Junior LoopCloud: FL Cloud

Just the other day I watched a YT vid by "Venus Theory" in which he basically stated that after he sat behind FL Studio for a couple of minutes he couldn't make heads or tail of it and decided it was not for him.

I kinda struggle with FL Studio myself (being only moderately adept in Ableton) but I have decided to give learning  it a shot because I have a collab planned and as you can guess the other party only has FL Studio. For years I stayed current on subscriptions on many a DAW that I NEVER used (like Cubase, Reason and FL Studio).... oh, the folly of it all. 

Even before the advent of Avicii and Martin Garrix etc. FL Studio was supposedly already seriously improving but with artists like that the program has gained some traction especially with the younger demographic (which, to be fair, was always this product's target audience). Anecdotal evidence on this 2023 survey webpage suggests that among 6000 respondents 9% use Ableton and 2% FL Studio [who knows of a better DAW stats resource?].

With a recent update 21.2 "FL Cloud" was introduced, FL studio's own "LoopCloud". Interesting enough it has a flat fee no matter how many samples you DL into your projects, but if you should overdo it (> 'fair usage') DL bandwidth will be restricted.

"Credit-free subscriptions: No more counting credits – just download any sound you need, whenever you need it."

https://www.image-line.com/fl-cloud

For now "FL Cloud" contains approx. 2280 sound packs which, if we would guesstimate 50 sounds per pack, equals 114.000 (max. 150.000?)  loops and one-shots in total, a modest amount for now but "100% exclusive. Entirely original samples, only available in FL Cloud.". Since I am a bit of a sound junkie I'll probably take the promotional one year subscription for 50 euro. A fair amount of packs are by W.A. Production, a label not well known for its 'subtlety', but there are other labels and not all sounds are about 'festival bangers'. In all fairness, LoopCloud itself has a limited genre scope and many a genre is absent or only has a few packs representing it. 

The FL Cloud package also features AI-powered mastering and a distribution solution (powered by DistroKid) in that respect they've got one up on LoopCloud/Loopmasters. I would fear (but I haven't researched it)  that distributing through that FL Studio + DistroKid channel might lock you in on renewing FL Cloud subscription.

I enclose 2 screenshots: one shows you the (basic) search options of FL Cloud within FL Studio , the other the current promotion.

Interesting stuff. It was only a matter of time before someone brought out a similar kind of package. The problem with FL Cloud is it locks you into FL Studio though, rather than being DAW-agnostic like Loopcloud. The AI mastering etc. sounds intriguing though. 

Depending on what you want to do, and accepting that generally, you can do everything on one DAW that you can do another - that being said, having used FL extensively for years, then switching to Ableton, that Ableton is infinitely better than FL in a plethora of ways. Namely;

Recording - far easier and actually better monitoring I'd say

Creativity - workflow is supposedly easier on FL but once you get your head round drum racks and such on Ableton, you have far more flexibility

Max for Live - insane amount of amazing stuff

Stock - Ableton's stock plugins are often as good as third party ones - FL not so much.

Collaborating - even if your using the same DAW as your collaborator, its useless if they're using loads of plugins that you don't have. I'm unsure if FL has it but Ableton's freeze feature gets you round this pretty handily - as long as you're accepting you can't change anything on said tracks