The fl studio mixer is where your whole track comes together: it takes the instruments and samples from the Channel Rack, lets you route them onto separate tracks, and gives each one its own volume, panning, EQ and effects chain. To use it, press F9 to open the mixer, route each Channel Rack instrument to its own mixer track, add effects in the slots on the right, and balance the faders until the parts sit together. The rest is detail — and this guide walks through it in order.
Violet Recording is reader-supported — we may earn a commission from links on this page, at no extra cost to you.
How the FL Studio mixer is laid out
Before you touch anything, it helps to understand what you are looking at. The FL Studio mixer is a horizontal strip of tracks. On the far left sits the Master track — everything eventually flows through it and out to your speakers. To the right of Master are the numbered insert tracks (Insert 1, Insert 2, and so on). At the far right you will usually find one Current track and a block of Send tracks, though in a fresh project the inserts are simply blank and ready to use.
Each track is a vertical channel strip. From top to bottom you get the track name, a peak meter, a pan knob and stereo-separation knob near the top, a long volume fader down the middle, and mute/solo controls. Along the right-hand side of the mixer window is the effects rack — ten stacked slots where plugins live for whichever track is currently selected. Click a track to select it, and those ten slots update to show that track’s chain.
Opening the mixer and adding tracks
Press F9 to toggle the mixer, or click the mixer icon in the main toolbar. In most projects you will not need to add tracks manually — the inserts are already there, and you just start using them from Insert 1 downward. If you want to keep things organised, click a track once to select it and press F2 to rename it (call it “Kick”, “Bass”, “Vocals”, and so on). You can also right-click a track name to pick a colour or an icon, which makes a busy session far easier to read at a glance.
One habit worth building early: keep the Master track for the whole-mix processing (a limiter, maybe a gentle bus EQ) and never load individual instruments straight onto it. Everything should pass through a dedicated insert first. That keeps your routing clean and predictable.
Routing Channel Rack instruments to mixer tracks
By default, every instrument in the Channel Rack plays out of the Master track, all stacked on top of each other. To mix properly you want each sound on its own insert. There are two reliable ways to do this.
- From the channel settings. Click an instrument in the Channel Rack to open its channel settings, and look for the TRK (target mixer track) field near the top. Type or scroll the number of the insert you want that sound to land on.
- The quick-route shortcut. Select one or more channels in the Channel Rack, click the empty mixer insert you want to send them to, then press Ctrl+L. FL Studio assigns the selected channels to that track in one move. This is the fastest way to route a whole drum kit onto separate tracks.
Give each element its own insert — kick, snare, hats, bass, lead, pads, vocals. Once they are separated, you can treat them independently, which is the entire point of a mixer.
Adding and ordering effects on a track
Select the track you want to process, then look at the ten effect slots on the right of the mixer. Click the small arrow (or left-click the empty slot) to open the plugin menu and pick an effect. Signal flows top to bottom through the slots, so order matters: an EQ that cuts mud should usually sit before a compressor, and a reverb generally comes after both.
FL Studio’s stock effects cover most of what you need. Reach for Fruity Parametric EQ 2 to shape tone, Fruity Limiter or Fruity Compressor to control dynamics, and Fruity Reeverb 2 or Fruity Delay 3 for space. To adjust the wet/dry balance of any effect, use the small knob at the left edge of its slot. You can drag slots to reorder them, and right-click a slot to replace, remove or save the effect.
The stock plugins are genuinely good, so do not feel you need to buy anything to get a solid mix. That said, if you find yourself wanting a more surgical dynamic EQ or a characterful analogue-style compressor for a lead vocal, a dedicated third-party plugin is a real upgrade over the stock devices — Plugin Boutique is a sensible place to look for one.
Building sends and a shared reverb bus
Instead of loading a separate reverb on every track, professionals route several tracks to a single send track and share one reverb. This saves CPU and glues sounds together in the same space. Here is the workflow:
- Pick an empty insert to act as your reverb bus and rename it “Reverb” (F2). Load Fruity Reeverb 2 on it and set it fully wet.
