Official Serum thread!

[martinjuenke]

I'm just rediscovering Serum.
It's a real gem.
Simple, sober, but highly effective and top quality.
Looking forward to playing with version 2.

[GraphiteSquirrel]

How do I alter settings so that going up or down notes does not speed or slow a sound down?

[swilow11]

How do I alter settings so that going up or down notes does not speed or slow a sound down?

If you mean when using the noise oscillator, the little keyboard button is key tracking. You can also turn off key tracking globally in the global tab.

[GraphiteSquirrel]

Not for the noise, no. I only have osc a and b on, no noise or filter.

Almost like in a sampler app... like when you load a vocal in, it can change the frequency by slowing the sound down/speeding it up, or it can just change the pitch without altering the speed of the speech. I want the latter.

[swilow11]

Not for the noise, no. I only have osc a and b on, no noise or filter.

Almost like in a sampler app... like when you load a vocal in, it can change the frequency by slowing the sound down/speeding it up, or it can just change the pitch without altering the speed of the speech. I want the latter.

I'm not quite getting you I think, but you can disable key tracking globally in the global tab but this will just mean the wavetable in either osc will only play at its root note. What sort of wavetable are you loading? If you loaf a vocal wav, and have key tracking enabled, pitch/speed will always change with different notes.

[Sampleconstruct]

Not for the noise, no. I only have osc a and b on, no noise or filter.

Almost like in a sampler app... like when you load a vocal in, it can change the frequency by slowing the sound down/speeding it up, or it can just change the pitch without altering the speed of the speech. I want the latter.

I think you're looking for granular synthesis/time-stretching which decouples time and pitch when using samples. Serum currently does not provide this kind if oscillator.

[GraphiteSquirrel]

Not for the noise, no. I only have osc a and b on, no noise or filter.

Almost like in a sampler app... like when you load a vocal in, it can change the frequency by slowing the sound down/speeding it up, or it can just change the pitch without altering the speed of the speech. I want the latter.

I'm not quite getting you I think, but you can disable key tracking globally in the global tab but this will just mean the wavetable in either osc will only play at its root note. What sort of wavetable are you loading? If you loaf a vocal wav, and have key tracking enabled, pitch/speed will always change with different notes.

Osc A is a Rounded Saw, Osc B is a square wave.

[GraphiteSquirrel]

Not for the noise, no. I only have osc a and b on, no noise or filter.

Almost like in a sampler app... like when you load a vocal in, it can change the frequency by slowing the sound down/speeding it up, or it can just change the pitch without altering the speed of the speech. I want the latter.

I think you're looking for granular synthesis/time-stretching which decouples time and pitch when using samples. Serum currently does not provide this kind if oscillator.

Nah I was just giving that as an example of what I'm aiming for.

[swilow11]

Not for the noise, no. I only have osc a and b on, no noise or filter.

Almost like in a sampler app... like when you load a vocal in, it can change the frequency by slowing the sound down/speeding it up, or it can just change the pitch without altering the speed of the speech. I want the latter.

I'm not quite getting you I think, but you can disable key tracking globally in the global tab but this will just mean the wavetable in either osc will only play at its root note. What sort of wavetable are you loading? If you loaf a vocal wav, and have key tracking enabled, pitch/speed will always change with different notes.

Osc A is a Rounded Saw, Osc B is a square wave.

There's really no way with Serum at least to play a single cycle waveform or wavetable at different speeds without affecting pitch as well.

That said, if you are using a wavetable, you can scan through it at whatever speed you want by assigning an LFO at whatever rate but if you play different notes, you'll always get changes in pitch.

Again, I'm not sure I'm getting what you're trying to do though. Playing a sawtooth at different pitches is equivalent to playing it at different speeds. That is what we basically mean by pitch. Speed=frequency, frequency=pitch. For example, if you play a3, you're telling the synth to play whatever waveform 440 times a second. Our ears hear that as pitch.

[harddaysnight]

Is Serum still the "industry standard"? Everywhere you look, it's recommended. It's also available via rent-to-own on Splice (which might explain why it's so omnipresent).

I write synthwave. Considering picking it up, but I already own so many other synths and I have tried it out but just can't gel with it.

Is it really worth toughing it out and learning?

I own Dune 3 among other things, and would love to know if Serum is really worth picking up for someone that already owns Dune 3. I'm thinking about Spire as well, trialled that and thought it was excellent.

[SLiC]

Serum was a bit of @ revolution when it came out, but it’s pretty long in the tooth now and there are lots of alternatives (not to mention rumours of Serum 2). Personally I don’t use it much anymore, I would grand to use Phase Plant or even MachineX for that type of sound. Spire Isac so very good and I would definitely take that over Serum, but check out Phase Plant if you have t tried it…capable of very modern sounds, not your standard VA!

