# Tips on importing MIDI in FL Studio and playing through Kontakt or Engine 2



## Owen Smith (Jun 24, 2019)

Hey Friends,

Hope everyone is doing well. I hope I'm posting this in the right section. I'm feeling really dumb, embarrassed, and frustrated about a particular task using FL Studio 20, Kontakt, and MIDI that I'm having trouble doing. Several times I have tried to import midi files (ex: drum patterns from Soundiron's APE) and though I can see them in the piano roll, they don't play back through the kontakt instrument that I want them to play through. I think part of my problem is not knowing how to assign the imported midi pattern to the right channel or port or something simple like that. Also, I just got Forest Kingdom 2 which also has MIDI patterns and am considering upgrading Best Service's The Orchestra to have the MIDI drag and drop option. I'm afraid I won't be able to use these great features because I can't figure out the basics of how to import midi and choose which instrument and channel it plays back through. I've searched online and found some resources that may help me, but nothing that shows exactly what I want to do. 

Does anyone have any tips or resources that you think would be helpful to me? If possible I'd love a simple step by step process with pictures or video that would show me how to correctly 1) import or drag and drop midi into FL Studio, 2) choose what nki or instrument plays the midi data. I think I can do step 1, but am having trouble with step 2 so I'm wondering if I could be doing step 1 wrong as well. Thanks so much for your time and any help you can give me,

Owen


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## Montisquirrel (Jun 24, 2019)

FL Studio works with different colours for different Midi Information in the Piano Roll. After drag'n'drop the midi file to an instrument, open the piano roll and select all notes. There is a green field exactly above the piano keys. Click it, select the first colour and than refresh the colour of the selected notes by hotkey (alt+c, if I remember correct) or with the option menu. I'm just on my phone now and can't try it by myself.


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## Owen Smith (Jun 24, 2019)

Montisquirrel said:


> FL Studio works with different colours for different Midi Information in the Piano Roll. After drag'n'drop the midi file to an instrument, open the piano roll and select all notes. There is a green field exactly above the piano keys. Click it, select the first colour and than refresh the colour of the selected notes by hotkey (alt+c, if I remember correct) or with the option menu. I'm just on my phone now and can't try it by myself.



Thanks Montisquirrel! I do remember noticing that when I dragged and dropped the midi pattern from APE it was a different color than the other notes in the piano roll, but I couldn't figure out how to change the color. I'm going to try what you said. Do you think the color needs to be the same as that piano roll pattern or does it just need to be the same as the color of the channel on the channels page that I want it to correlate to? I've always colored the patterns/sequiences, but only recently started coloring the channels. Sometimes my channels and the piano rolls don't end up with the same color. I'll play around with this tonight and see if I can figure it out. Thanks again for your help!


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