- Select the source track you want to send — say your vocal insert.
- At the very bottom of the mixer, each track has a small routing triangle. Right-click the triangle under your Reverb track and the source track will now feed it. A send knob appears so you can dial in how much signal goes to the reverb.
Turn the send knob up on each track you want in that reverb, and they all share one tail. By default, sends in FL Studio are post-fader, meaning the amount you send follows the track’s fader — turn the vocal down and its reverb drops with it, which is usually what you want. You can right-click the routing arrow to switch a send between pre- and post-fader if you need to.
Sidechaining the kick and bass with mixer routing
Sidechain compression — that pumping duck where the bass gets out of the kick’s way — is set up through the same routing. Select your kick track, right-click the routing triangle under the bass (or under a dedicated compressor track) and choose Sidechain to this track only. This creates a hidden sidechain send rather than mixing the kick’s audio into the bass.
Then, on the bass track, load a compressor that accepts a sidechain input — Fruity Limiter in COMP mode works well, as does the stock Fruity Compressor. Open the plugin, find the sidechain source selector (the SIDECHAIN or SC dropdown), and choose the send you just created. Now the kick triggers the compressor on the bass without the kick itself being heard through it. Adjust the ratio and release until the bass breathes in time with the beat.
Balancing levels and fixing common problems
With routing and effects in place, mixing is mostly about faders and gain staging. Start with everything low, bring up the most important element (often the kick or the lead vocal), then add the other parts around it. Watch the Master meter — if it is hitting the top and clipping red, pull individual tracks down rather than yanking the Master fader.
A few problems come up constantly:
- Everything routes to Master and you can’t separate sounds. You skipped the routing step — go back and assign each channel to its own insert with Ctrl+L.
- An effect isn’t doing anything. Check the wet/dry knob on the slot, and make sure the slot itself isn’t muted (its little LED).
- A send has no effect. The send knob at the bottom is probably at zero, or the send track’s reverb isn’t set fully wet.
- The mix clips only on export. Add a Fruity Limiter to the Master as a safety ceiling and aim for a sensible loudness target.
Once your balance is right, keep an eye on tempo and tuning too — our free browser audio tools (a metronome, BPM finder and tuner among them) are handy for checking a part before you commit it into the mix. And if you are still building the arrangement rather than mixing it, an idea generator like Solmi can help you sketch an original track to practise these routing steps on.
Where to go next
The mixer is one piece of a bigger picture. If you are still choosing software, our roundup of the best free DAWs for beginners and our FL Studio review are good starting points. To sharpen the processing you apply inside these tracks, read up on EQ and compression fundamentals and how to mix vocals. And if a plugin menu ever leaves you puzzled, what is a VST explains the formats FL Studio can load. You will find more guides like this in the Home Studio Setup hub.
Frequently asked questions
How do I open the mixer in FL Studio?
Press F9 on your keyboard, or click the mixer icon in the main toolbar at the top of the screen. F9 is a toggle, so pressing it again hides the mixer. It opens to whatever size and position you last left it, and you can drag its edges to resize it.
Why do all my instruments come out of the Master track?
Because they are unrouted. By default every Channel Rack instrument feeds the Master, stacked together, so you can’t process them separately. Select each channel, click an empty mixer insert, and press Ctrl+L to assign it — or set the TRK number in the channel settings. Once each sound is on its own insert you can EQ, compress and balance it independently.
Do I need paid plugins to mix in FL Studio?
No. The stock effects — Fruity Parametric EQ 2, Fruity Limiter, Fruity Compressor, Fruity Reeverb 2 and Fruity Delay 3 — are enough for a complete, polished mix. Third-party plugins are worth it only when you want a specific sound or workflow the stock devices don’t offer, such as a more detailed dynamic EQ or an analogue-modelled compressor.
