Yeah, that's why I feel less 'shackled' to the DAW when I need inspiration. I can just pick up my guitar or play my keyboard for ideas. Growing up from a musical and artistic background, I find it easier to understand melodies and harmonies, and ideal song progression. All the 'natural' aspects of music production. When it came to me recording these ideas, I struggled a lot. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so when it came to mixing and tracking my songs, I found myself adjusting the EQ and noisegates and compressors, every time I loaded the DAW up. Not even fully understanding what they do. Then get frustrated that it sounds like crap once I came back to it.
But now, I've had a year's experience, and am doing a related course, gotta say, sooo much easier to nail the mood or the flow of the song. I write and create ideas all the time, every single day. But this is also Mainly down to the fact that this IS my passion and I push myself till I know the song is worth it. game design is joint second along with graphic design/illustration
I would suggest learning a bit of MIDI programming/sequencing. If you get your self a MIDI keyboard, you open yourself up to multitudes of ideas. Because you can sample, patch, play, sequence ANY sound from a keyboard. you can route VST instruments to it as well, meaning, ridiculous amounts of synths, string instruments and sounds to control. You don't even need to know how to play a keyboard (it helps) as every DAW has a MIDI editor to manually adjust notes. I'm not sure if Fruity Loops is part of any Digital Audio Workstation, is it a standalone program? If it is, then i suggest trying something like REAPER, which is a free DAW. And I'm sure F.Loops is compatible with it. Even if this is your hobby, It's nicer to make things easier for yourself when inspiration hits.
