Image Line have released a free Flex Pack called Drumful Treasure, produced by WiseLabs, so if you’re a registered FL Studio user grab it now by opening FLEX in your FL Studio and downloading the pack via the presets menu. You can get a taste of Drumful Treasure in the video below:
Drumful Treasure is a useful resource of free electronic and electro-acoustic drum sounds – over 2400 in total – all of which you can tweak and sculpt via the FLEX GUI. There are 25 presets in total, divided by drum type (kicks, snares, hats etc), each of which gives you 120 drum sounds to play with.
I’ve made some rather brilliant FLEX based drum machines out of this pack by using eight instances of FLEX to give me eight different drum sounds on their own channels, an FL Dashboard control plugin to control multiple knobs and then running each instance into its own effect chain. Finally, I finished off my drum machine by bussing each drum voice into an instance of Ujam Retro to add a vintage, distressed 80s vibe. Nice!
In total Drumful Treasure delivers:
- 600 Kicks – sorted by brightness
- 600 Snares – sorted by length
- 240 Claps – no specific order
- 360 Percussions – sorted by harmonic complexity
- 360 Hi-Hats – sorted by length
- 120 Cymbals – sorted by average loudness
- 120 Toms – sorted by est. avg. pitch + extras
(You can find more info on Drumful Treasure on the Image Line blog here.)
What is FL Studio FLEX?
FLEX is an easy to use preset-based synthesizer with instant sounds. Think of it like a mini-version of the famous Nexus rompler.
FLEX boasts Subtractive, Wavetable, Multisample, FM & AM based synthesis under the hood but all of the complexity is hidden from the user.
While most synths boast hundreds of controls, FLEX uses up to 8 Macros per preset for quick tweaking of core parameters which vary from preset to preset.
Indepth tweaking of FLEX presets is not really possible then, but you can still make changes to sounds and also adjust master reverb and filter settings to taste.
Does FLEX come with free sounds?
FLEX ships with an impressive library of several thousand free sounds bundled up in themed collections in FLEX pack format. Current free FLEX packs include:
- Essential Pianos
- Essential Strings
- Sarif Sameer Synthwave
- Essential Winds
- SeamlessR Monsters
- Histribe Electronica
- SH-1 Floor Shakers
- Olbaid Bass Utopia
- SH-1 Jump Up Repertoire
- Essential Guitars
- Essential Bass Guitars
- Drumful Treasure
Where is FLEX in FL Studio?
There are two quick ways to start up an instance of FLEX:
1. In the main menu panel find the “ADD” menu then in the fly out menu select “FLEX” from the Synth Classic options.
2. Press F8 to bring up FL Studio’s plugin picker and look for the FLEX GUI (by default GUIs are displayed in alphabetical order but you can browse through your plugins by sorting them into types including Drum, Sampler, Synth Special and Synth Classic).
How to install a FLEX pack?
With an instance of FLEX loaded up click on the “Packs” tab to see your current list of packs you own. Click on the “Free” tab to see a list of free packs you can download and install. Just click the download button to start the install (internet connection required). Packs weigh in at about 50MB on average although some packs such as Essential Bass Guitars weigh in at over 390MB.
Clicking on the “Store” tab will bring up a list of premium packs you can buy direct from Image Line’s store (internet connection required).
Be aware that if you ever install another copy of FL Studio on a different computer you will need to reinstall any packs you own onto that machine.
Finding your sound using FLEX tags
At the bottom of the FLEX GUI is a “TAGS” button. Click it to display tags for the current FLEX pack you are using. You’ll see tags for instrument type such as “Bass”, “Pad”, “Pluck” and “Keys” as well as tags for instrument style such as “Hard”, “Soft” and “Evolving”.
How to get FLEX to play sounds?
FLEX does not have any kind of built-in sequencer so you’ll need to use the FL-Studio Piano Roll to trigger notes. If you have “Typing keyboard to piano keyboard” option turned on you can trigger FLEX by pressing keys on your QWERTY keyboard.
You can also trigger FLEX with third-part MIDI plugins such as Scaler VST.
Is FL Studio FLEX free?
FLEX comes with all paid versions of FL Studio including the cheapest version of FL Studio (Fruity Edition).
Is FLEX Windows only?
FLEX work runs inside FL Studio on both under Windows and macOS
Is FLEX available as a standalone plugin?
FLEX is only available in FL Studio.