SYSTEM SETTINGS

System Settings - General

To open the General Settings choose 'Options > General settings' from the main menu or press the F10 function key on your keyboard. The General Settings page contains various general settings of the working environment in FL Studio.

System

• Associate project files with application - Associates FL Studio project files with FL Studio (so that if you double-click on a .flp file in Windows FL Studio will open automatically).

Miscellaneous

• Show channel activity meters - Animates the activity meters in the Step Sequencer when notes are played.
• Auto name channels - Automatically assigns a suitable name to the channels. If it's a Sampler, it takes the name of the sample it contains, else the channels take the name of the generator. If a name repeats with the name of another channel, FL Studio will put a number after the name (for example - "Kick", "Kick #1", "Kick #2", etc).
• Auto zip empty channels - FL Studio will automatically zip all empty channels and unzip all non-empty channels when switching between patterns. Empty is considered a pattern that does not contain active notes and notes in the Piano roll.
• Auto select linked modules - Depending on state:
  • ON, Mixer track auto-focus - The Mixer will select the assigned mixer track as you focus (click on) plugin interfaces (instrument or effects).
  • OFF, 1. Plugins stay open & 2. UI/MIDI is separated - 1. plugins stay open - Normally plugin interfaces close when the next plugin is opened, if 'Auto select linked modules' is off, instrument & effect interfaces stay open until manually closed. If this gets messy, use the Close all unfocused windows ( Ctrl + F12) function. Another way to open more than one plugin at a time, without using this option, is to close the Channel Settings window associated with the first plugin prior to opening the next plugin. 2. Separate MIDI control and interface editing - Channel buttons open plugins for editing and the Channel selector LEDs select channels for live MIDI control. This allows you to play one instrument channel live and edit another.
• Optimize for - These are pointer-device options.
  • Multi-button mouse - Standard settings when working (primarily) with a mouse.
  • Pencil - Use when working with a pencil-based tablet. Horizontal position controls accuracy of the target control after touch. To make course changes stay in the vertical axis of the target control. To increase sensitivity click, hold and move to the left or right and then drag vertically. The horizontal position controls sensitivity.
  • Multi-touch monitor - Use when using a multi-touch interface. Multi-touch generally assumes finger control so hot-zones for targets are made larger. Horizontal position after touching a control will change sensitivity/accuracy (as per pencil interfaces above). See the section on Multi-touch gesture support.
• Use both mouse buttons in step sequencer - If switched off the left mouse button both activates and deactivates Step Sequencer steps. If turned on, Left-clicks activate steps, while Right-click deactivate them.
• Use tablet PC or digitizing stylus - Changes the way some controls (knobs and sliders in FL Studio) work to improve their usability when working with a stylus/pen based interface on tablet PCs and digitizing tablets.
• Click-and-hold functions in piano roll - Piano roll functions include: Copy note: Hold on an existing note to copy it. Cycle slide/porta: Click and hold when adding a note to cycle through slide & porta event modes. Glue notes: Place the cursor between 2 neighbor notes, so the resize cursor appears, then click and hold to glue them. Mouse wheel velocity: Use mouse wheel while holding notes to change velocity. Mouse wheel tools: Change tools by holding right click and rolling the wheel.
• Animations - Controls menu, mouse related, overlay and pop-up animations. At the lowest level (Don't distract me) all animations are off, at the highest level (Entertain me) prepare to be 'entertained'.
• Ultrasmooth - Increases smoothness (frame rate) of all animations.
• Alternate meter scale - Changes the peak meter scaling. Hovering the mouse over the same part of the scale with this option on/off will yield different Hint Bar values as the meter is rescaled. To read a peak meter value hold the mouse pointer over the peak meter, the value displayed in the Hint Bar will be the level at the position of the pointer. To read an actual peak value place the mouse pointer over the peak position on the meter.
• Small scrollbars in editors - The horizontal & vertical scroll-bars in the Piano roll, Playlist & Event Editor etc., are set to half their height or width compared to standard.
• Show startup splash screen - Deselect to skip the FL Studio splash screen on start-up.

Advanced

• Don't limit windows to screen - Allows you to move windows outside of the main screen. This option is useful only for users with multiple-monitor configurations. It should be turned off unless you have a specific need.
• Fast sample preview - When selected, FL Studio streams rather than preloading sample before playing them in the Browser (useful for big samples).
• Read sample tempo information - When selected FL Studio will use tempo & tempo-sync meta-data that may be saved in wave files. This affects Browser preview, Playlist and Channel sampler 'Time stretching' behavior. If you find samples are incorrectly stretched or play off pitch, you can turn this option off or correct the tempo/pitch meta-data saved with the sample using the File properties dialog in Edison.
• Auto keep long audio on disk - Automatically enables 'Keep on disk' (located on the 'SMP' tab), when loading large samples (>30 seconds) as Audio Clips and/or Sampler Channels. NOTE: The sample data must be 16 or 32 Bit format and the project or sample loaded with after selecting this option for it to be automatically applied. When selected the maximum memory available to each Audio Clip / Sampler Channel will be at least 2 Gb for 32 Bit Windows and up to 4 Gb depending on your version of 64 Bit Windows.
• Enable legacy precomputed effects - Some of the precomputed effects in the Sampler Channel Settings were deprecated or replaced in FL Studio 4 and up. This option allows you to unhide the deprecated effects, so you can work with older projects.

Undo History

• Maximum undo levels - Sets the maximum undo steps kept in the history (see Project Browser). Lower number of steps improves performance, whereas more steps ensure greater editing flexibility as you work in FL Studio.
• Undo knob tweaks - Turn this option on to enable recording of all automatable controls (sliders, knobs and checkboxes) as undo steps in the history. Enabling this option allows the history to record a much wider set of user actions, however it may cause performance problems with certain plugins, like X-Y Controller and Scratcher. The default value of this option is off.

Skin

Choose a skin for FL Studio. FL Studio comes with several preinstalled variations of the default skin.

NOTE: FL Studio is not designed to be user skinnable as many GUI components are embedded in the code so dynamic effects can be applied. Offenders will be punished! :)