Integrating FL Studio via VSTi or Rewire

Hello everyone,

I’m currently in the process of migrating most of my music making from FL Studio to Renoise but none of my options seem to work properly.

The thing I’m trying to do is to have Renoise as my master DAW for everything except a few of FL Studio’s builtin synths (mostly Plucked! and FL Slayer). I first tried too use it a VSTi, but none of the FL Studio’s configured MIDI channels show up in Renoise (I followed the multi-timbral plugin part in Renoise’ documentation). I can only ever use one MIDI channel from within Renoise, though it does properly toggle to a different instrument if I change the configured channel. Both documentations mention they support it, but use different terms.

Second I tried Rewire via the Rewire input device (which works!) but it seems to make Renoise a permanently bottom-most window in Windows 7 and removes it’s taskbar button. Doesn’t necessarily react to keyboard input either (though it does until some point). Thus, it works from a routing point of view but renders Renoise itself mostly unusable.

If anyone has any success in linking the two (especially on Windows 7), I’d be super happy to know how. My next-best option would be to find a replacement from the builtin synths, but I’m quite fond of their sound and used them in most of my tracks. Haven’t yet found ones with a sound or feature set like.

Have you tried using FL as the Rewire Master? I’m using Windows 10 - otherwise I would DL the FL demo and try and help you figure this one out. That said, you don’t necessarily need to stop using FL just cause you start using Renoise.

The other thing is, “are these two synths not available as vst, to use as plugins with other daws?” If they are, you could go that route.

Finally, and I do this a lot - create your parts you need, and use Renoise to sample. At the end of my projects, I usually have a bunch of Renoise instruments and very few actual vst running. You kind of have to commit to a sound, and a part, but the workflow and general functionally of building and making tracks is much easier.

I just tried getting FL Studio as the Rewire master, but it fails to find any Rewire host except itself (well done, Image-Line). Renoise also didn’t give me any Rewire popup, so there’s either a hidden switch in FL or the two just don’t like each other.

Rendering is definitely an option, but it’s quite limiting. I’ve often used up to 4 Plucked! and 2 FL Slayer instances, both of which have synth dynamics which just don’t exist with the rendered samples. There’s an ok replacement I’ve found recently, but it doesn’t have any of these dynamics either. Sooo, yeah, rendering would basically eliminate the point in using those synths :slight_smile:

I had a little breakthrough and noticed that the FL VST will synchronize with Renoise’ playback position, but it also means I’ll have to keep their playlists in sync, which is terribly impractical.

It’s not that I’m having a problem with recording/sampling instruments (I do that all the time with my Korg DS-10), but the trouble of either rendering note-to-sample or complete sequences (for capturing dynamics) and checking how it sounds with the rest… it just screws with my workflow. Also takes a while to render and load all those things.

I guess I’ll just ditch the whole idea in favor of an effect-based solution. Maybe Pléctrik + an army of effects will do the trick.

it still works for me.

toggling with the little yellow chili pepper ‘fruit’ thing on the fl studio client pop up seems more reliable than clicking the task bar buttons.