The guide that ships inside Fontelle, behind the ? on the transport bar and F1, on one page. Each part of the studio has a short clip of it being used.
This tour walks through a small song, one part of the window at a time. Try things as you go: the tour stays out of the way, and anything you change here is only the demo's.
Next and Back move through it, and the list at the top jumps to any part. Everything here is also in the guide behind the ? on the transport bar, whenever you want it again.
Play and stop are here, and on Space and Home. Beside them are loop, record and the metronome (Ctrl+M).
Click the tempo to type one, or drag it. Song plays the whole arrangement; switch it to Clip to loop only the clip you are editing.
Every instrument in the song is a row here. + Add instrument adds a built-in synth, a sampler, a soundfont or a plugin.
The ≡ button opens a row's instrument in a window of its own. The headphones solo it and the speaker mutes it. Click a row to choose it: that is the instrument new clips and a MIDI keyboard play.
The tabs along the top are sounds, presets, projects, files to import, and settings. Click a sound to hear it; double-click it, or drag it onto a channel, to use it.
The Import tab lists your MIDI files, FL Studio scores and audio from folders you choose. Drop a file from your desktop onto the arrangement to bring it in.
Fontelle hosts CLAP, VST 3 and LV2 plugins as they are. VST 2 plugins need a small extension, downloaded when you ask for it.
Turn it on here if you use VST 2 plugins. You can change your mind any time in Settings, under Extensions.
In the app, this page has the switch that turns VST 2 support on.
The arrangement is the song from left to right. Double-click an empty spot to draw a clip of the chosen instrument; drag a clip to move it, and drag its right edge to make it longer. Shift and that edge makes it loop.
Ctrl+B cuts clips at the marker, Ctrl+D duplicates, Delete removes. Ctrl and the wheel zooms.
Click a lane's name to select it: recordings and imports land there. Its speaker and headphones mute and solo it, and right-clicking the name renames, moves, adds or deletes lanes.
Open a clip to edit its notes here. With the pencil, click to add a note and drag a note to move it; drag its right edge to set its length, and right-click it to delete it. E selects, and Ctrl drags a box around notes with any tool.
The chooser beside the tools sets the grid, and scale dims the notes outside a key. Tools holds transpose, legato, arpeggiate, and MIDI import and export.
Press 2, or the Mixer tab, to swap the piano roll for the mixer. Each strip is a track with its fader, pan, mute and solo; + makes a new one.
Select a strip to see its inspector: where it sends its sound, its effects (+ Add effect) and its sends. The cables along the bottom show where everything goes, and what feeds the selected track lights up.
Rack-style, as in FL Studio: each instrument chooses its mixer track with the coloured chip on its row, and lanes are just places to put clips.
Lane-style, as in Reaper or Logic: each lane owns a mixer track, and everything on the lane plays through it. An instrument belongs to one lane.
Choose how new songs start. Any song can be switched in Settings, under Project.
In the app, this page has a button for each style, and the one you press is how new songs start.
A MIDI keyboard plays the chosen instrument as soon as it is plugged in; record catches what you play. To record audio, give a mixer track an input in its inspector, then press record.
Ctrl+E exports the song as a WAV and Ctrl+Shift+E as a MIDI file. Ctrl+S saves; Fontelle also keeps backups as you work.
The gear in the browser opens Settings: your MIDI keyboard, folders, plugins, extensions and this song's routing. The ? on the transport bar, or F1, opens this guide and every keyboard shortcut.
That is the tour. Keep playing with the demo, or close it and start a song of your own.
Choose lane-style routing and a lane works like a Reaper track: what is on it plays through its own mixer track. Items are clips, and the MIDI editor is the piano roll under the arrangement.
Instruments live in the channel rack rather than on the track: add one there, select it, and draw it onto a lane. Effects go on the mixer track, in its inspector, and sends and outputs are there too.
Space plays, Ctrl+B splits at the marker, and every shortcut can be changed on the shortcuts page.
Lane-style routing is Logic's way: each lane is a track with a channel strip in the mixer. Regions are clips, and the piano roll sits under the arrangement.
The Library is the browser on the left. A software instrument is a row of the channel rack, opened in its own window with ≡; drawn onto a lane, it plays through that lane's strip.
Fontelle is an arrangement-view DAW; there is no session view. With lane-style routing a lane is a track: its clips play through its mixer track.
An instrument device is a row of the channel rack, with its own window. Audio effects go on mixer tracks rather than in a device chain on the clip's track. The browser on the left is where sounds and files come from.
Rack-style routing is FL's: the channel rack is the channel rack, and the coloured chip on a row is its target mixer track. The arrangement is the playlist, where any clip can go on any lane.
Clips hold notes for one or more instruments, like patterns, and prefabs let one set of notes appear in many places. Most of FL's keys work the same: Space, Ctrl+S, P for the pencil, B for paint, E to select, D to delete.
Everything here is also in the app: open the guide with F1, or take the tour from Learn Fontelle on the start menu.
The clips were recorded just before 0.20.0, so a few toolbar icons in them are older than the ones in the app.
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