FL Studio 10 Forum

While we have active advocates on the application, I have a request.

Our Marketing Team wanted to make a Via Page for FL Studio 10 (this Wizard 101 Via Page is a good example of what they had in mind). However, during in-house testing we found that FL Studio 10 was slow and unusable. We did create a tie file for installing it, but beyond that felt we could not market it or even present it to Image Line Software as an alternative Mac/Linux solution.

What I'm looking for is some push back from the Advocates here. You've ranked it Silver, you obviously care about it.

Is it usable for you? Have you done more than the recipe we created to get it to run well for you?

If we could demonstrate in-house that FL Studio 10 runs well within CrossOver, our Marketing Team would put the effort into a Via Page for it. In my opinion, a Via page is quite special... it gives something back to the Mac/Linux communities that want to run specific applications and gets the attention of the application's developers. What I'm offering is a second pass on our end to consider FL Studio 10 for this.

Any feedback or points you can offer would be highly appreciated.

Sounds awesome!

how long would the time frame be, until you need more details on this?

Are certain post-installation steps, like

• altering windows ini files (sed -i 's/[drivers32]/[drivers32]\nMSACM.vorbis=vorbis.acm/' ~/.cxoffice/FLBOTTLE/drive_c/windows/system.ini)

• overriding dlls (gdiplus, msvc42 [or its kind])

• installing wineasio as asio driver (building + registering a dll.so + jackd required)

acceptable for being a "via" thing? because these steps make it much more usable, there should be entries about that in the previous FL Studio versions, but i haven't applied these to the current, only tested plain vanilla (thus bronze from me atm)..

If such steps are ok for making it more stable and so on, ill write some Tips and maybe get into the whole crosstie / c4p thing (which i have avoided until now).

I dont see it as a good option, because FL-Studio 10 does not install correctly, and the licensing for WineASIO is questionable at best (compiling it requires one to Violate the GPL, as the ASIO SDK is under a non open source license, and the other parts of WineASIO are GPL). I also realize that CodeWeavers is working with Image-Line to attempt to make a Wrapperized version for mac. I wish the best of luck to you with that, but it is probably going to be an incredibly difficult task.

-the ONLY way around the WineASIO issue is to write a closed source driver from scratch.

-WineASIO does not work on mac (requires Jack, and ALSA if memory serves me right)

-another issue is 64 bit. for FL-Studio 10 to work perfectly, it HAS to be able to host and support 64 bit VSTs, which it does through a VST Bit Bridge.

-it is almost, if not downright impossible to support iLok and Syncrosoft copy protected VSTs in wine/crossover. these VSTs require a device driver. unfortunately, a good portion of popular VSTs use this.

-for FL-Studio to qualify as gold (working as one would expect it to on windows) for me, it would have to be able to interact with ASIO compatible devices, such as Line6 Pod-x3, digidesign Mbox, presonus firepod, etc. this is not possible on linux, and should not be possible on mac. these devices require a windows driver to interact with FL-Studio 10.

ok, to clarify a few points made my chris:

the installer installs all files, every single one. The problem you face is, what i have mentioned above, the "MSACM.vorbis=vorbis.acm" in the system.ini, it is just kind of a "wrong driver/lib being used" problem, with the "MSACM.vorbis=vorbis.acm" in the system.ini, the sounds all play just fine and the channels aren't displayed "red" anymore.

To the wineasio violates gpl: not true.

wineasio is gpl, and requires the asio.h header file from the asiosdk, which is under a dont distribute license, but can be freely downloaded from the steinberg homepage.
wineasio is being distributed without the asio.h from steinberg, you have to get it yourself, then compile the wineasio.dll.so. The only violation would be distributing the asio.h with wineasio, and it wouldnt violate the gpl, it would violate steinbergs license. On the opposite would be a compiled binary, that would violate the gpl as you cannot distribute the asio.h to accompany the binary. I think the wineasio devs already have a gpl compliant replacement for wineasio in the newer version 0.9.0, BUT that version doesn't work with fl if i recall correctly, but i think it can be used to compile the awesomely working 0.8.1 as well.
So it would be legaly possible to get wineasio source, get asio.h from steinberg, compile, regsvr32 it.
done. works.

wineasio doesnt work on macosx: also, not true.

jack is available for osx, namely jackosx http://www.jackosx.com/
wineasio only requires jack, and wineasio recently merged with a project called WASIO, which was, wineasio for osx, and now wineasio also is macosx compatible.

VST:
those vst are all third party, so i doesnt count towards fl studio. All fl studio plugins copy protection are the same as the copyprotection of flstudio itself, a reg file. works.

hope this clears some things up.

in my opinion, one of the biggest problems would be gdi+, as most of fl studios interface is being drawn with gdi+, and gdi+ is very slow compared to native. Apart from that, audio computation etc, is working almost on par with windows. Latency issues are being fixed by wineasio.

