Image Line FL Studio 10 Producer Edition

Fl Studio has been around for over 10 years it's a really simple program to use comes with plenty of demo songs (to learn from) easy to follow/read manual and as i always say what you don't learn or understand supplied in the manual can be found online via youtube.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

The application is pre configured automatically reads your sound card(which is something I like). I would suggest using ASIO soundcard drivers for best possible results (latency as well as audio quality). I found the pre config to be very stable which is important I don't think anyone wants to work with a piece of software that isn't stable. You risk losing projects and all kinds of other nonsense.

I can't really gauge the performance as it's going to be different for everyone as some people use a lot of plugins and others don't. I've been using Fl studio non exclusively for about 5 years.

OVERALL OPINION

Now for the nitty gritty on this application... Please understand I'm speaking from a producers/consumer point of view

What I hate about this application is it's pointless unless you have the money to purchase plugins to use a long with it. Without plugins which are containers for more sounds as well as mixing tools your music production will be severely limited.

Fl Studio comes with a couple of good plugins but those will only hold you interest for a little while. 90% of the stock sounds supplied with Fl studio aren't worth Sh@#t (sorry just being completely honest with you) This application ranges from $50-299.00 with an additional version that is bundled with all of these vst plugins that cost around 1000.00..

I will be completely honest with you if i purchased the $299.00 version I’d be very upset knowing that I'd still have to purchase additional applications aka vst plugins to get the most out of the software..

there are a lot of companies out there that supply great plugins:

Native Instruments
Arturia
IK Multimedia

Those are just a few companies (Native Instruments makes great ones)

I'd also be very upset spending the $1,000 on Image lines plugins on to find out later on that there are other companies that supply higher quality plugins at a much cheaper price.

last on the dislike list is once you do have all these plugins installed and you begin to run some you will find out that your system will begin to slow down (granted it's going to happen because memory is being used) when it doesn't have to.

What I do love about FL Studio is that it's pretty simple to use..so anyone can pick it up and start creating great sounding music. i love the fact that it does allow you to use plugins I just wish it had more internal options that would allow you to expand on the software with out spending extra $$

Before working with FL Studio I had put my hands on applications such as

Reason
Acid
Cubase
Sonar
Ableton Live

I've used quite a few different applications I of all Fl was probably the easiest (not the most conventional but definitely the easiest to use and it they give you free UPDATES FOR LIFE (they do a lot of updating)