FL Studio Mobile

FL Studio Mobile - Editors

Double-tapping on a Clip in the Playlist will open the appropriate Editor window. Once open, single-taping on Playlist content will change the Editor Window.

Piano roll

Working with the Piano roll

The piano roll will play notes for any Instruments loaded on the current Playlist track, see Rack.

  • Add Notes - Tap on the empty grid.
  • Delete note - Tap and hold note (use delete pop-up).
  • Note controls - Tap notes to open the Copy, Delete, Snap controls.
  • Note Selection - Tap on the background (wait for the selection rectangle to show), drag across notes to be selected and release. Options for a selection include:
    • Copy - Copy the selection ready for Paste (long-tap at the location where you would like to paste).
    • Del - Delete selection.
    • Snap - To time grid (quantize).
    • More... - Additional controls:
      • Legato - Lengthens notes to remove gaps.
      • Snap to Scale - Snaps notes to the selected scale / key-signature.
      • Guess Scale? - Guess scale / key-signature of the selection. You will be shown the best three guesses with an option to see more.
      • Humanize - Adds a small amount of 'jitter' (randomization) to note start and end times.
      • Double Up / Down - Copy the selection Up / Down one octave.
      • Toggle Slide - Activate / Deactivate Slide Note.
      • Set length - 1/16th note to Whole note.
      • Transpose by - Transpose selection by value entered at the pop-up.
      • +1 / -1 (controls) - Allows you to bump the selection up/down in semitones using an on-screen control.
  • Time Ruler Selection - Tap and drag on the Timeline at the top of the Piano roll to make a selection. Options for a time-selection include:
    • Select - Select all notes bounded by the Timeline selection.
    • Insert space - Insert space equal to the Timeline selection, from the start of the selection.
    • Duplicate - Clone the selected notes and space, and insert it after the Timeline selection.
    • Delete space - Delete the Timeline selection (notes and space) from the Piano roll.
    • Trim selection - Delete notes and space either side of the Timeline selection.
    • Guess scale - Guess scale/key-signature of the selection. You will be shown the best three guesses with an option to see more.
    • Snap to scale - Snap all notes below the selection to the current scale/key-signature
  • Snap - Short-tap to turn on/off. Long-press to open Snap Options:
    • Steps 1/6 to 1 (step) - Absolute grid values equal to the nominated fraction of a step.
    • Beats 1/6 to 1 (beat) - Absolute beats values equal to the nominated fraction of a beat.
    • Bar - 1 bar.

    Converting from Steps/Beats to commonly used note values:

    Snap SettingNotation
    1/4 Step 64th notes
    1/2 Step 32nd notes
    1/4 Beat 16th notes
    1/3 Beat Triplets
    1/2 Beat 8th notes
    1 Beat Quarter notes
    Bar Whole note

    To quantize notes: 1. Set a snap value from the snap icon. 2. Make a note selection and use the Snap option from the note controls popup.

  • Note Velocity & Pan - The drag-up panel from the lower left of the Piano roll contains two tabs. Velocity and Pan. Select either tab and drag on the vertical bars associated with each note to change their Velocity (loudness) and Pan (Left to Right position in the stereo field).
  • Slide Notes - Instrument Pitch, Volume and Panning will respond to slide notes. Slide Notes are a very powerful tool to add expressive qualities to instruments. They work particularly well to add realism to acoustic instruments such as stings and guitars.

    To set a slide note, add a normal note, select it and choose 'Toggle Slide' from the More... menu.

    • Pitch - Single notes or chords will slide in pitch. The number of semi-tones for the slide is set by the distance from the highest note overlapping with the Slide Note and the Slide Note's pitch. The length of the Slide Note sets the side time. Pitch will start sliding at the beginning of the Slide Note and stop sliding at the end of the Slide Note. NOTE: The triangle in the Slide Note indicates the direction of pitch.
    • Velocity - All overlapping notes with the Slide Note will change in Volume to that of the Slide Note's value over the Slide Note's duration.
    • Panning - All overlapping notes with the Slide Note will change in Panning to that of the Slide Note's value over the Slide Note's duration.

Drum Sequencer & Drum Sampler

The Drum Sequencer has two different types of tracks, 'Stepsequencer Tracks' and 'Note Tracks':

  1. Stepsequencer Tracks - Allows you to quickly create drum rhythms by manually selecting steps to create a drum pattern. The sequencer is available from Playlist tracks of type Drum.
  2. Note Tracks - Created by default, when live-recording via the Drumpads OR from the Channel Menu > Add Notes Track. The Note Tracks allow you to record/edit steps of varying lengths (including complex Snap Settings) which is something that the Stepsequencer Track doesn't offer.

