Thoughts on FL Studio?

Mesh
I was just over at KVR and saw this guy selling his Cakewalk account with Z3TA 2 for $35. If you do plan to buy, just make sure he's been posting for awhile and has good feedback in the "Feedback" thread.
Good luck!!
 
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=491274&p=6923277&hilit=z3ta+2#p6923277

Alpha Trion
I like FL Studio quite a bit honestly. It's a wonderful writing medium and has really quick fast editing, but mixing is... an issue. So is multitrack recording.
 
Certainly you can get great sound out of it, but quite why you would bother instead of going to something else is beyond me.
 
 

kitekrazy1
If you are into a linear DAW it's probably not for you.  It is geared toward dance genres.  Its' the most popular DAW out there.  It is in some ways like Reaper with a lot of customized way of doing things.  Don't let it'd looks fool you. It's a very deep DAW.

rlared
I own the Producer version and it's great.  Great included effects as well.  Really all of their plugins are extremely high quality.  Also it's very stable for me.  It does have some differences in workflow which you may like or hate. 
 
There is one, and only one, list of all active sounds and synths called the "Channel Rack".  The Channel Rack can be filtered, but there is only one Channel Rack. 
 
You use the channel rack to create "Patterns" of some length which can contain either Step Sequencer data or piano roll data, or both.  There can be as many Patterns as you want.
 
First major difference from most DAW's: The "Patterns" are then placed into the "Playlist" in "Tracks" in whatever arbitrary order you feel like.  The tracks play whatever is in them in a normal timeline fashion.  But the tracks are not tied to anything, you can name them whatever you want and put in whatever you want.  
 
Second major difference from most DAW's:  The mixer is a totally different paradigm.   You can assign only items in the "Channel Rack" to the mixer and it doesn't happen automatically.  You have to tell it to route a certain "Channel Rack" to the mixer.  Each mixer channel has an effects rack.  There are some other special things regarding the mixer that I won't get into.   
 
So, after using it for a while, I would say it's major strength is the creation and arrangement of patterns.  You can do the same thing in any DAW, but trust me that it's way better in FL Studio because of the browser, included content, the Channel rack step sequencer, and some very deep functionality for handling audio and MIDI.  That's why it's super popular for electronic music and hip hop which largely uses patterns and only a bit of vocal recording.  You do have to adjust to this way of doing things, but just watch some Youtube videos and you'll be fine.  
 
On the flip side, you will pull your hair out if you try to use it for multitrack recording.  It can do it, but it's not optimized for it and there are DAWs which are way better for that.  
 
If you're interested in getting it, PM me.

rmfegley
It has amazing capabilities for working with softsynths and samples - great, flexible automation, including some unique plugins and tools for transforming automation and MIDI data and for triggering control signals. A lot of features in this regard were far ahead of other software, things like bezier control handles on automation splines FL has had for years and Cubase is now touting in there latest update. It has a very flexible mixer routing scheme, though it's can be a bit confusing if you're not used to it
 
Its audio recording, editing and arranging tools are extremely basic compared to a DAW like Sonar or Cubase, and its clip arrangement window (playlist), while having improved over time, still feels clunky. It's kind of hard to directly compare some aspects of how the arrangement and mixer compare to Sonar, because it uses an entirely different paradigm. The track clips area, mixer, and synth rack don't even relate to each other in the same way as Sonar or Cubase. FL's original arrangement workflow was strictly pattern based, a clip view arrangement workflow was only added as I recall, when audio recording was introduced. That was a long time ago, but it just fits into the overall scheme in a much different way.

FL, because of its origins I suppose, is really centered around your instrument rack. Everything in FL is a channel in your "instrument" rack. An audio track is really just a specialized kind of sampler channel. Automation curves are a special kind of rack channel, as are various control signal generating plugins. It's a very different workflow. I've made more typical multitrack audio rock songs in it, and got good results, but its real strengths have always been geared toward EDM and Hip Hop.