Image-Line's FL Studio, formerly known as FruityLoops (the app's original name from 1998), has matured into a powerful digital audio workstation (DAW). Although it's still clearly geared toward electronic music production "in the box" instead of recording live musicians playing acoustic instruments, you can record or create just about any audio project with it. If your memory of FL Studio is closer to its roots—when the Belgian company's audio editing app looked more like a 1980s Amiga tracker than a proper DAW—prepare to be amazed at how far the program has come. Still, it caters more to step-sequencer and pattern-based playlist fans than those expecting a more linear multitrack recording experience. For all-around recording, mixing, and production, our Editors' Choice winners are Logic Pro for Mac and Avid Pro Tools for PC.
How Much Does FL Studio Cost?
FL Studio is available in four versions. Fruity Edition ($99) is almost entirely for in-the-box music production, although it now allows the addition of up to eight audio clips with chops and edits. It includes a decent selection of synths and effect plug-ins, as well as automation support, the step sequencer, the piano roll, and the event editor. Producer Edition ($199) adds the ability to record full tracks with microphones and edit or pitch audio clips, as well as some additional instruments, including Sytrus and the new Kepler (more on this later). New for version 21, Producer Edition also lets you separate stems into vocals, music, bass, and drums with a single click.
The Signature Bundle ($299), the version I tested, adds the NewTone pitch correction and time editor, the full version of the DirectWave sampler, and the Harmless subtractive synth (pictured below). The All Plug-ins Edition ($499, down $400 from before) gets you Image-Line synths that typically cost extra, like Harmor, Poizone, Ogun, Morphine, and the physical modeling-based Sakura for unique string-instrument sounds.
For this review, I tested The Signature Bundle of FL Studio version 21.2.2 on a MacBook Pro 16-inch (2021, M1 Pro) system with 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD, along with a second-generation Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 audio interface and a Nextar Impact GX61 MIDI controller. In testing, the Mac version looked and worked identically to the PC version. Regardless of which version you purchase, you get free lifetime updates from Image-Line—including full number revisions and point updates. That's a fantastic benefit, and considering Image-Line has been around for 30 years, chances are it won't go out of business tomorrow, either.
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Even so, Image-Line was bound to feel the pull of subscription-based services. Thankfully, it resisted that for FL Studio itself. Instead, it introduced FL Cloud, a fully integrated sample library of loops (synced to project tempo) and one-shots. FL Cloud also offers DistroKid-powered distribution to major streaming services, integrated AI-powered mastering with presets for major genres, and loudness optimization for streaming and download platforms. The company regularly adds inspiring new Artist Packs full of fresh sounds in different styles.
FL Cloud is available in three ways. The free tier offers a limited selection of loops, one-shots, and a default mastering preset. You can buy Credit Packs that give you your choice of 100 new sounds to keep forever. Finally, you can subscribe to the whole shebang for $9.99 per month (an Image-Line spokesperson said that FL Cloud pricing may change). Image-Line stresses that unlimited lifetime free updates will continue for all new and existing FL Studio owners, and you can still use FL Studio and just ignore FL Cloud if you want. All versions of FL Studio come with one month of FL Cloud for free, including the free trial.
FL Studio Interface
Starting from the left side, the Browser section contains all your presets, instruments, audio clips, project files, and other assorted material to work with. The Channel Rack has whatever sound generators are used in the current project. The Pattern list shows all the clips in use. The Playlist window serves as the main space for arranging and looks like the view in other DAWs. A flexible piano roll and step sequencer are available. A standout feature: The piano roll lets you move and re-pitch a sample just by dragging as if it were a MIDI synth. The mixing console and meter bridge view can be set to multiple sizes. You can adjust the borders of or hide any of these windows as you see fit.
Despite its complexity, FL Studio's vector-based UI is finely drawn, fully scalable, and easy to read. With an appropriate touch-screen monitor on a PC, you can use it as a live physical mixing board and move multiple faders simultaneously. New for FL Studio 21 is a set of new themes that adjust hue, contrast, brightness, highlights, metering, and step color control; about a dozen are on board to start with, and you can modify the colors.