Graph Editor Controls

  • Velocity - Per step playback level of the sample. Taller bars are louder.
  • Panning - Per step Left/Right position in the stereo field. Up is Left. Down is Right.
  • Pitch - Per step pitch control. Up is sharp. Down is flat.
  • Note repeat - Trigger up to 8 repeats per step.

Stepsequencer & Channels

  • To add a drum sample - Tap the (+) icon at the bottom of the rack and choose another sample to add. This will become a new track.
  • To replace a drum sample - Long-tap on the track header and choose 'Load sample' and choose a new sample OR with the SAMPLE tab selected tap the waveform icon and choose a new sample.
  • To save a custom drumset - Long-press the Channel Icon to open the Channel Menu and use 'Save Template'. This will save the current set of drums as a preset so you can load it again later.
  • To load a custom drumset - Tap the (+) Playlist button to add a track of type Drum Sequencer. Choose from My Drumsets.

  • Drum Channel SHORT-TAP - Opens the settings with 4 additional tabs:
    • Mixer - Mixer related functions.
      • Mute (switch) - Silences the Channel.
      • Solo (button) - Silences all other Channels.
      • Pan (slider) - Left/Right position of the sample in the stereo field.
      • Level (slider) - Overall volume level of the Channel.
    • Sample - Sample related effects & controls.
      • Wave icon - Load sample. To Change samples tap the Wave icon to open a sample browser. Choose a sample. You can also choose your own custom samples from the My Samples folder. After adding a sample tap the Env. tab to adjust the ADSR settings for the sample.
      • REV (reverse sample) - Plays the sample backwards.
      • Pitch - Transpose the sample +/- 24 semitones (2 Octaves). NOTE: There is also a per-step pitch control on the drag-up bar editors tab, as shown above.
      • Stretch - Time-stretching. Changes the length of the sample without affecting the pitch. You can double or halve the sample playback time.
      • Start - Sample start position. Negative values allow you to add a delay to the sample start.
    • Env - Volume envelope settings.
      • Attack - Time taken to reach the maximum level.
      • Decay - Time taken to decay to the sustain level.
      • Sustain - Level at which the sample plays when the note is held.
      • Release - Time taken to decay to silence after note release.

      s

    • Seq - Stepsequencer and polyphony related settings.
      • Hold - When set to 0 (slider left) there is no effect. When moved to the right will trigger the release envelope, with the length of playback depending on the slider position. Since the step-sequencer steps are a series of instantaneous triggers, Hold determines how long each step is held (similar to holding down a key on a keyboard). TIP: Start with the slider 100% right and drag the slider to the left until you reach the desired length. Length interacts with the Envelope > Release setting, which should be set to minimum for the Length setting to have an effect. Afterward you can again tweak Release to achieve a less abrupt ending.
      • Cut Group - Drum channels set to the same group stop playback of each other (cut or silence them). Cut groups are used so that a drum channel (sample), will either silence other drum channels when it plays or be silenced by other drum channels when they play. There are 3 cut groups (A, B and C) to you can have up to 3 independent sets of samples cutting each other. For example: Set a 'closed' Hi-Hat sound and 'open' Hi-Hat sound to Cut group A. Then, when either the open or closed sample plays it will stop playback of the other one. This is how a real hi-hat will behave when you hit it open and then close it. The ringing of the open position instantly is stops (is cut) when closed. For a sample to cut itself, use the Poly switch, described below.
      • Poly - When selected the sample will overlap itself when quickly re triggered. When deselected the sample will cut itself when quickly re triggered. This can help to clean up the sound of overlapping and bassy samples that can 'muddy' a mix.
      • Shift - Step position. Moves that play position of the sample off the step. You can move the sample before and after the step.
      • AUX (Send track) - Sample routing. You can send the audio from the selected sample to any other Effects Track (AUX) for separate processing to the host Drum Track
  • Drum Channel LONG-PRESS - Opens a context menu:
    • Load Sample - Opens the sample browser to replace the sample on the current Channel.
    • Clone - Duplicates the current Channel.
    • Delete - Deletes the current Channel.
    • Set MIDI key - Choose and play a note on your MIDI controller to set the note for the Sample/Drumpad.
    • Fill every step - Fills all steps.
    • Fill each 2 steps - Fills odd steps.
    • Fill each 4 steps - Fills steps 1, 5, 9 etc.
    • Clear - Delete all steps.

