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MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.


Welcome to the official Serum Thread! I figured with the recent group of people who have purchased Serum and like discussing it in the VST thread, we should have our own dedicated thread to share our wavetables, presets, patches and knowledge about how we created our fart noises beautiful music.

What is Serum?

Serum is an Advanced Wavetable Synthesizer plugin created by Steve Duda of Xfer Records, in collaboration with deadmau5. It is compatible with both Windows and Mac and will work in nearly all DAW’s. The price is $189 which many people will tell you is a steal for the quality and depth of the plugin. If that is a little steep for you, Steve has partnered with Splice to offer Serum on a pay-to-own plan. You essentially sign up and pay $10/month until you have covered the full $189, at which point you own the plugin free and clear. No interest whatsoever and you can cancel at anytime if you no longer want to use Serum. If it sounds too good to be true, don't worry, Steve is a huge proponent of this type of business model for music software. Link to the offer is below:

https://splice.com/plugins/15493-serum-vst-au-by-xfer-records

Steve is a genuinely nice guy with a library of knowledge on audio engineering, producing, programming, and basically anything to do with making electronic music. From Xfer’s website:

“The dream synthesizer did not seem to exist: a wavetable synthesizer with a truly high-quality sound, visual and creative workflow-oriented interface to make creating and altering sounds fun instead of tedious, and the ability to “go deep” when desired - to create / import / edit / morph wavetables, and manipulate these on playback in real-time.”

Serum seems to combine the best of both worlds: an easy-to-understand interface with plenty of graphics to assist in visualizing various parameter with the ability to dive-deep and create some complex, intricate, and truly unique sounds.

It is highly recommended to check out the series of introduction videos that Steve did with Icon Collective (linked below). It’s a 12-part series that introduces you to the various features of Serum and gives you a good overview of the possibilities within this synth.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCdl4Odo4R1i0q3SzY0o3I0Qwl85N7H9F


Serum Features

Serum allows you to create and import your own custom wavetables. It is as simple as dragging in an audio file into Serum, or drawing it yourself in their wavetable editor.
It features two ultra-clean oscillators and are some of the best-sounding of any softsynth I have used. In addition, it also includes a noise oscillator which comes with some pretty awesome presets that can add some cool atmosphere.

Modulation is incredibly easy within Serum and is similar in some respects to Massive with the drag-and-drop functionality. In addition, you can use standard routing in the Mod-matrix, and some parameters can only be modulated in that location. One of the coolest parameters to modulate is the wavetable position, which will basically change the shape of the wave over time, based on the current wavetable. This can really add some interesting movement to a particular sound.

There are a ton of Filter Options and as any other parameter, these can be all be modulated for some fun effects.

The built-in suite of FX are excellent and include: Hyper/Dimension, Distortion, Flanger, Phaser, Chorus, Delay, Compressor, Reverb, EQ, and additional Filtering Options.

This is barely scratching the surface but should give you a solid idea on how many options you have within this synth.


The SA Serum Library

I have set up a Google Drive Folder for our various Serum users to add their wavetables, presets, and full patches. If your patch doesn’t seem to fit in an existing folder, feel free to create a new one. Don’t forget to post when you add a patch with a little description of what you did. This will help others re-create or dissect your patch and will be a cool way to learn different techniques.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9r7pGkLQPy4NTE5YXFVYnFadEU

Now get in there and start making some ridiculous sounds!

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MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.

Kilmers Elbow posted:

How can you get free running LFOs?

Even when using an INIT patch the modulation seems tied to ENV 1's release value.

To see the problem make an INIT patch and increase ENV 1's release to 2 seconds.

Then add a longish reverb to the FX chain (10secs whatever).

Next, add a filter after the reverb. Now modulate that filter with an LFO. The reverb'd signal is modulated for two seconds and then left hanging.

Is this a feature or a bug/oversight?

I am pretty sure there is a retrigger option on the LFO so that it repeats once it has gone through a full cycle. I'll check when I get home.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
Just checked out the Drive folder and saw a bunch of new patches that I can't wait to check out when I get home. Thanks for uploading some new ones dudes. I have been working on my bass sound design a bit lately and will likely put some patches up tonight.

I also just bought a Novation Launchkey MIDI controller and I gotta say, physically turning knobs to adjust parameters is the bee's knees.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.

well why not posted:

Can't wait to see all our presets show up in a paid sample pack!

My plans....they have been compromised!

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
Welp, I worked on a bassline last night and it ended up turning into writing a full loop that I am extremely excited about. It kinda reminds me of "Sofi Needs a Ladder" but with more synths. Made all of the synths and basses in Serum so I might create a Loops Folder and drop the .wav and Patches for it in there.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
I got carried away working on a new track and didn't add any of the stuff I have been working on yet. I have a three-day weekend coming up though and my plan is to do a series of Serum patches for 808 Kicks. Watched a tutorial yesterday and think it would be cool to have some percussion patches in our library.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
I am blowing up my own thread but I don't care. I know there are at least a couple people in here who produce house music which happens to be my genre of choice. I feel like I have a pretty solid understanding of Ableton, my various VST's, and how to approach writing a track but I am always looking to hear how other people make tracks to dance to.