EDIT: i checked winasio again, and it is under Lgpl so, distributing a compiled binary, without giving out the asio.h source is legal.

EDIT2: another problem is underlying windows which dont show up on the window managers list (taskbar, whatever), some notifaction windows for example, if you lose focus on those, its hard to get back. and fl studio locks its interface when notifications/warnings are being shown.

alright, well WineASIO for mac must be a new thing? m,y mistake.

yes I realize VSTs are 3rd party, but if you go over to the IL forums, you will see people getting help with (the popular) 3rd party vsts not working, and guidance as to why that is. if you do not have that 3rd party VST support, you really do not have full functionality of the program, even if it is relying on software written by someone else. again, we are trying to aim for a gold rating here, correct? VST/3rd Party Plugin support is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to any DAW (with the exception of protools, which still has support anyways) if it is to sell and/or be used in a commercial environment.

the underlying windows don't show up in windows either. that is normal behavior for the program. focus can be drawn back from the view menu if you've clicked away. the "locking of the interface" by an error messages and other pop-ups is also normal behavior on windows as well (although I have to say it is incredibly annoying).

as for the GUI being rendered, there is a problem there that hasn't been fully touched on. dual screen support. to do that on windows, you un-maximize the program, and stretch it to the length of the 2 screens. doing this through wine just obliterates the GUI in the short term. artifacts absolutely everywhere when one does this (usually you need to resize another window such as the playlist on the second screen as well). FL-Studio is also a Delphi application, could that have anything to do with it? (I am no programming expert by far).

actually fl on crossover supports 3rd party plugins.

i have gagroyle2 and NI pro-53 running without problems.

as i have written before, the problem with copyprotection of 3rd party vsts is a problem of those applications.

vst support works, as long as the vst itself works (most native instrument (NI) work, like Massive or pro-53, including their copyprotection which is a seperate program called service center that communicates with their keyserver.)

so, again, if vst fail due to copyprotection, its a thing not concerning fl studio, as vst works there.

it would be impossible to test every vst out there.

Hi,

Might I just inject a thought here? The mention of our builtin GDI+ being slow/clunky
-- it is ; it's one damn sight better than it was, that's for sure, and it's constantly
being worked on and improved, but some win32 apps still do some really weird things with
the builtin gdiplus.dll - a lot depends on the app's coding obviously, and if that calls
an as yet unimplemented/incomplete routine. The native runtime support entry I did for
this ..err .. app_id=8227 should help if this is being bothersome for FL

... has anyone tried that?...ie; I see 8227 isn't part of the crosstie..

Cheers!

This would be great.

Just to note, FL Studio 10 works great in crossover impersonator.
Only bug is getting the syncrosoft licensing to work for Minimoog demo.

Audio works great using Mac OS default audio.
I would say it is 90% there.

Hope to see this working at Gold level soon.

Cheers.

15" MBP 2011. 2,2 GHZ, i7, 500 GB HDD, 7200 RPM, 4 GB Ram.

I agree with lopho. I think it would be great to get this to Gold Level. It performs well.

Latency isn't so much an issue, if you're utilizing for playback, and not recording.

It would be great to get WINEASIO working on mac&linux. To install on mac is a real p.i.t.a. I just gave up and used default sound.

I think with all the great input here, this can be fully functional excluding third-party VSTS, which is nearly impossible to test everyone out there.

Hopefully this gets imageline's attention. I'm not sure why they don't port the delphi code to C++. It would be a major overwrite, but who writes applications in Delphi seriously. It went through four companies already.

ok, i have given this thing a little more thought now, and there is a thing that hadn't come to my mind in the previous posts, tyrone reminded me of one of that thing.

recording audio.

i believe almost everybody using a daw on a regular professional/semipro/bedroom basis, would agree if i said that recording audio is a essential feature.
last time i tested recording it was a pain in the arse, cracking, popping, hiccups.

i'll give it a good spank of testing today using multiple audio interfaces (external: edirol ua25ex, edirol ua25, tascam us122; internal: inca88; onboard: intel hd, realtek hd) and jack versions
(jackd0, jackd2) with different settings. i can only test on linux, as i don't have a mac.

another thing would be underruns, these occur more often on crossover/wine than running on native, regardless of latency.

ill report back in later today or tomorrow.

@don:
yes, i use the native gdi+, but, while in comparison it does make a difference, its not that much better, as the interface still is quite sluggy. ill make a comparison today together with the audio recording test.

lopho wrote:

ok, i have given this thing a little more thought now, and there is
a thing that hadn't come to my mind in the previous posts, tyrone
reminded me of one of that thing.

recording audio.

i believe almost everybody using a daw on a regular
professional/semipro/bedroom basis, would agree if i said that
recording audio is a essential feature.
last time i tested recording it was a pain in the arse, cracking,
popping, hiccups.

i'll give it a good spank of testing today using multiple audio
interfaces (external: edirol ua25ex, edirol ua25, tascam us122;
internal: inca88; onboard: intel hd, realtek hd) and jack versions
(jackd0, jackd2) with different settings. i can only test on linux,
as i don't have a mac.

another thing would be underruns, these occur more often on
crossover/wine than running on native, regardless of latency.

ill report back in later today or tomorrow.