More importantly, clips are now color-coded based on frequency content and synchronize across the Browser, Playlist, and Sampler channels. Bass clips are red, mids are yellow and green, and magenta is for high frequencies. Even better, the program automatically highlights sibilance in vocal tracks with a different color, which is super-helpful for doing precise edits. It's a big visual upgrade.
New tracks can be created from several basic templates; the Channel Rack, in some of the default templates, auto-populates with a basic 909-style kick, snare, claps, and hi-hats. The program also makes a point of automatically strapping a limiter across the master bus in some cases to get your mix levels pumping (but not clipping) immediately, at the risk of causing fainting spells in some professional mastering studios.
Nice touches abound. When it moves, the song position marker glows as if it were backlit. Open up the 3x OSC (three-oscillator) synth, and you'll see its knobs all move to reset itself automatically. The meter bridge responds to incoming audio with analog-like precision. It all looks quite sharp. You can now snap to scale in the Piano Roll, and a new External Sync mode and improved MIDI master clock stability will help producers with lots of outboard gear. There's no score editor, so you'll need something else if you prefer working with music notation.
The app has a few interface quirks. For example, don't be fooled by the single Undo and Redo options in the Edit menu drop-down; the real Undo history is hidden in the Browser, or you can bring it up by hitting Ctrl-Alt-Z. You can finally change the behavior by turning on Alternative Undo Mode in Settings -> General; this will make Ctrl-Z work for multiple Undo levels like every other program. The interface contains many small, obscure icons, and no tooltips appear when you hover over them. Instead, look up and to the top left, where a small window displays the purpose of each interface element as you pass the cursor over it. FL Studio 21.2 still doesn't follow Mac interface conventions, either; for example, you must close all the pop-up dialogs with an X in the top right corner. None of this is a huge problem.
Recording With FL Studio
If you're coming from a more "normal" DAW like Pro Tools, FL Studio will take some getting used to. But if you're new to digital audio workstations, you just might intuit how to use FL Studio more quickly than other apps. Each project works as a collection of patterns, beginning with Pattern 1, which you can find underneath the transport. You can start a song by clicking on the 16th-note step sequencer buttons to lay down notes or by right-clicking the channel and choosing Fill in Steps to speed up the process. To add a new sound, select Plug-in Preset > Generator, and drag the one you want into the Channel Rack, either over an existing channel or after adding a new one.
To record from a MIDI keyboard instead, click the Record button and then choose Everything at the bottom of the dialog box, asking what you want to record. When you're done, Ctrl-Q quantizes the notes you recorded in that pattern. As you create new patterns, you drop them into the Playlist, where you can duplicate them or zap them with the right button if you change your mind. It's easy to cut and paste notes, drag them around, adjust their size, and so on. The pattern automatically lengthens and snaps to make building longer ones a quick process. You can alternate between Song mode, to hear everything, or Pattern mode, to focus on and develop individual patterns.
You still record audio from a microphone or instrument input in either of two ways—into the Edison recorder, which lets you manipulate samples but isn't ideal for acoustic instruments or extended vocal takes, or into an audio clip, which is easier to place on the timeline and which finally gets a mixer channel automatically. The first way is convoluted and geared more toward the 1990s sampler mentality of vocal snippets for EDM than for, say, recording a live band, but the second comes closer to that of a more mainstream DAW now. If you live and breathe FL Studio, you can probably work around these limitations, and 20.9 adds 64-bit sample lengths, which means you'll never run into any practical recording limits. (It's not like an old Akai rack-mounted sampler in that regard!) Still, a program like Reaper or Pro Tools is more suited for linear recording while offering nonlinear editing.
Audio editing gets some slick upgrades in FL Studio 21. These include a paste-at-playhead feature, a lossy merge feature to simplify automation data when combining clips, and more elastic fades, gain, and automated crossfades. The new VFX Sequencer offers another kind of step sequencing that takes chords and helps you transform them into melodic phrases, an excellent compositional aid. The updated Browser now supports tagging and fast search. The Edison editor adds Declipper, which uses AI to "fix" clipped tracks that suffered from level issues while being recorded—or at least fix them enough that they're usable, in a pinch, without the horrendous sound of digital distortion.
