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S3E18 – Should You Upgrade to FL Studio 21

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In this episode of Music Production Made Simple Podcast (which is a FL Studio podcast all about learning how to make beats), we talk about should you upgrade to FL Studio 21, should you upgrade to Windows 11, as well as some info about the M-Audio Oxygen Pro, and the best computer for music production upgrade process.

FL Studio 20 vs. FL Studio 21

FL Studio 21 is the newest version as of writing.

The main updated features of FL Studio 21 are its new Browser, updates to Audio Clips (fade-in/fade-out, and increasing/decreasing gain), and themes.

As I’m writing, I have not upgraded to FL Studio 21, but I have seen FL Studio 21.1 Beta is launched.. so I will be upgrading soon as FL Studio 21 is starting to become mature.

By the way, FL Studio 21.1 introduces a brand-new plugin called Hyper Chorus!

FL Studio 21 on Windows 11 or Windows 10?

If you use Windows 10 with FL Studio, I’d personally suggest staying AS IS.

With talks of Windows 12 on the rise.. patience I think will be rewarded here if you’re looking to purchase a new music production computer for FL Studio.

Windows 10 has an end of support date of: October 14, 2025.

At the time of writing, that is quite a far ways away..

If you want to buy a new music production computer for FL Studio, the current state of computer parts at the moment is a little odd.. CPUs are very fast, but are running quite hot..

They’ve done this to squeeze out performance, but I don’t like the idea of the CPU running that hot (and making my room hotter!)

I’m hoping in the next couple releases Intel focuses on making CPUs more efficient, meaning running less wattage for similar performance.

Also, with DDR5 still be very new, I’m hoping new products in the future will improve on RAM timings, and prices drop a little more.

M-Audio Oxygen Pro – Transport Bug

My recommendation at the moment is to stay on FL Studio 20.9.2 for the best compatibility with the M-Audio Oxygen Pro MIDI Keyboard.

You can view my M-Audio Oxygen Pro page to stay updated on new releases and compatibility.

Feel free to contact me with questions.