Working with the Stepsequencer

  • Add / Remove Steps - Tap Steps. The drum sound will be triggered on each active step.
  • Swing - Opens a slider that allows you to add a 'swing' rhythm to Steps. Swing affects the length of odd vs even steps. If 4 beats per bar are set, 'swing' holds odd 16th notes (1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15) at the expense of even 16th notes (2,4,6,8,10,12 and 16) in the bar. The control determines the amount of swing.
  • Add Drums - Tap the (+) button at the bottom of the Stepsequencer. This will open a 'Browser'. You can also choose your own custom samples from the My Samples folder. After adding a sample tap the Env. tab to adjust the ADSR settings for the sample.

  • Drum Sampler - The Drum Sampler is integrated with the Step Sequencer, and is another instrument specialized for playing single-shot percussion samples. The Drum Track can hold multiple samples making up a drum kit and allowing you to process each sound separately. Use the tabs to access controls:

    Custom drum samples - The Drum Sampler will look in the My Recordings, My Samples and My Tracks for WAV (16 / 32 Bit) and MP3 format samples. If you put your own samples in these locations you can load custom drum sounds (as shown in the videos above).

  • Add Notes Track - Long-tap the Channel Menu for the Drum Track to add a 'Notes Track'. This will allow you to set Snap values for steps and program in complex timings such as triplets or 1/64th notes.

Automation Clip

An Automation Clip moves the target parameter. You can create automation clips for most interface controls. Just move them then use the CTRL menu on the Transport Bar to add an Automation Track for that target.

NOTE: You can drag and select multiple points to delete, mode or copy and paste them.

Creating Automation Clips

You can automate most movable control on FL Studio Mobile. All knobs and sliders. To manually create an automation clip for a target:

  1. Tweak/move the target control
  2. Tap CTRL on the Transport bar
  3. Select 'Add Automation Track'
  4. Tap the Automation Track and add an empty Automation Clip
  5. Tap the Automation Clip and Edit
  6. Tap in points using the pop-up editor(see above)

NOTE: If you are recording and move any parameter an Automation Track and Clip will be automatically created. You can go back in and edit the performance later.

Working with Automation Clips

Automation Clips can either be manually created OR can result from manual tweaking of a control while in Record mode.

Link a control to an existing Automation Clip:

  1. Select the Automation Clip track in the Playlist.
  2. Tweak/move the target control
  3. Tap CTRL on the Transport bar
  4. Select 'Link to current track'.

Audio Clips

When loading an Audio Clip track, FL Studio mobile will make available files in FLM User Files\My Recordings, My Samples & My Tracks. FL Studio Mobile supports 8, 16, 24 and 32 integer and IEEE float waves. *.wav format and .MP3 format. NOTE: MP3 format files include a very short period of silence at the start. This is part of the MP3 conversion process and can put critical timing events in the audio out of sync with the Playlist.

Working with the Wave Editor

  • Left Tabs - Control Volume, Pan and Pitch with the tabs down the left side.
    • Tap to add points - Existing points can be dragged.
    • Delete points - Tap and long-press point. Release to show delete option. Tapping outside points and dragging will allow you to select multiple points.
    • Vol, Pan, Pitch - Tap tabs to choose an envelope to apply it to the Audio Clip.
  • Time selection menu - After making a time-line selection there will be a (+) icon, tapping this opens a menu. If the (+) icon is not visible, tap one of the bars of the selection:
    • Deselect - Remove time-line selection.
    • Insert silence - Insert time equal to the selection length. Audio straddling the selection, will be sliced at the start of the selection and moved to the right. Time will be added equivalent to the length of the selection.
    • Duplicate - All Audio in the selection will be sliced at the selection boundaries and copied to the right.
    • Clear - All Audio in the selection, will be sliced at the Clip boundaries and deleted.
    • Delete space - All Audio in the selection, will be sliced at the selection boundaries. Both Time and Audio will be deleted, Audio to the right will be moved left.
    • Trim selection - Audio will be sliced at the selection boundaries and everything outside the selection will be deleted (Time and Audio).
    • Normalize - Maximize the level of the audio in the selection. A multiplier is applied to all samples so that the loudest sample reaches 100%.
    • Fade in - Levels will be set from 0% to 100% over the range of the selection.
    • Fade out - Levels will be set from 1000% to 0% over the range of the selection.
  • Undo - Undo the last edit.
  • PRV - Solo preview the Audio while previewing the sample.
  • Level - Clip volume level.
  • Pan - Clip Pan (left/right position in the stereo field).
  • Pitch - Clip Pitch.
  • REV - Reverse the Clip.
  • SYNC - Synchronize the Clip to the project tempo. When selected, changing the BPM or Clip Length will change the play duration while pitch will remain fixed.