FL Studio 12.5 Beta released with tons of new stuff
FL Studio 12.5 Beta was announced by Imageline on 31 May 2017 and unlike their last update which was predominantly a maintenance release, this new version packs a decent list of enhancements and improvements.
It is still in BETA mode so, although it is now downloadable for users, they still have their get-out-of-jail card for any bugs and fixes that may be picked up by users.
FL Studio 12.5 Beta introduces a new way to browse patterns and arrange them; called the Picker Panel it is a Pattern, Audio and Automation Clip manager which will display all clips used in a your project.
The virtual MIDI controller gives more power to those using just a laptop and headphones as you can pretty much use it as a MIDI keyboard too.
New Features in FL Studio 12.5 BETA
Click on each item for additional information where required.
- Picker Panel (Alt+P) – A Pattern, Audio and Automation Clip manager / browser that lists all Pattern, Audio and Automation Clips in the project. Useful features include: Select unused Clips. Select Clips in Playlist. Rename/Colour multiple clips. Render Pattern Clips to Audio Clips (Right-Click Clips > Render as audio clip, hold (Alt) to bypass Mixer Insert FX.
- Virtual MIDI Controllers – Resizable, customizable vectorial Keyboard and Drumpads. Play the selected Channel, just like an external MIDI controller.
- Automation Clips – New (Right-click) control points ‘Type in value…‘ feature.
- FPC – Resizable vectorial UI. Pads can now have custom colours and icons. New layout options (single/double pads). Per-pad automatable pitch.
- Harmor – Vectorial UI.
- Patcher – Threaded processing of hosted plugins/modules. ‘More…‘ option in plugin insertion menus. (Right-click) node and select ‘Insert plugin…’ to connect a plugin to a node. Load DirectWave when .dwp file is dropped. (Middle-click) plugin title bar to rename. (Middle-click) connection filter checkboxes to disable the two others. ‘Tree display‘ option in Control Surface tab Preset Menu. (Left-Click) to switch filter groups On/Off. (Middle-Mouse Click) to Solo/Unsolo a filter group.
- Edison – Shows the length of selections (top-right in the Editor window).
- DirectWave – Resizable vectorial UI. New filters (MiniSynth & Vox) plus High Quality Rendering (Option) to enable near audio-rate modulation of all DirectWave parameters.
- Channel Sampling Robot – (Right-click) any Channel and select ‘Create DirectWave instrument‘ to turn any Channel, Patcher or Layer into a DirectWave bank/patch.
- Transistor Bass – New ‘303 Square waveform’ switch and ‘Gate Length’ control.
- Control Creator – Updated and now accessible from Patcher > Control Surface and the Tools menu.
- Control Surface – Controls can now be auto-aligned. Select two or more controls and Right-click > Align for options.
- Piano roll – ‘Menu > View > Mini piano roll preview‘ shows an overview of notes in the scroll-bar. Highlight root key according to scale. New ‘Menu > View > Keyboard style > Dark‘ keyboard mode. Use (Ctrl+Mouse-wheel) on Channel Selector to select empty Channels.
- Playlist – ‘Menu > View > Mini playlist preview‘ shows an overview of Clips in the scroll-bar.
- MIDI Out – New ‘Note‘ Knob output mode. Automate sending note on and off. A note value of 0 = Note OFF.
- VIEW > Close all plugin windows (Alt+F12) – Closes only plugin windows.
- Hide the plugin wrapper menu by default – See ‘General Settings > Miscellaneous > Hide plugin window toolbar by default’.
- Additional changes & Bugfixes – Many! See the what’s new here.