Tips for Creating Sounds from Serum Presets
Just like the other virtual synthesizers, Serum is reputable for cold and digital sound. When you have analog hardware, you will be working with analog signals and circuits to produce sound electronically. Similarly, the digital realm works with a particular equation to create sound. However, at first, Serum seems to be impossible to learn. Besides, even after watching online tutorials, there is still much to discover.
Sharp Attack
If your synth requires an additional attack, you can make a short envelope and assign it to the oscillator’s coarse pitch. Hence, you will be needed to change it from bipolar to unipolar. Once you have achieved that, try and find a sweet spot of decay time and envelope amount. Moreover, you can do the same process as the noise oscillator. It will give you a different technique, and in some cases, you get the best results when you use both methods at once.
Unison Stack
It is great to discover that in the oscillator, more than one pitch can be used. However, this will only work if you are using multiple unison voices. The option is found under the global tab and is referred to as a stack. For instance, you can add a lower or higher octave or even fifths. Furthermore, you can use this option to generate full sounding super saws. Therefore, with one oscillator, you can double or triple the sound over various octaves.
Imperfect Wavetables
Although Serum has a digital sound, you can perform a few things to make it sound warmer and more analog. As such, you can import wavetables from analog synthesizers. Therefore, you can record waveforms in one synth and release the audio onto the oscillator making the waveforms appear imperfect in the oscillator display. Hence, you would have achieved a sound that is half analog and half digital. Additionally, when you use LFO and assign it to a fine-tune, the pitch drift will make the serum patches sound nice.
Sound design can be overwhelming and hard to grasp. However, Serum is recommended since the possibilities are endless, user friendly, and intuitive. The techniques may vary, and you learn something new every time you use Serum. Moreover, the complex-sounding patches can be simpler when you discover how to use Serum’s useful functions. Therefore, Serum gives you the tools to create your own body, thereby influencing the entire landscape.
