7. Effects Plug-Ins

Most of the songs on the radio and professionally produced CDs have that shimmer to the sound, and everything seems to fit sonically. Many of the sounds will have reverb to help the music sit nicely in your mix, and some have delay so that voices repeat a few lines after the initial lyrics are sung, but where does it all come from? The final phase of FL Studio—the effects plug-ins! At this point, you have a running project, and everything is at the right point in the timeline, but it just doesn’t sound right. That’s fine, because we are going to take an in-depth look into the effects plug-ins and their capabilities. Ideally, after this chapter, you will be able to use almost everything that FL Studio has to offer and will possess a thorough understanding of what tools to use when you are looking for a particular sound. Many of these will deal with frequency and range of sound, so the best way to work is to open up a plug-in as you read about it. Link the sound from any channel to a Mixer track and insert the plug-in to see what it will sound like. Although I will be explaining what they do and generally what will change about the output after the sound runs through the plug-in, your ears will always be your best guide when using these tools.