I'm not sure if these have been already mentioned but my tips for Fl studio 10 or above are:
1. Scrollwheel
Heres a few things I often use it for:
Shift + scroll wheel (while hovering over a track in the step sequencer will allow you to move it up or down in the list) - this is generally useful for keeping things tidy (keep your drums, synth, bass etc grouped together)
This also works on the mixer to move channels left or right (everything is reassigned to the correct place) and its also useful in the mixer plugin list (on the right hand side) you can use it to change the sequence of your effects plugins (as far as I know it goes from top to bottom) an example of this if you have a reverb plugin and a compressor plugin on your inserts, but you've put the Reverb under the compressor (so the channel out is compressed then reverb is added) but you want the Reverb to be compressed, then you can just move the compressor down 1 position with the scrollwheel (works with or without shift).
2. Not 100% familiar with scales but want to keep your tracks in a single scale/ chord pattern? (more intermediate/advanced)
I do this all the time, I can do scales by ear but I just do it to double check and help me figure out new ideas.
Try this start a new file (or open your existing one), add a 'sampler' track at the top, don't load any sample into it (it will contain notes just for reference).
Turn 'ghost channels' on ... right click the sample track name and go to piano roll, go to options (the arrow in the top left corner) > helpers > ghost channels (or just press ALT+V in piano roll)
Next, right click on the pencil icon at the top (next to paintbrush).. this will show you a list of chords and scales (click once of the scales)
< for experimenting just pick any of them, i'd recommend starting out with Major or Harmonic/ Melodic Minor scales if you're just getting into music theory.
Draw the scale across a couple of bars (in most cases I draw up to the beginning of the 5th bar, that gives me 32 beats) for a basic chord pattern perhaps just go for 1 or 2 bars (8 or 16 beats). Now you have a scale.. to make it even more effective copy and paste it then drag it up by an octave (example the scale is
'C Major', copy it and put it above it, but make sure you have the lowest note on C again, just one octave higher) or just draw again on the C above and it'll do the same thing. So on piano roll put one scale at C3, one at C4 and so on, I usually do just 3 or 4 of these.
Now you might wonder, what this is useful for.. well now you have a guide for the scale of C major. If you add another instrument below (for example a pad) and go to piano roll, you can now draw chords by following the grey ghost notes. You should experiment with this.. when i first started doing this i would just draw 4 chords over the grey notes, then play it and hear how it sounds (sometimes it'll sound strange, but just try to listen to the chord and move one or 2 of the notes to another grey note).
Once you've got some nice sounding pad chords, add a bass synth below it, again just for the sake of this tutorial stick to the grey notes when drawing in piano roll. Try to match a few with some of the notes of your chords, or just make some variations using those scales notes.
Do this with melody etc.. it'll take a little time to get used to what sounds good and what does, just because a note is in the scale doesn't mean it'll sound perfect.
Other ways to use this:
You'll notice that this is mainly for drawn notes, but you can apply this to MIDI keyboard too, in case you have any notes which aren't in the scale.
Another tip on this: for example if you've just played in a bass line on your MIDI keyboard and you want to make sure your chords match perfectly, you can make a sampler in the same way, make sure ghost channels is on (info above if you missed it), then try to match a scale to what you've played. Then you've figured out what scale your track is in (there will probably be more than one that fits though, so again experiment).
Or maybe you've played in a chord sequence and one doesn't quite fit in, do the same again, and move the notes to match the scale.
These are just the basics really, there are different methods that work in other ways for example Jazz styles work a little differently (usually use multiple scales). But this will hopefully help you make sure that all your notes are in the same scale and make things sound more in-tune.
If there is anything that you need more help on then I'll try to respond.
3. Automate anything!! Even non FL-native plugins
Move the knob/slider that you want to automate (in any direction, just as long as its changing the value)
goto TOOLs menu > last tweaked > edit events
Its a long post, but I hope those 3 tips will come in handy, the 2nd one is a little hard to explain clearly so i'll try to get some pics up if anyone wants to know more, or I can answer any questions about it. I have other tips, but i'll post them a little later.
