Image-Line FL Studio 21

FL Studio 21 is not celebrating a birthday, as the previous version did, but is introducing some significant additions to this most popular of DAWS

Image-Line’s FL Studio DAW had a naming upgrade with last version 20 that might have confused some users. v20 was actually v13, but changed to 20 to celebrate the DAW’s 20th birthday back in 2018. Five years on and the latest version 21 should therefore be called FL Studio 25? But, whatever, the main headline is that the DAW remains a free update, no matter what version you bought into (yes, even for those lucky v1 risk takers back in 1998 when it was called FruityLoops v1.0!). v21 has significant updates to workflow, plus some lovely extra plugins, but let’s have an overview first.

The original FruityLoops was all about loop creation and then putting together songs from those, and that more modular way of composing has stayed with the software. FL Studio has always placed the main compositional features within their own environments – mixing, arranging and looping, for example – meaning the overall feel can be more disjointed. Still the core looping side is excellent, intuitive and inspiring – maintaining the ‘instant creation’ ethos that stems from those early days.

Version 21 has several workflow additions that actually help bring the overall composition targets together; they make it perhaps a little more traditional in terms of DAW structure, but still retain the excellent and unique feel that the many (many) FL fans love.