As you browse through the presets, you’ll see the names describing each of the macros faders change. One of the main highlights in terms of manipulating these presets is the macros section.Įach preset has its own set of macros. You can do this with individual tags or in combination with one another to narrow down the exact sound you’re searching for. As you click on each description, the browser will automatically filter down the preset list for you. You can access this section by clicking on the word “TAGS” on the bottom left of the FLEX GUI.
Plus, the fact that it will be available to all FL Studio owners will allow those who don’t own a synth like Harmor or a sampler like the full version of Directwave to have access to sounds they could never achieve with any of the previous stock plugins.Ī great feature that will help browse through the 458 presets (and counting) is the ability to sort them by type and style. The great thing about FLEX is that it’s bridging the gap between high-quality synthesis and high-quality sampling in one simple interface for those who aren’t yet as capable in either department. But if we include the fact that this plugin is also utilizing multisamples, which Harmor does not, we start to understand where we get some of the realism from their pianos and strings presets.
But if you want to take my word for it, I can easily say these are the best sounds that Image-Line has packaged together in any of their plugins, including Harmor, which is probably where many of these sounds were originally designed in the first place. I definitely recommend getting the demo to actually hear the quality of these presets. Below that is the “Favorites” folder, which holds any presets you’ve marked by clicking on the star icon next to its name. The browser also has a “Recent” folder for any presets you’ve recently accessed that you may want to quickly navigate back to. However, none of this has been confirmed yet. This perhaps could be an opportunity for sound designers to have their own preset banks inside of FLEX for the FL Studio community.
I’m predicting that there will be plenty of free packs in the future, but it’s also likely there will be some you’ll have to pay for. The exciting thing about this is that there is the potential for additional packs to be added at any time from Image-Line that can be directly downloaded into FLEX whenever they become available. Click the ALL section in the browser to view the entire list of presets. Once these are downloaded, you’ll have access to 458 presets total.
Those packs will have a download symbol next to the names of each pack. When you first open FLEX, you’ll notice in the browser on the left, there’s a section labeled “Installed Packs.” There will be 4 additional packs you’ll be able to download immediately right from the browser. Instead, each FLEX preset has already done the heavy lifting to get you started with the groundwork you need to come up with sounds that would much longer to synthesize yourself. So this isn’t meant for those who are wanting to sound design completely from scratch. While you won’t have full control over the synthesis of each patch, FLEX is meant to give you high-quality sounds that are easy to work with through the use of macro controls, envelopes and FX. This concept is comparable to other VSTi’s that use ROMs with simple interfaces to edit each patch, much like a workstation keyboard that is preloaded with sounds. Image-Line is delivering “advanced simplicity” through the use of subtractive, wavetable, multisample, AM and FM synthesis that is packaged in a simple to use GUI to manipulate individual presets.