Fruity Loops for Soundtracks?

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Wednesday I traveled into my sonic past after re-imaging a studio machine with windows XP. I know, I know why xp. Well I have many old pieces of software that I used to use since 98 and really enjoyed using them. Some of the software has little abilities that some new sequencers have dropped. Plus running these bits of software today on a faster machine with tons more ram allows me to enjoy the software the way I never could before. Plus it it’s like putting on a old great pair of shoes or that great pair of broken in jeans.

One such software is Fruity Loops. Fruity Loops 3.4 to be exact. In 2000 I used fruity loops for Digital Buddha material. I like the step sequencer interface but really liked the sampler software that I could then plug in a trigger with the sequencer. I was able to create pieces that didn’t sound like typical 4/4 sequence driven tracks.

Fast forward to today where I am doing a lot of soundtrack composing. Is there a place for Fruity Loops in soundtrack composition? For me when I am composing soundtracks there is a lot of “minutia” as Hans Zimmer says. I’m working on small bits at a time. Sometimes just a few measures then piece those bits together to make a larger movement. Fruity Loops seems perfect for this. You can set it to show 4, 6, 8, 12 or 16 measures at a time, you can loop and overlay similar to Ableton. Of course there are the samplers that you can load, mangle and edit to your hearts content till it’s just right. Now what about locking to picture? Well there will have to be some thought to how to do that. I’m thinking since Fruity Loops has the ability to start when a midi event is triggered you could lock it to another sequencer that has the picture and allow for a track to have a midi note where you need the music cue from Fruity Loops to start.

Why would I not use a sampler or something like that in a modern sequencer? Simplicity is key to working fast and finishing projects on time and under budget. What older programs like Fruity Loops offers is a simple interface with plugins that are designed for a musician not an audio engineer. Just as the directors I work with don’t give a damn about music theory and minor keys, G6’s and Locrean modes. They just want feeling. I just want sound! Don’t give me options and knobs to things I don’t care to ever use just give me something simple.

To test out whether or not Fruity Loops could be used to create a score I am going to use it on creating some cues for the current project in the studio, which is the Evans City Historical Society DVD. I’ll keep you posted on out it goes.

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