@don:
yes, i use the native gdi+, but, while in comparison it does make a
difference, its not that much better, as the interface still is
quite sluggy. ill make a comparison today together with the audio
recording test.

Upside down, back in first -- @lopho: note I applied a further edit, to the installation Tip&Trick you edited. Your edit is valid, no trouble there, just be sure to annotate & accredit any such sub-edits against your name, to avert obfuscation and/or ambiguity creeping in, "Just a formality", he said... =)

Further, thanks for the loop on gdiplus ; best I can figure it, FL should only be calling that lib to access/create menu components, various GUIs/forms or such, I wouldn't expect it to be chewing cycles in playback or several editing modes ...but... point is it's not part of the crosstie at the moment, and, if any benefit is to be had by pulling in the native win32 dll into the crosstie profile, it should be done ; just chirp or add it yourself if you think it's worth it ; it's inconsequential to any possible via page rollout, more a case of 'use any lengths to obtain the best possible result' type of bull-ring....

I would like to point out as well that the FL SynthMaker Plugin (comes stock. producer edition and higher get the editor, while lower editions can only use the synths), and its outputs are NOT currently working at a usable level.

...M'kay....I finally put aside some time to look into this in some more depth.
I've completed numerous debug passes wrt an 'as is' installation using crosstie
profile... on the linux box anyhow (I have an 11,2 iMac here as well). First, it's
probably best to redress a few positions - I'll try an justify it all as I go
along. As Cupcake Ninja opens this thread, we are enlightened with wisdom as to
why FL didn't pass the grade wrt a community/via page.

As it turns out (for starters anyhow), gdiplus.dll isn't being summoned at all
that I can see with the demo version (as yet anyhow). I was able to provoke it
into complaining about the state of mfc42.dll ergo M$ visual c++ 6 redist looks
like a predep (possibly relics to the delphi base). The GUI drawing anomalies are
somewhere else (I think I saw it in the trace). It does routinely load dsound.dll
but I haven't looked there yet....

Where above Chris posits it probably isn't a good idea, at this stage, to foist
FL/CX compatibility 'unto the masses' so to speak by way of crossover community
page, I really do concur with that sentiment ; there are simply too many short
comings in the current state of play to 'properly present' either FL or CX in
'the best possible light' ; this would be particularly so in any 'professional'
usage context that FL is quite capable of ..(in Windows)...

...then, right, one has to consider that even the 'non professional', 'casual'
('bedroom' as lopho put it =) Windows user of FL, is 'naturally' going to expect
'record' to record when they use the record function ; they're already accustomed
to better GUI handling than is currently the case for us ... things need to go up...

...next thing, as Chris mentioned ... the beetroot of the asio.h licensing salad.
Short answer is - no, you cannot redistribute it nor any works derived from it
(wineasio.dll.so for example) ; long answer - no =) It's 'free' in the context
of individual usage, but there's a clause in the license agreement that precludes
one from, say, compiling wineasio.dll.so for someone else and giving that away
(to them)...this is why you have to get the header yourself and use it yourself,
right down to the derived, compiled library you want to use....or such. This is why
nobody distributes such, not even wineasio. This is obviously also why there's
open source efforts around, to recreate the same functionality, without any need
for the asio.h code (blabla) ...

....umm ... 'not installing properly' ... right, it has to do this. Having a
manual workaround, nice though it is <grin>, cannot be incorporated into a install
profile. The other way to say that, is if Windows users can install it and not
need edit that file to have 'out of the box' functionality, we need the same result.

....errr... what is this app?... I just noticed this is set in group 'sound
editing', but the crosstie is set for Crossover Games, not Crossover Pro/Std ...
can anyone make me wiser which Crossover you're expecting FL to be used in? I
entered some 'tracker' type apps into C4 under group 'fun stuff' wrt CXG, mostly
to try delimit them from 'serious' sound editing apps more the home of Pro/Std...

...I'll keep digging at things...

Help please. This is the message I'm getting when I try and install FL Studio 10.

'/Users/ron/Library/Application Support/CrossOver/installers/dc9d2c49d3d1abe40a9aa0a0e065a27e.download- fl-studio-66439.html' is of an unknown installer type for FL Studio 10

Ron Good wrote:

Help please. This is the message I'm getting when I try and install
FL Studio 10.

'/Users/ron/Library/Application
Support/CrossOver/installers/dc9d2c49d3d1abe40a9aa0a0e065a27e.download-
fl-studio-66439.html' is of an unknown installer type for FL Studio
10

Hi,

Possibly my fault when I added to the crosstie - the URL for the installer
is being strange - I've fixed it now, but it'll be hours before it comes back
online. You will need to download the FL-10 installer manually...

Cheers!