FL Studio
From Garritan Wiki
| FL Studio |
This is a "step-by-step" guide on how to set up FLStudio to work with Garritan Personal Orchestra (GPO). This guide shows one possible way, and it is possible that other ways may work better for Your needs. While it is written for GPO, the same type of set up can be used for other plug-ins that use more than one MIDI channel. It may seem very basic for some, but on the other hand, the question about hoe to set up FLStudio for this comes again and again on discussion forums.
Contents |
[edit] Pre-conditions
Make sure that You have installed GPO correct and that the VSTi (or DXi) is installed in a folder where FLStudio can find it.
Start up FLStudio and add GPO as a channel. Look here if You don't know how to do this, or if You can't find the plug-in in the menu.
[edit] Setting up the plug-in
What we essentially do here, is that we use the plug-in as a MIDI out device. This means that we assign a MIDI Port number to the plug-in. Make sure You choose a port number that is not already used by FLStudio.
Since GPO allows multiple output channels, we set up the plug-in so it also allows this.
To make sure we know which output goes where, set the FX channel for the GPO plug-in to a "safe" number (i.e. one that is not an output of another plug- in, and that has enough free fx channels above it for all the instruments You want to use in GPO).
[edit] Setting up a MIDI channel
For each channel used in GPO, we add a new MIDI out channel in FLStudio ("Channels/Add one/MIDI Out").
The easiest way to get everything in order is to add one channel, set it up properly, and then clone it as many times as needed. This way we only have to set it up once.
Set the port number of the MIDI Out channel to the corresponding port number of the GPO plug-in. This makes sure that the data sent from the MIDI Out channel goes to the correct receiver.
Set up the controller knobs. Since FLStudio 4.52 (latest version at the time of writing) won't pass every MIDI message through to the plug- in, we have to manually set these things up. For GPO we want to use (at least) Expression and Sustain.
Right click on one of the knobs and select "Configure..." from the pop-up menu
For expression we'll use CC message no 1.
To set up sustain, right click on another knob and assign it accordingly (CC #64).
Now, when You want to edit the events for expression (for instance), right click on the knob and chose "Edit events" from the menu
One set back of FLStudio is that You draw the events in one window while the piano roll is in another window, and there is (AFAIK) no way to synch these windows (when You change zoom level and such). On way around this is to draw the volume events for the channel in the piano roll window, and then copy these events to the expression event window. Make sure You delete the volume events afterwards though, or it will sound very strange!
Remember that You can always find Your events and such in the projects menu under "automation". It's easy to forget some automations and You wonder why thing sounds so strange.
[edit] Finding the plug-in
If You can't find Garritan Personal Orchestra in the "Channels/Add one" menu, select the "More..." option.
In the dialog that appears, select "Refresh" and "Fast scan".
If You've installed GPO correct, it will appear in the dialog ("PersonalOrchestraVST" for instance, as seen in the figure above). Check the box to the left of the plug-in name to have it appear in the drop down menu, and/or double-click it to add it at once.
- Fredrik Blom