BEAT TAPES By GratuiTous FL Studio FL Studio 21 Oxygen Pro Windows 10

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Transcript

S3E18 – Should You Upgrade to FL Studio 21

  1. Season 3, Episode 18. Should you upgrade to FL Studio 21 as well as
  2. Windows 11? We're gonna talk about that a little bit in this episode as well as a
  3. little update to again where I have been.
  4. The website is being totally revamped.
  5. So again, if you are a member, be on the lookout for that.
  6. I'm really excited. The website is much faster.
  7. Another thing is the M Audio Oxygen Pro MIDI keyboard.
  8. Because people have been upgrading to FL Studio 21, there seems to be a bug
  9. regarding the transport buttons.
  10. So I will look into that when I actually upgrade to FL Studio 21 because again,
  11. that's what this episode is about.
  12. Should you upgrade to FL Studio 21?
  13. Again, this is just my own opinion, and my perspective is gonna be different than
  14. yours because I do FL Studio training where I'm teaching people how to make beats,
  15. and I need to make sure that my software is as stable as possible with no bugs
  16. through the training. So when I do upgrade to FL Studio 21, where there is actually
  17. FL Studio 21.1, there's a beta right now, so you can go test that out on the forums.
  18. I'm always looking here in the background regarding the change log of software, kind
  19. of seeing what's going on. Another thing too with FL Studio 21 is there has been a
  20. lot of updates to MIDI scripting, so I've been kind of holding off myself, and I'll
  21. talk about that in just a moment.
  22. Again, the M Audio Oxygen Pro is a MIDI keyboard that I recommend for students of my
  23. platform. I like the quality of it for the price that you're paying compared to
  24. other competitors of MIDI keyboards.
  25. Again, for a MIDI keyboard, I always like a 49 key.
  26. A lot of people like the 61 key, but again, you're paying more money, it's way
  27. bigger. And the thing is, for me as a beatmaker, I like to to have my audio
  28. interface right beside my MIDI keyboard give you that really fast workflow where you
  29. can play your keys, you can use your transport buttons to play and stop, then you
  30. can turn up and down your volume of your either your headphones or your speakers,
  31. and everything is right at my fingers.
  32. I don't have to reach anywhere.
  33. And so that's why I like a 49 key because again, we have our octaves, you can go up
  34. and down where you need. And if you really know how to play the piano, you will
  35. notice that you're really not playing much higher or lower than in 49 key range,
  36. most of the time. And as a beat maker, usually your first one or two melodies you're
  37. only playing with two hands, and then most of the time you're actually only playing
  38. your melodies with one hand. Alright, so before we get into this episode, if you
  39. guys would like to stay updated with the website, you guys can visit me over at
  40. it'sgratuitous.com. I run a beat making training platform where there's over 33 beat
  41. making courses. The most recent one was sound selection and beats.
  42. That one went over pretty well with you guys.
  43. Tons and tons of secrets about how to select your sounds.
  44. the one before that, or actually no, no, the newest one is how to make drum loops
  45. for beginners. So that one is released, and then before that was again the sound
  46. selection and beats course, and then before that was online music distribution
  47. course teaching you how to actually release your music onto Spotify, iTunes or you
  48. know, Apple Music, all those streaming platforms, and I walk you through step by
  49. step. You know, I've been releasing my music professionally for many many years on
  50. these platforms. That was beat tapes by gratuitous volume 10.
  51. So if you are new around here, I release beat tapes, they're really really good to
  52. practice, so you learn about mixing, mastering, arrangement.
  53. You have to make the beat, and you are essentially putting together an album, which
  54. is a kind of becoming a lost art in this music production world of actually putting
  55. together a real album, right? of A lot people are just releasing singles, and so I
  56. put together these beat tapes, they are pretty fun because a lot of practice goes
  57. into them. I always put on the earbuds, I'll go for a bike ride or something, and
  58. I'll just listen to this beat tape, making sure that the levels are all even before
  59. I actually officially launch it.
  60. And then again, the online music distribution course teaches you how to actually get
  61. it ready and put it out there for the world.
  62. So again, just visit it'sgratuitous.com.
  63. That is the website. It is a dedicated platform to teach you beat making at a
  64. professional level with over 33 beat making courses, which are focused on FL Studio.
  65. So should you upgrade to FL Studio 21?
  66. So I'm not gonna say yes or no, this is up to you.
  67. But if you do upgrade to FL Studio 21, you are gonna get the newest and latest
  68. features. Again, always make sure to go onto their forum and report any bugs because
  69. image line, the makers of FL Studio are always really responsive, they really want
  70. the best for their customers. okay.
  71. So for myself, I have not upgraded to FL Studio 21, and that is just because I
  72. always need to have FL Studio being as stable as possible.
  73. I have had a really really good experience on the last version of FL Studio 20,
  74. which I think is FL Studio 20.9.2.
  75. And the reason I am staying on that is number one, my MIDI keyboard is working
  76. really good because on the ImageLine Forum, I just have a thread there about the
  77. free M Audio Oxygen Pro MIDI script.
  78. And some people have been saying that the transport buttons are not working very
  79. well with FL Studio 21, but again, I have not upgraded to FL Studio 21, so I'm not
  80. able to test that out for you at the moment.
  81. And again, I'm just going through this website revamp.
  82. That's priority for me right now.
  83. But once the website revamp is done, also with FL Studio 21.1
  84. releasing soon because they have a beta that you can test.
  85. I'll also look towards upgrading then because I want to take advantage of the newest
  86. features. but again, you'll see on YouTube people always want to, you know, get
  87. what's newest, and that's kind of like what gets the clicks, right?
  88. What kind of gets popular? But for me, I just like to always teach you guys best
  89. practices and I need to make sure that my setup is running really really good.
  90. The MIDI scripting for FL Studio 21, they keep changing and updating it, which is
  91. really good. And I'm actually glad I kind of held off a little bit so that it can
  92. kind of mature a little bit, that they can modify whatever they need to modify, and
  93. then when I upgrade here, I will be able to hopefully get this Oxygen Pro working
  94. just as good as I have it now.
  95. Because for those of you that don't know, there's the free MIDI script, but then I
