Fl Studio 12: The Easiest Way To Create A Lead Sound In Fl Studio

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In this tutorial, I will be showing you one of the easiest ways you can create a lead sound in Fl Studio.

If you have already read my article on the insight about sound designing, then you should know how it works.

How A Lead Will Look In Waveform

A lead sound mostly have a saw in its waveform, to build a lead sound then you should try using a saw oscillator, thou, we have a different kind of saw shapes, i.e., Tri saw, double saw and more.

I will be using Fl Studio Native for this tutorial which is “Harmless.”

Firstly, open Fl Studio and load an instance of ”Harmless”, if done correctly, you should be up and running with that.

Initializing Harmless

The next step is to initialize the preset to the default, click on the drop-down menu for plugin options, scroll across to Presets, and then go up to Default as shown in the image below.

Creating a lead sound2 — initialize harmless to default

Creating a lead sound3 — change it to default

Now we need to start replacing some of the oscillator, knobs and more.

The first thing I do with any subtractive synthesizer is to change the oscillator. I am creating a lead sound, and I will be using a saw waveform.

The Upper Section In Harmless

Let’s start with the upper section to make the workflow easier.

Creating a lead sound4 — the upper section is highlighted red

Change the Timbre to Double Saw, goto to the pluck and change it to about 1 o’clock, click on the mask beside the pluck, depending on what you want, you can use Release also.

Creating a lead sound5 — I changed it to double saw

Creating a lead sound6 — goto to the pluck and change it to about 1 o’clock, click on the mask beside the pluck, depending on what you want, you can use

It should sound like these:

We still need to change some other knobs in the upper section to give an excellent sound.

Change the release knob to 10 o’clock, change the decay to 5 o’clock and finally bring the attack knob up a little bit.

Creating a lead sound7 — I changed release, attack, and delay

Note: Attack, Decay, Release is abbreviated att, dec and rel.

The last thing we need to do in the upper section is changing the mix knob for even brighter lead and the sub for giving life to the lead.

Bring up the sub as I have done below

Creating a lead sound8 — change the mix and sub

and then bring the mix up to 5 o’clock as done above.

The lead sounds like this when done with the upper section

The Next Section

Let’s change knobs in our filter section, changing filter will subtract some frequencies and it will make the lead even cooler.

Bring the decay up to 12 o’clock and then change the amount to 3 o’clock

The next step is to change the freq knob to just one 0’clock

And The Other Section

Move down to the other section and bring the Phaser amt a little bit.

Finally, let’s add some effect to the lead sound.

Creating a lead sound12 — The effect section

Change the reverb to classic, and you would notice a full lead, change the reverb vol to 9 o’clock.

Creating a lead sound13 — change the reverb

Creating a lead sound14 — change the reverb vol

Change the delay to ping-pong, shift the vol to 7 o’clock.

Creating a lead sound15 — click on that classic and change the delay to ping-pong

The last thing is to improve the chorus to classic, change the chorus mix to 9 o’clock and you should be up with a fantastic lead sound.

Creating a lead sound16 — change the chorus to classic and bring up the mix

Final Result

The overall sound:

Happy lead designing!

Useful Related posts:

FL STUDIO: Importing And Exporting Midi Files In Fl Studio 12

Fl Studio: Using the Playlist Window To Arrange A Track

Vst Plugins: 3 Steps to add Vst Instruments/effects Into Fl Studio 12

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2 thoughts on “Fl Studio 12: The Easiest Way To Create A Lead Sound In Fl Studio”

Susan says:

October 6, 2018 at 2:56 am

I ve come up to your site when searching for FL studio. Your instructions supported by visuals are very valuable to easly understand it.
Thank you.

1. Horlayemi says:
  
  October 7, 2018 at 10:26 am
  
  Thanks at susan miller, remember to check back for more.