Fl Studio Pattern Blocks

| 08-04-2021
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  • . FL Studio. pattern clips. pattern blocks. blockj tracks. clip tracks. workflow FL STUDIO 20.7 Released FL STUDIO 20.7 Introducing MIDI Scripting, Unlocked Piano roll note colors, Video creation for YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, plus lots of workflow enhancements to help you stay home and get creative.
  • That said, 9.6 does provide the option to revert back to pattern blocks by activating the ‘enable legacy pattern blocks’ found under the ‘General Settings’ tab. However, by the time FL Studio hits version 10, pattern blocks will be obsolete and the option to revert to legacy patterns will also be removed.

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FLStudio does things in a way which can seem a bit strange to anyone used to another DAW, so the very first thing in a review is to cover how FLStudio does things.

FLStudio’s workflow is most certainly different, but I think that you’ll find that it offers a lot of flexibility that’s not present in other DAWs. The question is whether you’re willing to pay for that flexibility by having to re-arrange how your brain works…

Or if you’re a new DAW user, there’s really no downside.

p.s. I forgot to mention in the announcement (I’ve edited it now) that this review is being done with a free NFR copy of FLStudio and all Image Line products.

Other posts in this series:

Main Elements

FLStudio has 4 main elements:

  • Channel Rack - This is where all of your sound generators (instruments and samplers) are stored along with automation clips.
  • Patterns - A pattern contains information that controls the channel rack. I’ll explain this more later.
  • Playlist - this is where you sequence patterns.
  • Mixer - Channels are routed to the mixer.

This may seem a bit confusing at first if you’re used to another DAW, but this is a more explicit method of representing how routing in DAWs happens.

Let’s dive a bit deeper…

All of your sound generating data is stored in the channel rack. So each synth, each piece of audio (which is in samplers) and each automation clip permanently resides in the channel rack.

From there you need a way to make those channels do something. That’s where patterns come in. A pattern is a set of data that tells each channel what to do. A pattern does not need to control each channel, but instead it can decide to only send data to a single channel. You could have a pattern that only sends data to the kick, or that sends data to the kick/snare/hats, or to all of the drums and bass etc…

When a pattern triggers, the channels make noise, but the noise needs to go somewhere! Each channel can be assigned to a mixer routing. The channels do not need to be assigned to mixer channels in order, it’s totally arbitrary. Multiple channels can be assigned to the same mixer channel.

Now we have a pattern that makes channels send data to the mixer, but how does a pattern know when to play? That’s what the playlist is for. The playlist is where you sequence patterns. Any pattern can go to any playlist track, and any pattern can trigger at any time, even multiple of the same pattern at the same time. There’s no real limits.

However, take a look at Pattern 2 on the second and third playlist track. Patterns (but not audio) are monophonic, so when the overlapping Pattern 2 starts then the first Pattern 2 is muted. When Pattern 2 on the first track starts, Pattern 2 on track three is muted. This does not apply to audio clips though, as they can overlap without issue.

Audio Explained

Audio is quite an interesting topic in FLStudio.

In other DAWs, audio is placed inside items/regions/clips/soundbites/whatever and positioned in a track. The audio is triggered when the beginning of the clip is reached, and stops at the end of the clip.

FLStudio takes the abstraction of audio out further a bit, and makes it far more flexible to work with. All audio in FLStudio is stored in samplers. There’s a couple samplers to work with, which I’ll cover at another time.

So when you place audio in your playlist, it looks like any other DAW, but the audio is not simply playing at the start of the clip. The start of the clip is triggering a sampler. This is important to realize, you can treat audio clips just like any other DAW. They show on the track like a single clip, but if you want you can also treat the audio like it’s in a sampler… because it is.

Blocks

Other DAWs implicitly have your audio in a very simple sampler. The beginning of the clip triggers the audio and it plays output to the track.

FLStudio explicitly has your audio in a sampler, which gives you all of the benefits of a sampler. The sound warping, editing, slicing, scripting etc.. features are all available without needing to jump to a sound-file editor of some sort. All of these capabilities are present live as well, and automatable because it’s in a sampler instrument!

Patterns I think are probably the most confusing thing if you are coming from another DAW, but it’s actually rather simple.

A pattern controls control data for each channel. A pattern can control every channel in the project as you wish. You can basically think of them as “mini-projects” where you have the whole arsenal of your project at your disposal if you wish.

Most users will opt to use patterns to only use one or a few channels at a time though, like in the image above. In the displayed pattern, the only thing being controlled is the Bassline channel. When this pattern is played, the MIDI data in that pattern for that channel is activated and the Bassline is played.

If you wanted, you could create your entire track in one pattern. You can split your drums out to multiple channels (and multiple mixer tracks), but program them all in a single pattern, or have a pattern for each element.

Playlist

The playlist is where the action happens when you’re in “song mode”.

In the playlist you sequence your patterns. Audio files are optionally treated similarly to patterns, so you can place them as you wish. Automation clips can be sequenced here as well.

Tracks in the playlist are not tied to mixer tracks. The playlist does nothing but sequence. Your channels are assigned to mixer tracks. You can sequence patterns however you want, they will still output to the mixer track that the triggered channel outputs to.

The playlist is where FLStudio gets a reputation for being a “beat oriented” or “electronic music oriented” DAW. Thusfar I feel that this is a strange reputation, largely because audio files can be placed and used on tracks how you may do it in a traditional linear DAW environment, except you have significantly more flexibility.

