FL Studio as Rewire slave and triggering patterns in Reaper?

[ericcarl]

So I'm trying to develop a workflow where I can use FL Studio as my main percussion sequencer, as a Rewire or VSTi slave (still not sure what the pros and cons are of both).

I've got it working fine so far, except for a few things:

1.) I am unclear on how to trigger specific FL Studio patterns through Reaper. Doing a lot of searching I have found bits and pieces that all seem connected, but I'm still lost. It looks like I can trigger each pattern by associating a keyboard key with each one and essentially using a piano roll, but how do I get this routing set up?

2.) The first note of my FL Studio pattern always gets dropped at the beginning of playback.

I really appreciate any help! You guys are awesome.

[Bevosss]

Originally Posted by ericcarl

So I'm trying to develop a workflow where I can use FL Studio as my main percussion sequencer, as a Rewire or VSTi slave (still not sure what the pros and cons are of both).

The advantage of the VSTi version is it's saved with the project file, whereas the rewire version needs to be saved separate (you can save them in the same folder though).

I found the ReWire version better, the VSTi was a little buggy when undoing, maybe some other things I forgot about too.

2.) The first note of my FL Studio pattern always gets dropped at the beginning of playback.

Yes, that's a known FL bug...either use the count-in offset in FL, or actually I made a macro that started playback slightly before to get the first note sounding...still drops it when looped though.

[ericcarl]

Thanks Bevmoss. The dropped note is pretty annoying, but I suppose it's not a show stopper. I assume this is more of an FL Studio bug than a Reaper bug?

I managed to figure out how to get FL Studio patterns triggered through Reaper with some messing around. This is probably obvious to some people, but I haven't found the answer on this board yet so I'll post what I ended up doing:

First off I have FL Studio running as a ReWire client on a new track. Then in FL Studio I have 4 patterns made. In FL Studio's MIDI Options, there's a setting labeled "Playlist Live MIDI Channel" which I have set to MIDI channel 9. In FL Studio's Playlist window, I have "Live Mode" turned on. Now FL Studio's patterns can be played via MIDI notes. Which notes control which pattern are viewable in the Playlist window by hovering over the pattern and looking in FL Studio's little info window in the top left.

So now back in Reaper I armed the track, set it's MIDI input to Channel 9, set my external synth keyboard to Channel 9, hit record and played one of the pattern's notes. Now I can go back into the MIDI recording and step-edit in whatever notes I want to control which patterns trigger when.

Not sure if this is a long-winded way of doing it, but I got it working. I'd think there would be a way to get to the piano roll without recording from an external synth, but I'm not sure how.

So it's working! I've never worked with a setup like this (always just rendered FL Studio patterns out as wav's) but this seems a lot more flexible. Will just take some getting used-to, and I'll see how I like it.

[saldiamond]

Originally Posted by ericcarl

So it's working! I've never worked with a setup like this (always just rendered FL Studio patterns out as wav's) but this seems a lot more flexible. Will just take some getting used-to, and I'll see how I like it.

So...
how do you like it?

i've been struggling with this myself.

just trying to get back into fruity after being frustrated with the workflow.

the dropping the first note thing is really annoying.

in fact, i think i am going to just start a new thread complaining about my search for a combination between a pattern based compositional app and a more linear mixing editing program.

any advice will be welcome.

including "Quit your crying and get to work. In my day, we had to cut masters with razor blades, etc..."

[djangotsp]

Originally Posted by ericcarl

In FL Studio's MIDI Options, there's a setting labeled "Playlist Live MIDI Channel" which I have set to MIDI channel 9. In FL Studio's Playlist window, I have "Live Mode" turned on. Now FL Studio's patterns can be played via MIDI notes.

Thanks Ericcarl! I had a feeling this could be done somehow but I've never really gotten into Live Mode as I don't have a controller for it. I generally sequence drums as audio in Reaper. The recent addition of a swing grid in the TCP has helped a lot, but it's still mot as fast as in FL.

For a while I tried to use Transfuser, a drum machine by Air Music Tech, but it's buggy and misses notes now and then, even in rendered WAVs, and sometimes my patches load up scrambled/initialized. I've given up reporting stuff to them as the bugs aren't consistent, but I've experienced the same bugs in other DAWs as well.

[djangotsp]

Hmmm, I can't seem to make it work. I see now this is a thread from 2008. Live Mode has been replaced by Performance Mode, and in ReWire, successive MIDI channels from Reaper trigger successive instruments in FL. Is there a way around this?