FL Studio SR-202 Tuturial

1. Copy SR-202.dll and the folder SR-202 Kits onto your Hard drive. If you can't see SR-202.dll, this is because Windows hides these files by default. In your Explorer window, go to View>Folder Options>View and check Show All Files. Hit Apply. Next, we need to install FruityLoops. Browse to the PC demos folder/FruityLoops 3 and double-click on Setup.

2. Work your way through the install process, and when the installation is completed, fire up the FruityLoops 3 demo. From the Channels menu, select Add One and choose Fruity (VSTi) Wrapper from the drop-down menu. A small dialog box will appear. Use this to browse to our required VSTi...

3. Click on the Folder button and browse to the folder you copied SR-202.dll into earlier. Locate the .dll file and hit Open. The SR-202 interface will miraculously appear. It may look pretty complicated, but don't panic. You'll have a handle on its basic operational principles in no time at all...

4. Before we can do anything, we need to load in a drum kit. SR-202 uses its own unique drum kit file format and this is loaded using the L button in the selector area of the main interface. Press the L button and browse to the folder where your .202 files are located. The S button will save any changes you make.

5. Choose a kit that takes your fancy and hit Open. The interface will spring into life and each of the 16 drum pads will list the name of the samples they contain. You can audition any of the samples in the kit by hitting a key on your MIDI keyboard or by simply clicking on each drum pad with the mouse.

6. Using the Piano Roll (accessed by hitting the PR button in the top right of the Fruity interface) we have programmed a simple drum loop using the SR-202 sounds and mixed the sounds together using the two pots above each SR-202 pad. The left pot is volume, and the right pot is pan.

7. To create your own SR-202 kit, you'll need some samples. We have included all the samples from each kit in our samples folder this month, so pick a batch and copy it to your Hard drive. Here, we're using the Meeve Kit samples, but you can build you own if you like. All samples must be 16-bit mono but can be any bitrate.

8. We're going to start with a new blank SR-202, so delete the track and follow steps 2 and 3 above to start afresh. The four buttons below each pad relate to the pad options. L=load; C=clear; M=mute; S=solo. Hit L on Pad 1 to open a load dialog, browse to the correct folder and select a bass drum.

9. Making sure you have Pad 1 selected by checking that the red LED is lit in the pad's display, you can now use the synthesis features of SR-202 to edit this sound. We'll explore these later, but for now we've grabbed the detune knob and moved it all the way to the left to give the bass drum more kick.

10. Continue adding sounds you like; you can even pull sounds from other kits into this one to make the drum kit of your dreams. Here, we've added a variety of hits and used the pan and volume knobs above each pad to create a full stereo image. Now let's add some velocity expression to the kit.

11. Load a ride into any pad. Here, we're using Pad 7. The ride has a long tail and we want the tail to sound even when we hit the pad again to make it more realistic. Make sure the LED is lit on your ride and press the Poly switch in the sound box. This will make the pad polyphonic. Try switching the poly on and off and take note of the difference.

12. Now, hold down Shift and turn the Pitch Depth up a touch to about 2 to 2.5. Now turn the Pitch Vel knob and the Amp Vel right up. Now play your MIDI keyboard with some feel and the ride becomes velocity responsive, with a small pitch variation at high velocity. Try the same with closed hats and snares and tweak the Vel knobs to suit your playing style

13. For hi-hats, we need to set up what are commonly known as choke groups. This is to ensure that an open hat will close when the closed hat is played. Here, our open hat is on Pad 3 and our closed hat on Pad 4. Select the open hat and press the choke button 1 in the sound area. Do the same with the open hat. The open hat sample will be cut off when the closed hat is hit

14. Sometimes, you'll want a sample to cut off when you release the key. This is especially useful for loops, which you can re-trigger each time you hit its respective key. Load in TheTone.wav which you can find in the Tutorials folder on the CD-ROM. Press a key and the file will play to the end.

15. Now, with this pad selected, press the Mode button in the Sound area. Hit a key on your keyboard. When you let go the loop will stop Ð if you hold the key down it will play to the end. You can re-trigger the loop by hitting the key and holding it Ð great fun for creating stabs and breaks! To save your kit, hit the S button in the selector area, choose a filename and hit Save.

16. The first thing to note when you explore SR-202's synthesis elements is the Global switch. With the switch to the left, each pad can have its own synthesis settings. Switch it to the right and the effects of the selected pad will be copied to all other pads. With the switch in this position, any changes affect the entire kit Ð great for those famous drum filter sweeps!

17. The Bitcrusher is a neat effect that literally reduces the bit depth of your sample to add grit and give it some bite. Next to this we have the transpose and detune controls. The signal path then goes into the Pitch envelope, then the dual mode high-pass and low-pass filter and finally the amplifier, which comes complete with appropriate envelope generators.

18. These sections work much like CM-101, so for a full rundown, check out issue 36. As you can see, SR-202 is quite a piece of kit, and we encourage you to experiment and see what you can squeeze out of its virtual circuitry.