Enable your Orchid in FL Studio. With your Orchid physically connected to your computer, we can now enable it for use in FL Studio.
- Open FL Studio, and in the top menu, navigate to
Options -> MIDI settings(or press the F10 shortcut key on your keyboard). - In the Settings window that appears, look under the "Input" section for a list of connected MIDI devices. Find the input named "Orchid" (if using USB-C) or your MIDI interface's name (if using the 5-pin cable), then click the Enable toggle or button (it will light up green). This will officially allow FL Studio to receive the instrument's data.
- Open FL Studio, and in the top menu, navigate to
- Adding Instruments to the Channel Rack. In FL Studio, "tracks" for recording MIDI are managed inside the "Channel Rack", which is the main window where your instruments and drum sounds live.
- Open your Channel Rack. At the bottom of this window, click the "+" button (Add new channel).
- From the drop-down menu, select a synthesizer plugin (such as FL's built-in "FLEX" or the Pistil plugin) that you actually want to hear and record your notes with.
- NOTE: FL Studio has a unique quirk: the instrument that is currently selected in your channel rack will automatically capture and record any incoming MIDI channels that have not been explicitly assigned to other tracks.
- Orchid by default transmits MIDI data simultaneously over 3 separate channels (for performance notes, bass notes, and raw chords). If you are trying to record just one of those channels, we recommend repeating the above steps to add two additional empty "dummy" instruments (such as the basic "MIDI Out" tool) to act as trash bins to catch the extra MIDI that Orchid sends out. Alternately, you can turn off unwanted MIDI channels on your Orchid itself by going to
Options -> Audio and MIDI -> MIDI Channelsand setting the unwanted channel(s) to OFF.
- Locking the MIDI Channels. Now that you have three instruments, you must explicitly tell FL Studio which Orchid channel belongs to which instrument. FL Studio includes a specific menu option to make a channel "receive notes only from Midi Channel __".
- Right-click the first instrument (your main synthesizer) in the Channel Rack. In the menu that appears, hover over the "Receive notes from" option. Find the Orchid in the sub-menu, and click on the channel you wish to record. By default, your Orchid is configured as such:
- Channel 1: Records your Performance notes, like Arpeggios, Strums, and Voicing dial melodies.
- Channel 2: Records the single Bass notes.
- Channel 3: Records the raw, sustained Chords.
- If you are trying to filter out the other MIDI channels onto dummy tracks:
- Right-click your second instrument (the first dummy track), go to "Receive notes from", select the Orchid, and lock it to one of the unwanted MIDI channels.
Right-click your third instrument (the second dummy track), go to "Receive notes from", select the Orchid, and lock it to the other unwanted MIDI channel.
- Right-click the first instrument (your main synthesizer) in the Channel Rack. In the menu that appears, hover over the "Receive notes from" option. Find the Orchid in the sub-menu, and click on the channel you wish to record. By default, your Orchid is configured as such:
- Recording the MIDI.
- In the Channel Rack, click the small rectangular selector button to the right of your main synthesizer so it is highlighted in green. This tells FL Studio which instrument you are actively controlling.
- In the top transport bar of FL Studio, click the main Record button (the circle icon). When it asks what you want to record, select "Notes and Automation".
- Press the Play button to begin your recording. Because you explicitly routed the inputs, FL Studio will now isolate your desired notes on your main synthesizer track, while the two dummy tracks silently absorb the other note data.