Editing, MIDI Editing

Making Triplets in FL Studio Mobile [A Step-By-Step Guide]

Written By : Andrew Siemon

You can automatically add as many 1/4, 1/8th, 1/16th, and triplets as you’d like, depending on the bar length you’ve chosen. Triplets are the most popular, so let me show you that first.

To make triplets in FL Studio Mobile
1) Press the ”+” sign and choose Drums
2) Long-press the Channel and choose ”Add Notes Track”
3) Add a Clip in the Notes Track
4) Long-press it then choose Edit
5) Long-press the Magnet icon and select ”1/3 Beat”
6) Tap on the grid to automatically create triplets.

What this method does is that it places each note on the grid so it makes a triplet. You’ll have to go through and add each note manually. FL Studio Mobile will create other notes for you automatically like 1/4, 1/8, and 1/16th notes, but it won’t do more odd divisions.

How to Make Triplets in FL Studio Mobile

How-to-Make-Triplets-in-FL-Studio-Mobile-Featured-Image-1000-×-600-px
What a “triplet” pattern may look like in your FL Studio Mobile Playlist, in addition to the symbol for the triplet in Standard Musical Notation.

As I just explained, the most common way of simply making triplets in FL Studio Mobile is to set up the 1/3 Beat quantization setting and then tap in all of the notes manually. This, of course, works with all kinds of quantization settings including 1/4 notes and 1/16 notes, and so on.

1) Press the “+” Sign and Choose A Drum Track

Add a Drum Track - How to Make Triplets in FL STudio Mobile
Pressing on the ”+” sign is how you add whatever type of Channel you need, in addition to the various stock FL Studio Mobile Synthesizers.

I’d recommend choosing the Drums Channel that way you can choose one of the stock drums sounds in FL Studio Mobile, but you don’t have to. There’s nothing stopping you from using the DW Sampler, for example, if you’re choosing to use samples downloaded from elsewhere. In this case, I used the classic Roland TR-808.

2) Navigate Back to the Playlist, Long-Press the Channel, and then Choose ”Add Notes Track”

Adding A Notes Track - How to Make triplets in FL Studio Mobile
Navigate back to the workspace (or what is called the Playlist), and then Long-Press on the colored Channel header. Choose ”Add Notes Track” once you see the prompt.

3) Add A New Clip of Equal Length in the Notes Track

Add A Clip - How to Make Triplets in FL Studio Mobile
Adding the new Clip to your Playlist.

Click on where you’d like to add the new Notes Track. When you click on the Playlist, a little icon will appear that says ”+Clip.”

4) Long-Press the New Notes track and Then Select ”Edit”

Pressing-Edit-How-to-Make-Triplets-in-FL-Studio-Mobile-
Press on your new Clip and choose Edit to access the actual piano roll and grid lines.

5) Long-Press the Magnet and Select ”1/3 Beat”

13-Beat-How-To-Make-Triplets-in-FL-Studio-Mobile-
Long-press the Quantization symbol which is a little Magnet icon on the top-left of the Playlist. To turn Quantization on and off, you just have to press on it.

Pressing on the Magnet will toggle quantization, but if you long-press on it, then you get the various quantization options.

6) Tap on the Grid to Automatically Create Triplets

Triplets - How to Make Triplets in FL Studio Mobile
This is what regular triplets look like in 4/4 time in FL Studio Mobile

Once you’ve set up your triplet quantization, you can press on the Playlist according to how many notes you want. The quantizer will automatically put the notes on the grid so they will become triplets and nothing else.

However, you’ll notice that after you’ve created triplets in this way, it probably doesn’t sound the way you want it to. This is because in producer terminology, ”triplets,” is often used to describe something else.

In music theory, a triplet is when a beat is divided up into 3 equal parts. A different way of describing it is that it’s when you play three notes in the time that would normally only take 2 notes.

Producers use the term ”triplets” and ”hi-hat rolls” synonymously, even though they’re not really the same, at least theoretically.

Eighth Note Triplet - How to Make Triplets in FL Studio Mobile
This is what an actual triplet looks like in the piano roll, although, this is in the GarageBand piano roll instead.

When you have a bunch of actual triplets together, it doesn’t sound like the galloping hi-hat roll that people think of when they think of making trap drum beats or galloping metal guitar riffs.

Instead, it sounds like something that’s hard to put into words (this YouTube video will explain some of the theory and also do a few demonstrations for you).

If you want to make the galloping hi-hats, or what’s commonly called hi-hat rolls (my guide to these for GarageBand iOS), you’re better off using the 1/4 Step setting in FL Studio Mobile instead. These will sound a little closer to what you’re going for, in my view. Here’s what that would look like:

Making Triplets in FL Studio Mobile
This is a pattern of hi-hat rolls/triplets I made in FL Studio Mobile.

As an example, I’m going to show you how I would make hi-hat rolls in FL Studio Mobile which involves the Beat Sequencer. In my view, this is the fastest way, and it’s also the way that’s most consistent with what people think of as ”triplets” or ”hi-hat rolls.”

Using the Beat Sequencer to Make Triplets in FL Studio Mobile

As I said earlier, it’s unfortunate that FL Studio Mobile doesn’t have a setting for automatically creating a bunch of cool hi-hat rolls in the style that we commonly call ”triplets,” but it is what it is. We’ll make do with what we’ve got.

