But when we talk about music, we use the word “play.” FL Studio is nothing if not a toybox. Apparently, we want our music tools to be big and powerful, like a chainsaw, ideally emitting manly gasoline fumes. It’s a strange thing that the word “toy” has come to have negative connotations in music tech. You can read my review of FL Studio 9 for Keyboard Magazine: So, when we talk about everything that’s new in FL Studio 9, or FL Studio 9.1, released last week, those improvements are free to existing users. FL Studio is a program you buy once that keeps getting better, without the usual upgrade purchase treadmill. Image-Line has a unique way of encouraging loyalty: while the company still peddles new add-ons to its existing customer base, the expansive functionality of the FL Studio program and all its major instruments and effects are included in lifetime free upgrades. And that has made FL Studio a kind of subculture all its own. Computer producers are passionate as always about what works.
Like well-stocked studios of hardware, software has become personal, idiosyncratic, and stuffed with functionality.
