc.... so - It'd be fair to say that Fruity-Loops PRO well surpasses rebirth in terms of creativity.... read on
First up the grid (above main image) - simple SET buttons - click on them to assign samples & midi note.... each drum or sample sound can have a BIGTIME set of parameters including res-filers, delay reverb, pan, volume, an overdrive-shaper thing to turm 909 kiks into huge gabba & hardcore monsters, a stereo-channel delay thing that widens the field by delaying one side of a drum sound etc... There is also a sine-wav additive thing that meges a sine into the sound... bust it in full and your drum sound starts toi take on a nmore and more synth-like ringing metallic sound.. I woukld say Fruity would do some very interesting Ambient/Abstract/or industrial sounds....
Here's the screen that sets the basic drum per channel.....
Fruity-Loops PRO also has another section for beat-by-beat editing of stuff like pitch, filter, keyboard etc..... you select a track which defaults to the basic grid for inputting drum beats like a Roland X0X style sequencer..... Then things get interesting.... you can select different edit views from this panel section Located below the START/ LOOP SWITCHES.
here's the mode selected to set Volume & Pan per beat !!... simple knobs that auto-enlarge when you mouse click on them for simple adjustment witout screen-clutter for layout - (that is one idea rebirth could do with as it's 808 & 909 buttons are very fiddly at higher screen-res's.... With this Edit-mode on, it's a cinch to get a perfect feel to your patterns by adusting the velocities ... and create dramatic pan effects with Pan-per-Note.....
Next we are in the Keyboard-mode... You can see it is like a keyboard, and you just create your synthline with the keys per beat....This can be used to input stuff like basslines utilising a bass-synth sample instead of a drum - great to create synthlines & the like.... BUT... you can do this to drums as well !!... great for any drum tuning fx all the way up to total drum loonacy !!...
With Fruity-Pro you can for example create a pattern where EACH drum note/beat can have a different PAN, VELOCITY, FILTER RES' & CUT-OFF and PITCH !!!....Add to that the ability to load ANY drum sound you have as a sample, and create pre-set kits that appear at the LEFT-Side drop down lists for fast loading, and you can see now how Reirth's drums start to pale in comparison.... and we didn't even think aout individual track FX & settings too !!... this is one incredibly versatile drum s/w.....
There is more - way more..... Like the integratable "TS404" rebirth-like 303 synth - You can aget it as an upgrade if you have Fruity-Loops already, or with the programme as a package if you're a new user.... I suggest you crack over there right away and get a demo download - you will be impressed i can guarantee it.... Check it out and see what Fruity-Loops-PRO can do for you... Good site, they also do sample-packs etc.... and a tracker s/w to create finshed master-mixes with several Fruity-Songs.... Enjoy !!...
Read 24 comments
Add review/comment