Sunday, September 12, 2010

Binaural With Fruity Loops

     EDIT: So yeah... I read some comments and it got me worried. I don't recommend you use Fruity Loops. If you already use it and can get good results, that's fine, I don't wanna discredit you because of the software you use. But it is extremely limited compared to other DAWs, so I'd suggest you look into Pro Tools, Logic, Ableton, or even Cubase. There's a world of difference.
    
     A couple of you guys wanted a binaural tutorial for Fruity Loops, so here you go.  

     Ok, first off, I'm not a Fruity Loops user. I'm pretty much an everything-other-than-Fruity-Loops user. Mainly because I use a Mac for all audio-related tasks (although I use my PC for everything else). There are other reasons, but I don't wanna sit here and diss FL since it suits many people's needs just fine, and plenty of people turn out great sounding material with it, so I don't wanna discourage anyone from using it. If you can get a good sound with it and you like working with it, that's all that matters.

     Bad news though. Fruity Loops can't do all that stuff I was doing in my last post. The (semi) good news is that you CAN do binaural mixes in FL. But... it kinda sucks. This isn't FL's fault though. It's the plug-in that's being used that eats ass.

     It does add a binaural-ish effect, but don't expect anything amazing. It's free, so guess one can't really complain. There are some you can pay for, but I wouldn't say they're worth the money. I will say that if you don't mind doing some sketchy stuff to your PC, Logic's binaural panner does a great job (*cough cough*), although I can't say I'd recommend that (>_>)

  1.So first off, download the Binaural Simulator here: http://gregjazz.com/index.php?page=resources
If you feel like paying, there's also this: http://www.kvraudio.com/get/2365.html  but I can't guarantee that it's worth a shit. I see a bunch of LFO controls, and hardly and controls for position. This may be an autopanner. The description on the page says it can do autopanning, but it looks like that may be all it does.

EDIT: I found more free plugins. Not too great, but see my other post for a link - A Couple of Plugins

  2. After you download the plug-in, you'll need to unzip it and copy the dll file (the only file in there)

  3. Now go to C:\Program Files\Image-Line\FL Studio 9\Plugins\VST and paste the file in there

  4. Now open Fruity Loops and open the Mixer window


   5. Select what channel you want to work with. Now, click one of those arrows beside an empty insert slot, go to "Select" as if you were going to load a plug-in, but instead, choose "More"


   6. Now scroll down to VST and check the Binaural Simulator


   7. So now you can go back to "Select" and select the Binaural Simulator

     As you can see, it it has a big square that represents a room, some knobs for reverb, and some grey spheres and some writing and shit.


     I don't know why there are reverb settings in here. Don't use that crap. Just continue using whatever reverb you are already using. Combining the two will cause a weird clusterfuck and make it sound like you are in two spaces at one. Not to mention that they don't specify what type of space this reverb is simulating. I guess they threw the reverb in as a way to compensate for a lack of room-size control, but it was just a dumb idea.

     Also, there's no doppler effect, and no way to control the spread of a stereo signal. But anywho, the big square shows where in the room the signal will be coming from, and the other little rectangle is for height.

                                                           (complements of MS Paint)

     Now, when you put something behind you, it sort of kind of maybe sounds like it's behind you, but mostly, it just gets softer and muffled. Same with the height control. But it kinda works, so it's worth playing around with. It does have the option to process the signal in a way that lets you hear the binaural effect through speakers. Again.... sort of works.

     Here's a video with me panning some footsteps around with it.

     Like I said, not such a great plug-in, but it's better than nothing I guess.

     If you guys really want to do some binaural mixing but don't want to use Logic, then hit up Google and do a bunch of searching for "Binaural VST", "Binaural Plugin", "Binaural Panner -Logic" and whatever else you can think of. Just avoid anything that says "Binaural Autopanner". It's a crock of shit and it's not the same thing. In all my searching, I only found the two plug-ins listed above, and a few others, but the pages were in Portuguese or something, so.... yeah

     Anyways, I hope it helped you out.

23 comments:

  1. fuck yeah, bookmarking this page for this~ i been hooked on fl since basshunter came out with a tutorial for it

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  2. cool! let me know if you get some good results!

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  3. Love fl, used to make so many little tunes with it. Helpful post indeed.

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  4. ive been wanting to learn something similar to think so since u put up FL i guess ill learn this instead... thanks

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  5. Wow that's really helpful! I learned ProTools a long time ago, I preferred it to FL.

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  6. @michael: NOOO! I don't wanna diss Fruity Loops, but I wouldn't recommend you use it. At least try something else first: Logic, Pro tools, Ableton, or even Reason if you just wanna mess with MIDI

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  7. I actually have Fruity Loops and gave up in disgust. I'm sure it's capable of alot of things, but how can I learn how to use it if I don't have someone or have blogs like yours to tell me what I can do?

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  8. Very helpful stuff. Thanks for this post.

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  9. One day, im gonna undestand this.

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  10. Glad to see someone who takes pride in their work :-)

    F5,X10,supportin'!

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  11. Thanks for this, very instructive! I've only had a little bit of experience with Ableton Live

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  12. i tried using fruity loops with out any prior knowledge of it. yea, that didnt turn out well in the end.

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  13. a lot of good info here... thanks for teh tips

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  14. i hate FL studio. but this was helpful none the less.


    pigdisgusting.blogspot.com

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