Would anyone be interested in collaborating on a house track with me? This is meant to be a fun exercise to explore each other's sounds and process and work together on something so there wouldn't be pressure or deadlines or anything like that. I'll post a few of the tracks/artists I have been listening to lately as well as an early demo of an unfinished track of my own to give you an idea of my style. No hard feelings if it isn't your thing.

I just feel like outside of the forums, I don't know anyone that is interested in producing music and it would be really cool to start working with and bouncing ideas off of people with similar tastes in music.

Driftwalk - Bradwise (Original MIx)
This is an early demo of a track I wrote but haven't finished yet.
https://soundcloud.com/bradley-freeman-3/driftwalk-wip2/s-syMmC

Higher Love - Seven Lions & Jason Ross ft. Paul Meany
Seven Lions is one of my favorite producers for years now and Jason Ross is incredibly talented as well. Seven Lions is a sound design wizard.
https://soundcloud.com/seven-lions/seven-lions-jason-ross-feat-paul-meany-higher-love-anjunabeats

Cool Girl - Tove Lo (Two Friends Remix)
A new producer duo with some really exceptional house music. In a genre constantly ridiculed for having a lot of copy-cats, these guys managed to create their own "sound" to the point where I can usually tell a track of theirs without seeing the track info.
https://soundcloud.com/two-friends/sets/tove-lo-cool-girl-two

Slow Motion - Sevenn ft. Q'AILA
This reminds me of Deorro with the way the synth pluck sounds, but drat if all of the percussion isn't just incredible. This inspired a lot more creativity in my drum tracks.
https://soundcloud.com/featurepr/sevenn-feat-qaila-slow-motion-feature027

MrSargent fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Feb 18, 2017

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.

well why not posted:

do you use Splice? if you chuck something quick up on there (or in a google drive folder) I'll take a look and see what happens? Can't promise much but I really would like a collab to happen!

I have only used Splice to download plugins and samples but not to upload yet. Do you use Ableton? I could upload the Project file or bounce some stems if that would be better. I have a couple ideas that might be fun.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
Oh also, I created a new folder for Drums and then one inside that for Kicks. Added two different 808's I made in Serum that sound pretty cool. It's meant to be a fairly unprocessed sound so you can build off of it quite a bit. I have also made some cool Samples using Serum and some other VST's that I could share on drive as well.

Also added a gritty growl to the Hard Bass folder, you can get some interesting results by modulating the wavetable position. I created all of the waveshapes from scratch and they turned out better than I thought they would.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.

Eric Danger posted:

I've been wishing I had something to work on that didn't require me to do any composition, but there are a couple of problems that might make a successful collaboration a minor miracle (and I don't even believe in Jebus). One, I don't use Ableton; I use Sonar (Platinum). Two, I'm terribly unreliable - I have both schizophrenia and ADHD. I could probably do something that only required sound design on my part. That was what first got me interested in music production and remains my favorite part of the process.

I know you, MrSargent, listened to my "Opus 666", since you were the only one out of a triple digit number of listeners who commented on it. I'm an avid Serum user, and I'd like a good reason to do more exploration of its capabilities. Maybe I could do sound design for a collaborative project.

You can find my soundcloud here https://soundcloud.com/eric-danger

Edit: Now that I've slept on it, I find that I'm not as interested as I thought I was...so...never mind.

Would love to work with you too! I'll have another look through your catalogue and see if there are any sounds that I would like to build upon or use in a track. I imagine that I could send you an arrangement or something and then you could record your sound to a wav file for me.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
Dude the bassline in Fascination Street is incredible. I would definitely do something with a bassline like that.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
Cross-posting from the making electronic music thread:

I finished my first song ever last night and man, it feels really good. I wrote the whole thing in one night and the second night was mostly spent filling it out and mixing/mastering. It really showed me how far I have come in that I was able to take an idea from its infancy and see it through to completion in a very reasonable amount of time.

It's definitely a dance/electronic track but isn't your typical 4 to the floor beat. As always, any feedback is appreciated and most importantly, I hope there are some of you that enjoy it!

If anyone has any production questions, please feel free to ask them here!

https://soundcloud.com/bradley-freeman-3/hayes-valley

Edit: Updated with public link

MrSargent fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Mar 1, 2017

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
I'm assuming you have tried tweaking the "Porta" knob on the bottom right of the Main Screen?

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
Sorry, that was my only guess for doing that just in Serum. For what it's worth, this can be done pretty easily using Serum + Cthulhu. Cthulhu isn't that expensive and it's the best arpeggiator I have used.

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MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.

Kilmers Elbow posted:

I caved and bought it (via Splice).

There's a few annoyances - no free running LFOs, chaos thingies are awkwardly out of the way, the delay unit is very fiddly to use....but apart from that it's fantastic.

And there's a scalable GUI on the way soon, too.

Welcome to the club! Don't forget to check out the shared folder we have going and add some of your awesome sounds.

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