Patterns and Audio Files and Automation Clips can have their lengths/starts adjusted how you may expect. You can slice them. You can quantize them. You can do most of the things that you’d expect.

Written automation in FLStudio takes 2 forms: Automation Clips and Event Data.

Automation clips are like patterns, which have their own channels, that have control data for a parameter. You can paint this in the playlist just like a pattern. Automation clips are not linked to a pattern, so they can be used at any time in the playlist irrespective of the current playing pattern.

Event data is linked to the current pattern. This is what you may think of as “traditional automation”. You write control data for a parameter and it’s part of the pattern, so it only acts when the pattern acts.

There’s a problem here though: the event editor sucks.

The most prominent issue is that it’s difficult to find automation. First you have to find the pattern that has the data (since multiple patterns may be controlling a channel at once!), then you have to hunt around to find the parameter’s event. You can do it from the browser (find the pattern, click, then find the parameter), or you can open the channel->synth/sampler with the parameter and access it via right click or ‘last tweaked parameter’.

The second issue is that the event editor is pretty poor. It’s a bar-graph style editor, much unlike the line/bezier based automation clips. It’s difficult to set exact values, you can’t see the exact values, there’s very few tools for adjusting the curve and there’s no thinning control (but there is interpolation and auto smoothing).

The event-based automation is the only way you can record automation, but if you wish to edit that data then you are in for a disappointment. You can convert event data to automation clips, but then you lose the pattern-link if you want that.

There’s some other sore spots with automation if you don’t use automation clips, but I’ll probably get there later. There’s also another way to adjust controls automatically in realtime, and that’s something we’ll definitely get to.

Coming from a traditional linear DAW environment, FLStudio can be quite strange. Having to manually handle routing from sound generators to the mixer, and link MIDI data to sound generators seems weird. Other DAWs do this all automatically for you when you put data on a track.

The complexity is managed by some shortcuts that make this routing nearly automatic, but you are still afforded a great deal of flexibility in how you utilize your data.

This whole setup does complicate the process of recording data yourself, such as audio or MIDI or automation, but at most it’s one extra step. Once again this added movement is paid for by a lot of extra flexibility in how you route things, when things occur and where they are stored.

Blocks

And yeah… event editing (recorded automation). What a mess.

This post took 7 hours to research, screenshot, write and edit. If you appreciate the information presented then please consider joining patreon or donating!

Noah is four. For a four year old he is pretty good at playing independently for fairly long periods of time, but sometimes he needs a little encouragement to get started.

Sometimes, when I really need to get some work done and he just can’t settle into playing with any of the toys we have on offer, I’ll set him up an’invitation to play’.

These invitations are always fairly simple, and they are always activities that he can manage without much supervision or input from me.

These activities won’t keep him engaged for hours, but they are enough to get him started with independent play and he seems to be able to pick up and run with his own ideas, once he is done with the activity I have set up.

Earlier this week I set up a very similar invitation to play with pattern blocks.

We got this set of pattern blocks many many Christmases ago and they are always popular. They turn up in our loose parts play, like when we made these crazy faces, and in imaginative play, and construction play, but they are just as fun on their own, especially with a few free printable pattern cards.

New Pattern Fl Studio

On this occasion I set out the pattern blocks and some printed letter pattern cards – one for each letter of Noah’s name, as he is working hard on writing his name correctly at the moment.

Pattern blocks come in standard colours, shapes and sizes and they are either wooden or plastic. If you don’t have a set of pattern blocks there are lots of options to print your own pattern blocks here.

Free Printable Pattern Block Cards

Fl Studio Legacy Pattern Blocks

Free Alphabet Pattern Block Printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler (also in black and white)
Free 1-20 Pattern Block Cards from Confessions of a Homeschooler (also in black and white)
Transportation Pattern Block Mats from PreKinders
Animal Pattern Block Mats from PreKinders
Preschool Pattern Block Activity Cards from Confessions of a Homeschooler.
Jessica’s Pattern Block Shapes
Snowflake Pattern Block Mats from PreKinders.
Making Patterns with Pattern Blocks – free printable from Moms Have Questions Too
Pattern Block Printables from Mama’s Learning Corner
Bug Pattern Block printables from PreKinders

Fl Studio Pattern Blocks Free

Pattern Block Ideas and Activities

Exploring Shapes and Patterns from An Every Day Story
Giant Pattern Block Scenes from Mama Smiles
Play dough and Pattern Blocks from Mama Smiles
Suduko with pattern blocks – free printables from Kid Giddy.
Using Pattern Blocks for Learning Symmetry from Teaching Tales Along the Yellow Brick Road
Maths Sorting with Pattern Blocks – a free resource at Teachers Pay Teachers by Tiffani Mugurussa.
Math Toybox – a free online pattern block game.
Printing with pattern blocks from The Preschoool Toolbox Blog
How to DIY your own pattern block cards from Preschool Inspirations
Make giant felt pattern blocks from The Educators Spin on It.

Fl Studio 10 Pattern Blocks

Do you have pattern blocks?
What is your favourite way to play with them?

Fl Studio 20 Legacy Pattern Blocks

Below are some affiliate options for buying pattern blocks on Amazon. If you buy through one of these links I get a small commission at no extra cost to you.