Hi Luc and welcome to the list! > name is luc gross i live in zurich. age 28. > i am currently dealing with the demo version of FL. > i intend to buy it and switch from logic as i am not satisfied with it's > function overhead. > other software i own are ableton live and NI reaktor. hardware : jomox > xbase, access virus. ooh nice! I like the virus a lot - shame they are so expensive! > so here are my first questions: > 1. my resample button seems to be uanctive all the time, why? is 16bit > max the only choice I think the resample button applies when you load samples that have a sampling frequency that is different to the sampling frequency used by fruityloops (set in options -> Audio settings). > 2. is there a workaround to use vst instruments like reaktor? Sure, fruityloops supports VST effects and VST instruments very well. If you go to the Options-> File Settings menu, at the bottom of the dialog, there is an option to set where to look for VST and VSTi plugins. Set this to where ever you keep your plugins (I use c:\program files\steinberg\vstplugins even though I don't have Cubase installed, since many apps look here). Then to add a VSTi channel, go to channels->Add One->More... then click the box in the bottom left of the window to refresh the list. Then click the boxes next to the plugin names that you want to use with fruity (be careful only to choose VST instruments, not effects as these will appear in the channels list in future) and double click on the one that you want to add. You can do the same for VST effects from the FX window dialog, but again in this case, be sure only to select FX plugins. > 3. how do you manage tracks, do you copy whole patterns and change? or > have you areas of patterns for instruments. You can work which ever way you like, but this is how I work: - keep each pattern very simple (only containing notes for one channel at a time typically) and then build up the song by layering many patterns together using the play list. This approach allows maximum flexibility and makes it easier to remix or do new arrangements of tracks at a later date. This approach is rather different from using one of the old pattern based trackers, where everything was held in single patterns and only one pattern played at any one time. hope that helps, its quite hard to explain some of these things when they have become so familiar! best regards, Andy