If you want to quickly lay down a bunch of triplets using the beat sequencer, it can be used for the sake of speeding up your workflow.

You would do this by automatically adding a bunch of 1/4 notes to the grid, setting the quantization to 1/4 Step, and then adding in the hi-hat rolls manually. Let’s do that now. Lucky for you, half of the steps are identical to the first part of the tutorial.

1) With the Playlist Open, Press the ”+” Sign and Choose ”Drums”

Add a Drum Track - How to Make Triplets in FL STudio Mobile
Create a new Drum track as I showed you earlier.

2) Select Your Kit, Long-Press the Channel, Then Select ”Add Notes Track”

Adding A Notes Track - How to Make triplets in FL Studio Mobile
Add a New Notes Track.

Do the same thing I showed you previously and create the Notes Track and extend it out so it’s the same length as your original Channel track.

3) Press the Notes Track and Select ”Edit”

Pressing-Edit-How-to-Make-Triplets-in-FL-Studio-Mobile-
Click Edit on the Notes Track to bring up the Piano Roll.

4) Select the Magnet Icon (Quantizer) and Choose “1/4” Step

1 Quarter Step - How to Make Triplets in FL Studio Mobile
The 1/4 Step option

The 1/4 Step setting allows you to divide one full grid square into 4 small sections. This ensures you can get ultra-specific and precise.

5) Long-Press Your Drum Kit Channel and Choose ”Fill Every Step”

Fill Every Step - How to Make Triplets in FL Studio Mobile
When you choose ”Fill Every Step,” you’ll add a note to every grid square.

However, we’ve got to make a bit more space for other notes so we’ll have to minimize the size of some of them to add more.

6) Long-Press to Select All The Notes and Then Minimize Them To A 1/4 Step

Select All - How to Make Triplets in FL Studio Mobile
Select all the notes like what’s shown here. You do that by long-pressing on the Playlist and dragging the grey box around it.
Minimize to 1-Quarter - How to Make Triplets in FL Studio Mobile
Pull the grey ball toward the left to shorten the notes according to how small you want them to be. In this case, it’s 1/4 Step, which is 1/4 of one grid-box, or whatever you want to call it.

Now that you’ve made some space, you can start adding extra notes here and there for more flavor.

7) Put A Note In the Center of Each Note to Make Hi-Hat Rolls/Triplets

Finished Sixteenth Notes - How to Make Triplets in FL Studio Mobile
Put a note in the center of the notes to create the triplet sound, or the hi-hat roll sound, that you’re looking for.

In reality, these are probably closer to 1/16 and 1/32nd notes, but I digress. This may be the fastest way to quickly make a ton of hi-hat rolls, triplets, or any other notes that have to be repeated.

You can get a lot more creative with this style of drum pattern as well. With all that in mind, I’ve got a few more tips to share that I think will help with your creative workflow. Some of them I’ve already hinted at or used, but they’re worth discussing on their own.

4 Tips for Making Triplets and Hi-Hat Rolls in FL Studio Mobile

1) Copy and Paste Your Notes to Make It Faster

The fastest way to quickly add notes to your drum pattern is to copy and paste everything by long-pressing on the Playlist to create a section box, and then selecting all of the notes.

After that, you go to the part of your grid where you’d like to add more to the pattern, long-press, and click ”paste.” From there, you’ll be able to pull the notes around as you see fit.

2) Select All the Notes and Retract Their Length To Create More Room

Creating more space for your notes is also essential because otherwise, the notes will take up too much room on the grid. In other words, you won’t be able to add the notes in between other notes (you still can, you just won’t be able to see what you’re doing).

To do this, just long-press on the grid to create the selection box, grab all of them, and then you can make the notes shorter or longer if you wanted. Pull on the grey dot to pull everything back. You can do the same thing but inverse, ie, pull them to the right to make them longer.

3) Use the 1/4 Step Quantization Setting for Accurate Note Additions

I prefer to use the 1/4 Step quantization setting because then I can get more accurate whilst adding notes on the grid. Anything else and it’s too much because the notes are too small, but anything more and there isn’t enough precision.

4) Zoom Closely In On The Screen to Be More Precise

Another great tip is to zoom in and out on the screen as much as you need to. The zooming feature in FL Studio Mobile is probably one of its greatest tools because you can really get in close to things or further away if you have to.

This really helps your workflow. So if you need to squeeze a quick note in between two notes that are already pretty close to each other, the zoom feature will allow you to get in there for precision’s sake.

The zoom feature is an iOS standard (it’s practically identical for every program or application that can be used on iOS operating systems), so just close or open your fingers together on your screen to minimize or maximize your screen size. This will also allow you to add more bars to your project.

Other FL Studio Mobile Articles You Make Like

Important Things to Note About FL Mobile Triplets

1) This Tutorial Presupposes We’re In Standard 4/4 Time

In case you don’t know much about music theory, the time signature of the musical piece tells you how many beats are in a bar and how many notes divide up as one whole note.

What time signature you’re in will have an impact on what words you use to refer to patterns of notes. For instance, triplets in 4/4 will look and sound much different than they would in 3/8, for instance. For more on this, my GarageBand iOS triplet tutorial is a good start.

Andrew Siemon is the principal creator of ProducerSociety.com, a website dedicated to all things music, including music production, music theory, recording, and how to use the most popular DAWs. Starting out as a metal guitarist, Andrew has since moved into other areas of music production including hip-hop and fusion

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