Kepler, the Cloud, and the Sounds
FL Studio has picked up several new plug-ins in the latest version. The star instrument is Kepler, an excellent recreation of the iconic Roland JUNO-6 in all but its name. This synth and its patch-memory-enhanced successor, the JUNO-60, are found on countless records from a-ha, Cyndi Lauper, Duran Duran, Enya, Erasure, and many others. Kepler comes with all versions of FL Studio except Fruity Edition, and it delivers exactly the kind of searing leads, fat basses, warm pads, and textures the analog synth is known for. It also has an arpeggiator and comes with several hundred presets to give you plenty to get started with. Everything you need to know about it is on the screen in the plug-in UI strip, so sometimes, it's best to just start moving sliders around to see what happens.
Otherwise, most of the included instruments are fun to play and tweak but are generally a bit simplistic and, in some cases, outdated. You can't expect 75GB piano multi-samples with a program that clocks in at under a gigabyte for the full download, although Image-Line offers up to 10GB of free library content you can download.
Many of the pad and lead synth presets bundled with FL Studio sound high-passed, making mixing dance music easier and clearer. For example, there aren't many full-frequency, giant textures and synth stabs that sound impressive when soloed but are virtually impossible to sit in a mix correctly without heavy EQ carving. (An Image-Line spokesperson said that only Kepler has a built-in high pass, though.)
One way to speed up the process is to create presets of favorite generators and settings. That includes menus and submenus in the browser; you can set it up so that you go right to the sound subcategory you want every time. You can even set a preset up as pictures of the plug-ins that you just drag into your project. This works exceptionally well when you're using third-party plug-ins. You can do this in other DAWs, such as Logic Pro, by saving them in the Library or as Channel Strips, but it's remarkably intuitive here.
Mixing and Automation in FL Studio
Mixing is more accessible than previously now that channels are automatically assigned the way they are in other DAWs, and you can now select all channels in the mixing console at once. Some new mixing tools over the past few point revisions include the lush Luxeverb (All Plugins Edition only), a Vintage Phaser that was recently reworked with a new engine and a Feedback Inversion control (The Signature Bundle and up), a sorely needed Multiband Delay with 16 bands (Producer Edition and up), and a super-wide Hyper-Chorus plug-in geared at 2000s dance music recreations (Producer Edition and up).
Automation clips appear on their own tracks, which is also different than how most DAWs work, but in a good way. The visible clips make it easy to make your songs breathe, ebb, and flow organically. For example, you can duplicate automation clips, make a single edit that affects both of them simultaneously, or select Make Unique on a given clip so that you can start with existing automation and then make changes to it. Because the automation clips are separate and easy to generate, you can lay one down for everything automatically and make visible moves and edits as you listen to the song. The automation isn't hidden away in a separate view that's more difficult to work with. FL Studio can also merge automation clips, which I wish every DAW had.
Program updates are finally integrated and automated, and a new Python-based scripting tool gives you some of the same advanced flexibility Reaper offers. The master bus limiter sounds punchy and pumps with elan, with no perceptible latency, even if you decide to leave it enabled while working—though opinions differ greatly as to whether you should do such a thing. For fun and quite possibly profit, the ZgameEditor Visualizer mixes stock photography with YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook templates to create music videos. It also allows you to control DMX stage devices, including lights, lasers, smoke machines, and strobes. I am still not cool enough to test this feature properly, but it looks neat.
An Unusual But Excellent DAW
While there are some limitations, you can produce exceptional work using just FL Studio. The many preloaded demo songs sound as polished and engaging as you'd expect from finished masters, and each one is created entirely within FL Studio. Stepping through them is a great way to learn what's possible with the app, and you can break each down to its pieces to get your own ideas for sounds. Image-Line continues to improve FL Studio's audio recording, mixer routing, and other key features, all while retaining its unique, playlist-based workflow and polished sound quality. That said, if you're looking for a more full-featured package for recording live bands or scoring pictures, we recommend our Editors' Choice winners Apple Logic Pro on Mac and Avid Pro Tools on PC.
Note: This review has been updated with additional comments from Image-Line, and the version and bundle names have been corrected to reflect new branding.
If you want to produce anything from today's slickest beats right up to full electronic dance music tracks, FL Studio could be the key to unlocking your creativity.
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