  96. have the template for the Oxygen Pro, and it's on version two, and it allows you to
  97. get a really cool workflow off of the drum pads in FL Studio.
  98. We are able to open up virtual instruments, we're able to change presets from the
  99. actual MIDI keyboard, we're able to go to the mixer, go to different inserts, open
  100. up the plugins off of the actual mixer from the MIDI keyboard.
  101. And this is like the hands-on workflow I've always wanted in FL Studio, and now that
  102. I actually had time since I got the Oxygen Pro to kind of figure this out, I've
  103. gotten it to a point where it's actually really really fun for hands-on.
  104. the only problem is that the knobs are absolute encoders, they're not endless
  105. encoders, and so what that means is that there is a fixed beginning and a fixed end.
  106. So if you switch from one bank to another or you go from one virtual instrument to
  107. another, it's always gonna be at that last state it was in..
  108. But these MIDI keyboards have what's called soft takeover
  109. So if you move the knob in one virtual instrument, you have to bring it back to the
  110. value, and then it will kick in.
  111. And you know, so that's just kind of how soft takeover works because you have an
  112. absolute encoder, which has a fixed beginning and a fixed end.
  113. So if the M Audio Oxygen Pro had endless encoders, you'd get a phenomenal
  114. workflow. Now, another thing I want to quickly talk about in this episode is should
  115. you upgrade to Windows 11? All right.
  116. So how Windows usually works is some versions of Windows are really really good.
  117. For example, like Windows 98, I think was really really good, Windows XP was good,
  118. Windows 7 was good, but then like Windows Vista, I don't think did very well.
  119. Windows 8 did not receive good report, you know, with everybody.
  120. Windows 10, really really good.
  121. I've really enjoyed my Windows 10 experience.
  122. When Windows 11 came out, it was kind of again like that Windows Vista, Windows 8,
  123. it doesn't seem people liked it as much at the moment.
  124. I'm not hearing so much stuff, so maybe it's become more mature.
  125. But what I'm wanting to say is I've heard reports of Windows 12 being talked about
  126. to be released because that's sometimes what happens with these Windows versions is
  127. they release them, people don't like them, and then they all of a sudden release a
  128. new version pretty quick after.
  129. Yes, you're able to upgrade, but the thing is it's always nice, especially on a
  130. brand new computer that you are upgrading to a mature product or at least to a
  131. product that you know is going to be really good going in the future.
  132. So, just to give you guys perspective, my computer is about I built it in
  133. 2016 or 2017. So if you know anything about computers, I have an Intel
  134. CPU, it is the i77700K, so it's a seventh generation.
  135. There is a student in the platform who upgraded to a 10th generation, and now it is
  136. on 13th generation. So I'm almost seven generations behind what's currently almost
  137. out right now. And what I want to say is my computer is still running super super
  138. good. So don't feel that you have to upgrade because with computers, it's all
  139. about timing it. And what I mean is making sure that Windows is at a good state,
  140. making sure that your motherboard and CPU are at a good state, that you're not
  141. purchasing the very new features that typically you want to be purchasing the mature
  142. features so that you know that it works.
  143. Because for me, when I purchase a computer for music production, it's not that I
  144. can't go and buy a computer, it's just that the time it takes to set up all the
  145. plugins to set up all of my software for the courses and the training, like I have
  146. it all set up like how I want, right?
  147. And yes, I can just clone a hard drive and bring it into a new system, but for me, I
  148. usually like to do a fresh install of Windows.
  149. And the reason is because when you install different software over time, a lot of
  150. stuff just gets left behind. And for me, it's just really nice to start fresh.
  151. I like to purchase all the custom parts, install Windows, load over all my
  152. files, and then it's just kind of like a fresh start, and that is usually what I
  153. like to do. Okay. So that is it for this episode.
  154. So again, should you upgrade to FL Studio 21?
  155. If you want the latest features, yes, if you are experiencing bugs, make sure to
  156. report them. I have not upgraded yet just because I want my FL Studio to be very
  157. stable. So I'm currently on FL Studio 20.9.2.
  158. It gives me a phenomenal FL Studio experience because I really really like using FL
  159. Studio. It allows me to use the M Audio Oxygen Pro really good.
  160. after this website revamp, which is very, very close to being done, and then when it
  161. goes live, I'll just have to make sure that there's no bugs and stuff.
  162. So that will probably be like a week of work just pushing it live, making sure
  163. everything is good. and then we'll be getting back into courses.
  164. Again, I talked to you about the serum course before.
  165. I have a list here of lessons I want to cover in the serum course.
  166. I may also do a silence one course and a pigments course back to back to back.
  167. All right, so we'll get that done and then we'll start moving forward with just kind
  168. of fun and fresh courses. So again, you guys can visit me over at it'sgratuitous.com
  169. to join the beat making training platform.
  170. Again, it's based on FL Studio, but if you use another DAW, you will be able to
  171. follow along because my teaching style is all about kind of teaching you the
  172. fundamentals of music production.
  173. If you have FL Studio, you will by far get the best experience.
  174. But if you use another DAW, you will be able to follow along for the most part in
  175. many of the courses, such as my piano lessons for producers, or even like how to
  176. make drum loops and stuff. Because as a music producer, it's all about knowing how
  177. things work and not having to rely on a piece of software to create what you want to
  178. create, if that makes sense. Because when it comes to music production, like you
  179. know, if you learn about chords, well, you can apply that knowledge to any music
  180. program. If you want to make drum loops, you can apply that to any music program.
  181. However, there's some features in a music program that I like to take advantage of,
  182. right? So that's kind of like where if you use FL Studio, you'll get the best
  183. experience. If you use another DAW, you might have to find an alternative way to do
  184. these things that I'm doing. All right, so thanks for listening.
  185. Again, visit me over at itsgratuitous.com.
  186. You guys can check out the link in the episode description, and I'll talk to you in
  187. the next one.
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