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S1E21 – Using Automation Clips in FL Studio

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Heads up, I have created a specific automation clip course!

Automation clips are how we producers allow our music to do things automatically. However, we still have to set up them up manually, and tell the automation clip what to do.

Then, the song will listen to us when we play the song!

We can automate pretty much any parameter inside of FL Studio, so the sky truly is the limit!

One thing to note which I forgot to mention in the episode. VST 2 third-party VSTs cannot be right-clicked to create an automation clip. You’ll have to Tools -> Last Tweaked to create an automation clip for those. (VST3 plugins are fine here!)

Automation Clips Beatmaking Mixing

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S1E21 – Using Automation Clips in FL Studio

  1. Hey, this is Gratuitous. Welcome to Music Production Made Simple, the show that
  2. focuses on best practices about music production, which is based on FL Studio.
  3. If you're wanting to become the best producer you could be, subscribe and listen
  4. weekly. You can also check out my courses, which teach you the principles and basics
  5. of music production. They'll get you up and running quickly.
  6. In addition, I also have books on Amazon and tons of music on Spotify.
  7. Always feel free to hit me up at Hi at itsgratuitous.com.
  8. So let's get into the episode.
  9. Alright, what's up everybody? Welcome to episode number 21.
  10. This episode, we are going to be talking about automation clips inside of FL Studio.
  11. Now, FL Studio has a very, very unique way of approaching automation clips.
  12. We'll be covering what automation clips are here in a second.
  13. But when we talk about other DAWs, other music production programs, if you watch
  14. tutorials, for example, let's just say like logic and stuff like that, they make it
  15. really, really easy to use automation clips.
  16. For example, let's say there was a vocal, you want to reduce one of the words or
  17. whatever, you could easily just reduce the volume of that one word.
  18. with FL Studio, there's a little bit of a process.
  19. You actually have to like highlight the area on the playlist, right-click, like you
  20. know, the volume, create an automation clip, still actually create your points, and
  21. then you can actually start adjusting.
  22. And you know, you can get really fine-tuned and stuff like that, but just the whole
  23. process behind FL Studio's automation system, I find is really cumbersome and
  24. just takes a lot longer than what is required in inside of other DAWs.
  25. So personally, I think this is something where FL Studio does need to improve, is
  26. within their automation clips.
  27. They work, you're able to achieve great stuff, but like I'm saying, you're not able
  28. to achieve I guess as fast of choices in compared
  29. to other music programs, right?
  30. Like so FL Studio kind of struggles when it comes to you using actual audio clips,
  31. whereas other DAWs, they're a lot l they are a lot more powerful.
  32. So in this episode, I want to talk about how to use automation clips in FL Studio
  33. and some kind of best practices for when it gets confusing because it can get
  34. confusing. I just want to give you guys a little update.
  35. So I missed last week. I'm sorry.
  36. the reason for that is just I just been really busy on the sense of you know the
  37. back end of things. me being an electrician, I'm actually taking this course, and
  38. it's every single Saturday for the past six Saturdays.
  39. So that's taken up a full Saturday.
  40. Like it was like a full eight-hour course for six Saturdays.
  41. So, like I'm saying, that was kind of eating up a lot of my time, and I just kind of
  42. juggled around my time. and I just decided just to kind of take a week off of the
  43. podcast there. In the new year, all you know, my time is gonna be freed up and I'll
  44. be able to focus a little bit more.
  45. but yeah, and then now also I just want to share again that 10 steps to become an FL
  46. Studio Pro, it is now released.
  47. That was a long course to put together.
  48. I talked about it quite a bit in previous episodes.
  49. again, awesome camera, had a green screen, got a new microphone for that.
  50. Turned out really, really good.
  51. It's an eight-hour course. I'll leave that link in the in the show notes.
  52. Again, it's called 10 steps to become an FL Studio Pro.
  53. it's an awesome course, you guys should check it out.
  54. Okay, so let's get into the episode and talk about automation clips in FL Studio.
  55. So let's just talk about automation clips and you know what are they?
  56. Okay. So an automation clip allows you to do things automatically inside of your
  57. song that you have to set up beforehand.
  58. Let's say we're talking about filters.
  59. So filters are super super powerful with music production, they allow for intense
  60. emotion. For example, when we talk about audio painting, audio painting is just a
  61. term that I've coined over the years, and I just use it to help communicate with my
  62. listener to prepare them for what's next in the song.
  63. and by using filters with automation clips, we can set this up beforehand
  64. to make it work in our song, okay?
  65. So, again, at the most basic level, an automation clip you set up beforehand to do
  66. work for you when you hit play.
  67. And it can be anything, right?
  68. It could be anything from volume to panning to EQs or settings, whether they be on
  69. or off. Now, let's talk about how to create an automation clip inside of FL Studio.
  70. So, for the most part, it's really really easy.
  71. So, for example, let's say we wanted to create a high cut filter, okay?
  72. So, the high cut removes the high frequencies, okay?
  73. So, let's say we want to create a high cut filter to kind of reduce some of the
  74. highs and then bring the highs back in.
  75. And this is a popular technique to create emotion, and you know it's a filter to
