FLpad 8×8 grid comes to FL Studio — can you add a grid to a speedrun?

The Novation Launchpad grid has its original lineage in Ableton Live integration. But it’s now come to the land of Fruity Loops. FLpad is available in both a standard, velocity-sensitive model and an FLpad mini. For a user base known for shortcuts and speedrunning, can finger-drumming and pad programming find a home?

Vara Osiria Belich is taking Phase Plant to gestural, mangled frontiers

This is not granular. This is all sampler, unison. And so it sounds like things that even granular can’t do. Vara Osiria Belich is this week’s sound design inspiration, with her bonus gestural spell casting with gen-1 Leap Motion. (Remember?)

Peter Kirn - November 20, 2025

FL Studio 2025: Mixer add and delete, AI help, more plugins, Python scripts

FL Studio, the everlasting DAW that the uninitiated think is way less powerful than it is, just got more powerful again. And if you were perplexed by it in the past, it has a new AI-powered chat to help you out, called Gopher. The good news is, you’ll need help less, thanks to in-Playlist audio editing and Mixer tracks finally working the way you’d expect. FL continues to be underrated, overpowered, and seriously fun, so let’s take a look.

Peter Kirn - July 10, 2025

Lower your blood pressure, raise your vibration: eu-IV’s tape beats

Peter Kirn - January 22, 2024

People are speedrunning FL Studio: meet extreme DAW sports

Peter Kirn - September 4, 2023

FL Studio 20.9 drops with new effects, undo everything, expanded Apple M1 plug-in support

Peter Kirn - December 29, 2021

FL Studio 20.8.4 – Apple Silicon, Frequency Shifter, video scrubbing, 3X oscillators

Peter Kirn - September 6, 2021

Splice Studio is free backup, version control, and collaboration for your DAW

Peter Kirn - April 19, 2021