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Most of the improvements in FL9 aren't immediately obvious.

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At the time of its launch way back in 1998, FruityLoops (as it was then called) was a primitive drum machine, but as the program involved into something considerably more complex (eventually earning full DAW status), it quickly gained popularity with producers across a variety of genres.

An intuitive loop-based workflow plays a major part in making FL Studio so popular with beginners and experienced computer musicians alike and, unsurprisingly, v9 doesn't depart from this formula.

What's new?

At first glance, existing FL Studio users might struggle to spot the changes in the latest version, for besides a handful of extra plug-ins, FL9's enhancements are behind-the-scenes coding upgrades and interface tweaks.

Autogun is the only new instrument and is based on the additive synthesis engine of Image-Line's Ogun plug-in. It has a preposterous 4,294,967,296 pseudo-random presets to step through, but thankfully, you can 'bookmark' good sounds and even share them with other Autogunners.

However, while Autogun is pretty cool, it's already available as a freeware Windows VST, so it doesn't add any value to the package. And in a similar way, Image-Line advertises the inclusion of demos of their Sakura and Ogun synths and the Gross Beat time-manipulation effect as "new plug-ins", which we think is misleading.

Of more value is the inclusion of five existing synths - DX-10, WASP, WASP XT, SimSynth and DrumSynth - that were previously bundled only with the top-of-the-range editions of FL Studio, but now come with all packages except Express.

Perhaps most enticing are the new effects. Vocodex is a huge step up from the old Fruity Vocoder, with a clear interface that makes it quick and easy to dial in great sounds. Stereo Shaper, meanwhile, is a mid/side-capable stereo processor, with a mixer for left/right channels and their inverted equivalents, plus knobs for channel delay and phase offset.

M/S processing might not seem like an obvious choice for an FL Studio effect, but it's such a powerful concept that its inclusion can only be a good thing. There are lots of useful presets, too, divided into an Effects bank (with presets for 'stereoising' mono signals and other interesting stereo effects), and a Mixing bank.

Not many DAWs boast such a straightforward yet comprehensive M/S tool and Image-Line are to be applauded for making a potentially confusing technique so accessible.

The new Riff Machine feature tied into the piano roll makes it easy to come up with riffs, arpeggios and chord progressions. In a nutshell, it's an automatic pattern generator that enables one to set a few key parameters that determine the melody and groove of a riff, with the results being sent to the piano roll. And if that still sounds too much like hard work, there's a surprisingly effective random option.