What DAW Does Cortis Use? FL Studio, Ableton and How Martin Started Producing

This is the question that lands in my mentions more than any other, so here is the whole answer in one place.

Martin produces on FL Studio. Not sometimes, not as a side thing. It is his main DAW and it has been since he was a kid. Then there is a second layer, which is what happens once a song leaves his laptop, and that part runs on Ableton and Pro Tools.

FL Studio Is Martin’s DAW

The screenshot at the top is from the Money Money Money making video, and that is FL Studio open on his screen. But it is not a one-off. The same DAW shows up in the pre-debut documentary while they are writing, and it is what he pulls up on livestream when someone asks. When a producer keeps landing in the same software across years and across contexts, that is not a preference. That is home.

This matters more than it sounds. There is a whole tired argument online about FL Studio being a beginner DAW, and Martin is out here with production credits on a released HYBE album made in it. The tool was never the point. The hours were.

Ableton and Pro Tools Come In Later

Here is the part people miss when they ask what DAW Cortis uses, because the honest answer has two halves. Martin writes and produces in FL Studio. But for mixing, BIGHIT mainly works in Ableton Live and Pro Tools. That is the industry standard side of the process, the engineers and the mixing rooms.

So if you were hoping there is one magic program that makes a song sound like Cortis, there isn’t. There is an idea made in FL Studio and then a professional chain around it.

They Learned On A Trial Version

This is my favorite part of the whole story. Before any of this, they were two trainees sharing a screen and a free trial.

Read that again. Three to four years on a trial version, which means you cannot even reopen and edit what you made, learning from YouTube tutorials, and still showing up to do it again the next day. That is not talent. That is stubbornness, and stubbornness is the thing that actually builds producers.

Martin was fifteen and Seonghyeon was fourteen when Martin helped him record his first trainee project piece. They struggled together for three years on that trial version before debut, working on the dream of debuting together. And they did it.

Martin Taught Himself, Starting In Third Grade

Nobody handed him this. Here is how it actually started, in his own words.

A dad, a computer, and a program installed next to a video game. That is the origin story.

He taught himself by messing around in FL Studio and he kept at it straight through BIGHIT’s brutal idol training schedule, which is the part that would have killed it for most people. He kept going until other people in the building noticed and started wanting his work.

And Then He Asked To Be In The Room

The reason Cortis are this involved in their own music is not an accident and it is not a concept the company designed for them. Martin begged to be part of the A&R team. He asked to be in the room where the decisions get made. Everything you hear from them now, every credit, every song they wrote that ended up on someone else’s album, traces back to a kid asking to be let in.

So You Want To Start Producing

Good. The barrier is lower than you think, and Martin is living proof that you do not need a studio or a paid license to start. Here is where I would send you.

1. Start with Rio Leyva

Rio Leyva has worked with Cortis before, and Martin once built something live with a loop Rio sent him. They are friends. So this is not a random recommendation, it is literally the school the sound came from. Start with these two.

2. Then go genre hunting

Once you have the melody basics, get specific. Search YouTube for the genre you actually want to make. Hip-hop. Dariacore. Pop. Whatever it is, someone has made a tutorial for it. The other search that works absurdly well is how to make an X type beat with your favorite artist in the X. Type beat tutorials are how a whole generation of producers learned, because they break down a specific sound instead of teaching theory in the abstract.

3. Watch underscores build a whole album

This one is my strongest recommendation and it lines up perfectly with Cortis’ taste, because they love underscores. She has put the production of her albums on YouTube. Not a vague behind the scenes, actual sessions: the DAW on screen, how she built each piece, why she made each choice, the whole thing. Watching someone talented walk through their own project file start to finish teaches you more than fifty tips videos, because you see the boring parts too. The undo, the second attempt, the thing that did not work.

Search her name on YouTube and go through the album production videos. Then go make something bad. Then make another one.

Keep going: Good Boy by &TEAM, produced by Cortis, or what Martin has been listening to lately.