  76. kind of break down a song at a certain moment and then bring back the emotion, the
  77. tension, okay. So, what you would do is let's say on a mixer insert, what you would
  78. do is you would just click on the click on the mixer insert, or so you kind of got
  79. to think. It's like, do you want to apply this filter to like the master, which is
  80. gonna affect the whole song, or are you only wanting to filter out some instruments?
  81. If it's some instruments, you might want to rot those to like a subgroup.
  82. You can put the filter on there.
  83. let's keep it simple. Let's say we want to filter out the whole song and then bring
  84. back the full emotion, okay? So we're gonna put the filter on the master.
  85. So you would simply just click on the master, open up like the fruity parametric
  86. EQ2. they describe these filters differently than high cut and low cut, so they
  87. actually describe them as low pass and high pass, and it's actually kind of opposite
  88. thinking. I really like when it's just high cut and low cut, it's just the simplest
  89. way to think about it. A low cut cuts your low frequencies, a high cut filter cuts
  90. your high frequencies. Okay., But anyway so you're gonna be wanting to actually have
  91. a low pass filter on that parametric EQ2..
  92. Okay It's going to allow the lows to pass while you're cutting the highs.
  93. And what you would do is on the master track, you just open up that EQ.
  94. Okay. Within the actual playlist, what you want to do is you want to highlight,
  95. okay? So you can do that, you can do that by holding on control and left click and
  96. highlighting. you have to do that on like the bars in the playlist.
  97. That's just like the numbers at like the top, or you can simply just double click
  98. and hold and drag, or actually using the right click to kind of highlight sections
  99. is pretty powerful too because you can actually add on to what you previously
  100. highlighted. It gives you a little bit more flexibility, okay.
  101. Now, once you have it highlighted, it's just a matter of on the actual EQ, you're
  102. gonna go to that band, you're gonna right-click on it, and you're gonna see an
  103. option to create automation clip.
  104. Now, again, you can do this with any knob for the most part inside of FL Studio.
  105. Like, let's say we talk about like the step sequencer.
  106. If you're working with a sound, you can simply just like right-click like the volume
  107. knob or like the pan knob, and you'll see create automation clip, okay?
  108. And now on the automation clip, you'll see that it just appears on the playlist.
  109. And in order to access these automation clips, within the step sequencer, you're
  110. gonna see like a little drop-down.
  111. You'll see like all or automation or unsorted, or if you have audio clips in there,
  112. you know, you'll see that kind of stuff.
  113. So you can simply just click automation, and that's where all like the clips are the
  114. automation clips. But within the playlist, now your automation clips should be
  115. created. now if you right-click, you can create points.
  116. And if you right-click again on that point, you have tons of options for different
  117. styles of points. So, for example, you can go from like stairs or different types of
  118. curves, you can do like double curves, and this is just where you can start getting
  119. really, really creative with your automation. clips to fine-tune it to get it
  120. exactly how you want it to sound, okay
  121. So all you have to do is just kind of set it up to how you want it to sound, and
  122. you're good to go for the most part.
  123. Like that is really how simple automation clips are.
  124. you know, it is something you want to play around with, fiddle around with, because
  125. this is what's gonna take your music to the next level in a sense of being creative.
  126. Like this is like the sky is the limit when it comes to automation clips and what
  127. you can automate, what you can control.
  128. It's really, really powerful stuff.
  129. Now I just want to cover some kind of funky stuff when it comes to FL Studio and
  130. these automation clips, okay? So when you create an automation clip inside of FL
  131. Studio, what happens is it literally takes like a snapshot of that
  132. automation clip at that moment in time.
  133. And so what that means is that it literally will kind of store that state.
  134. So if you put the cursor before or after the automation clip, you'll
  135. notice that the state of your EQ, okay, because we're gonna talk about like that low
  136. pass filter or the high cut filter, you'll notice that like the state of the high
  137. cut filter keeps changing when it goes before or after.
  138. And as you start to kind of you know fiddle around when you're kind of mixing the
  139. track, you're trying to get it ready for commercial release or whatever, this can
  140. kind of be really, really annoying.
  141. So what you can do is you can kind of go up into the browser, okay?
  142. So in FL Studio, the browser is where you access like your sounds or like where you
  143. can access like your current project, your history, backups, you know, all that kind
  144. of stuff, okay. So within the browser, you're gonna want to click current project,
  145. okay? Inside of current project, you're gonna see initialized controls, okay..
  146. And when you've created the automation clip, you'll see that it has saved the states
  147. here Now you can just delete this, and what this is gonna do is it's not gonna
  148. listen to that picture that you created when you created the automation clip, okay?
  149. Because again, it kind of takes like a little snapshot, it remembers like the last
  150. state that you created the automation clip in.
  151. Okay, and you can you can just delete it here.
  152. personally, what I would recommend to you is so if you want to have that
  153. let's say high-cut filter start at a different state, okay, from what you originally
  154. created it at. Just simply go back to that EQ, go back to that same slider or knob