[harddaysnight]

Serum was a bit of @ revolution when it came out, but it’s pretty long in the tooth now and there are lots of alternatives (not to mention rumours of Serum 2). Personally I don’t use it much anymore, I would grand to use Phase Plant or even MachineX for that type of sound. Spire Isac so very good and I would definitely take that over Serum, but check out Phase Plant if you have t tried it…capable of very modern sounds, not your standard VA!

I decided to spend more time with Serum this afternoon - I didn't realise how far into my rent-to-own I was with it.. might as well just finish it off.. anyway, things started clicking much more for me with it.

I think I've just been too bad at synths to understand it in the past, I must have learned a little more than I thought over the last couple of weeks exploring a variety of synths.

I'll check out PhasePlant, but Spire seems to be killer. I need to see what Spire can do that Serum can't, before deciding what to do about Spire, so I'll be sure to try PhasePlant out too and see how I feel about it. I should also see what any of these can do that Dune 3 can't, because I genuinely love Dune 3.

I wouldn't mind a complimentary synth to Dune 3 - will see how I feel about all of the above and go from there.

It's a bit of a silly one because these synths are all capable of way more than I actually need/want in my music. I write synthwave. I only really need basic sounds. But I have been thinking about getting more creative and more modern, while still retaining a similar vibe.. don't have to stick to similar sounds..

[liquidsound]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6ETGlAZFHA

[swilow11]

Serum was a bit of @ revolution when it came out, but it’s pretty long in the tooth now and there are lots of alternatives (not to mention rumours of Serum 2). Personally I don’t use it much anymore, I would grand to use Phase Plant or even MachineX for that type of sound. Spire Isac so very good and I would definitely take that over Serum, but check out Phase Plant if you have t tried it…capable of very modern sounds, not your standard VA!

I decided to spend more time with Serum this afternoon - I didn't realise how far into my rent-to-own I was with it.. might as well just finish it off.. anyway, things started clicking much more for me with it.

I think I've just been too bad at synths to understand it in the past, I must have learned a little more than I thought over the last couple of weeks exploring a variety of synths.

I'll check out PhasePlant, but Spire seems to be killer. I need to see what Spire can do that Serum can't, before deciding what to do about Spire, so I'll be sure to try PhasePlant out too and see how I feel about it. I should also see what any of these can do that Dune 3 can't, because I genuinely love Dune 3.

I wouldn't mind a complimentary synth to Dune 3 - will see how I feel about all of the above and go from there.

It's a bit of a silly one because these synths are all capable of way more than I actually need/want in my music. I write synthwave. I only really need basic sounds. But I have been thinking about getting more creative and more modern, while still retaining a similar vibe.. don't have to stick to similar sounds..

Spire would be complimentary to Dune imo, and has features and limitations in comparison to Serum that make it a good option, but they are quite different beasts tbh. Spire has more oscillators, an additional filter for parallel and serial use, per voice saturation (kind of, its a filter type), analog drift option (very subtle), a sequencer and arpeggiator...One cannot reorder FX in Spire, nor draw LFO shapes, nor load and edit wavetables or wav files, or resample etc, there are less modulation options, and the preset browser kinda sucks. Given what it is, Spire doesnt seem as well optimised as Serum. What Spire has is utterly pristine sound, generally better FX than Serum, and it's easy to use, although the manual is helpful to understand how the oscillator controls change when using a different osc type, and many knobs have a type of nested functionality which isn't immediately obvious.

I find Spire best for bread and butter analog polysynth sounds (leads and keys), and Serum better for wild modulated FM stuff, atmospheric pads, or wavetable sweeps. Serum is probably better for sound design sake, Spire better for more musical tones.

[HHUKRadio]

I use Serum in most projects. I mainly write and remix Techno and it is perfect for that genre.

I have just two issues with it. Any fixes/tips or have I just not RTFM properly?

1:

I can't find a way to lock the search results in Serum. Is there a lock symbol or lock option somewhere that I've missed?
My search term and results disappear after trying/editing a new preset.

2:

In Global options after UNTICKING "Ask Before Preset Change on Edited Presets" it ignores the action and pops up a warning window when I'm scrolling through presets selecting new ones.

UPDATE: Found the answer to this on the XFER forum for those also wondering...
"steve_xfer
July 05, 2023
There's a disk save icon that appears at the top, by the word Preferences, once a preference has been altered."

Do either of these issues happen in your copy of Serum? For info I'm using the latest licensed version in Cubase on Windows 11.

Thanks for any help you experts can offer