  155. or whatever that you created the automation clip on.
  156. And again, if you right click where it says create automation clip, don't click
  157. that. You're gonna see something called init song with this position, okay.
  158. So set up that EQ to how you want it to start now.
  159. And now you can simply press init song with this position, and this will override
  160. what you have previously created with the automation clip.
  161. Okay, so that is just a really powerful thing to know within FL Studio.
  162. this init song with this position, it just kind of resets that snapshot that FL
  163. Studio stored when you created that automation clip.
  164. Okay, now here is a powerful trick I've discovered over the years.
  165. let's say we're dealing with a plugin like D Blue Glitch.
  166. Okay, so this is a plugin that allows you to manipulate your audio.
  167. Okay, so you can do like tape stops, you can do like stutters, reverses, glitches,
  168. tons of crazy stuff. So it's a manipulation plugin.
  169. So, in other words, it's a very, very aggressive plugin, depending on you know how
  170. you set it up, but for the most part, it's very, very aggressive.
  171. So if I were to put that on the master track, I don't want it playing all the time.
  172. And so, what I have discovered over the years is within the mixer, okay.
  173. So, when you actually add a plugin onto an insert, okay, you actually have a mix
  174. knob, okay, and that's just beside the actual plugin.
  175. You have a mix knob right there.
  176. And what I will actually do is I will actually turn the mix knob all the way to
  177. zero. So, what I'm telling FL Studio is that right now I don't want this plugin to
  178. work, okay. So, if I were to right click it and create an automation clip, that is
  179. telling FL Studio that I actually want this plugin to be off all the time until I
  180. turn it on. Okay, so within the automation clip, I can enable it whenever I want to
  181. enable it, and then I just simply disable it by bringing by creating a new point and
  182. bringing it down. A really powerful pro tip is to use the whole, okay.
  183. So within an automation clip, if you just right click to create a point, you're
  184. gonna right click, you're gonna see hold.
  185. That is a really powerful point.
  186. when you're wanting to enable and disable a plugin really, really fast.
  187. Okay. Now, one last thing I want to talk about with automation clips is when I
  188. create automation clips, I actually like to highlight the area I'm working in, and
  189. I'll create the automation clip just for that area.
  190. If I want to reuse that automation clip, it's just a matter of holding down shift,
  191. clicking, and bringing that automation clip over to the next area I want to work
  192. with. If I want to make it a little bit different, I can right click on that second
  193. automation clip, which is now a duplicate.
  194. But if you right click in the top left corner, you can make unique.
  195. Okay, so now you've just made a different version of that same automation clip, so
  196. you can kind of tweak it a little bit differently further on in the song.
  197. you'll notice that. some people, when they create automation clips in FL Studio,
  198. they will literally just create the automation clip for the whole length of the song
  199. I personally find that unnecessary and kind of annoying to look at.
  200. I like to just have it simple.
  201. They have the automation clip just for the area it's working in, and that's how I
  202. like the flow. Okay. So I just want to share one thing before we wrap up this
  203. episode is I've actually created a free tutorial on automation clips.
  204. Okay, so I went super super in depth.
  205. Pretty much everything I told you already, except you're actually able to see it
  206. visually, and I really truly believe it will help you understand automation clips in
  207. FL Studio and how to use them at more of a professional level in a sense of really
  208. understanding how they work, how FL Studio stores them, how you can kind of
  209. manipulate them, be creative with them.
  210. Again, I'll leave that link in the show notes.
  211. Hopefully, you guys learned something in this episode about automation clips.
  212. FL Studio, you know, it's it's powerful, their automation clips, but again, I feel
  213. that this is an area where they need to improve if they want to really compete
  214. against a lot of the you know other DAWs like logic and like Pro Tools and stuff
  215. like that. Creating automation clips in those DAWs.
  216. I haven't used them before, but just like from watching tutorials over the years, it
  217. was just a matter of them just putting their mouse on like the the audio clip and
  218. being able to create the automation clip right then and there, fine-tune on like
  219. that one word or whatever, and it's just like the flexibility is just so awesome.
  220. FL Studio, you actually have to create an automation clip, create the points,
  221. fine-tune it, and you know, kind of work that way.
  222. but again, you know, that's just kind of my opinion, but that's just where what I
  223. feel where FL Studio could really improve is the automation clips.
  224. Okay, so hopefully you guys like the episode.
  225. Let me know if you'd like me to you know create an episode on a certain topic.
  226. and have a good week, guys. Take care.
  227. episode. Thanks for checking out the
  228. If you had any questions, visit it'sgratuitous.com slash podcast, select an episode
  229. and submit your question at the bottom of the page to the contact form.
  230. If you'd like to take my FL Studio courses, see my current studio and podcasting
  231. gear, read my books, or are interested in lessons, visit the link it'sgratuitous.com
  232. slash learning. That page will redirect you to more info and resources.
  233. I hope the best with your productions.
  234. I'm gratuitous, and I'll see you in the next
  235. episode.
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