The State of Serum in 2017

[zvenx]

Throw on the excellent chorus, flange, reverb, and you’ll never even be able to tell you were using Serum.

And what's the purpose of using Serum then?

It is possible to make mellow, warm and organic sounds with Serum but it shines at cold, anrgy, mechanical sounding stuff and it agruably the best synth for these tasks. If your music doesn't rely much on such sounds probably it would make sense to consider other synth(s).

Couldn't agree more.
It is what it is..... Use it for what it is instead of trying to make it what it isn't.

rsp

[foosnark]

Or,

don't be limited by what other people think it is, and decide how to use it yourself.

[zvenx]

Of course, but that would make asking others their opinion completely useless/unnecessary.
rsp

[foosnark]

Of course, but that would make asking others their opinion completely useless/unnecessary.

I don't disagree.

[aMUSEd]

So, what do you all think -- what's the state of Serum in 2017 for designing sounds outside the EDM genre? Do people find it flexible and adaptable enough to handle other sonic palates?

I've never considered it for EDM and I think many people bought it for whom EDM is an irrelevance.

[kokotte]

how many voices do you use in a sound: if you like to make some chords with 7 voices or more and you want a wt synth, you should consider Icarus, Avenger Dune2 or Largo, if you want to play less voices, Serum is a wonderfull synth. you could find, Falcon, at a good price, in the market place, it The synth for make all ambiant, drone, granular atmosphere, layers.... for the price, it's a bargain, you can find all what you need in one soft.
my 2 cents.

[elxsound]

Of course, but that would make asking others their opinion completely useless/unnecessary.

I don't disagree.

He just set that one up too nicely.

[dangayle]

how many voices do you use in a sound: if you like to make some chords with 7 voices or more and you want a wt synth, you should consider Icarus, Avenger Dune2 or Largo, if you want to play less voices, Serum is a wonderfull synth. you could find, Falcon, at a good price, in the market place, it The synth for make all ambiant, drone, granular atmosphere, layers.... for the price, it's a bargain, you can find all what you need in one soft.
my 2 cents.

Falcon is pretty rad, but the learning curve is significantly higher than Serum. Serum is pretty much the most useable synth, IMO, which is why I prefer it for most things. It can and does sound hard, but it can also do wonderully soft and gooey.

[Russell Grand]

Serum has serious cpu spiking issues to an extent which no other synth has. This renders it useless in my mind's eye.

I've never had that happen

Neither have I. In fact, that's the first I've seen or heard anyone mention a problem with Serum and CPU spikes!

[toby]

Here is an example of some of the softer sounds of Serum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaOO4FaLe0s

[kokotte]

Falcon is pretty rad, but the learning curve is significantly higher than Serum. Serum is pretty much the most useable synth, IMO, which is why I prefer it for most things. It can and does sound hard, but it can also do wonderully soft and gooey.

i didn't speak about the sound, more about notes count and cpu usage, i agree, serum can sound soft and warm. i would like to add something, if you plan to create your own wt, without the need of an audio editor or audioterm, Icarus and serum are the best, Serum have superb flexible lfo/ env and fx, Icarus is more old school but have a the best resynthesis engine.

[kokotte]

Here is an example of some of the softer sounds of Serum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaOO4FaLe0s

[p4tz3r]

These are are really great replies and suggestions. I think (as many have mentioned), with an array of good VSTs out there what makes Serum still stand out is how intuitive and visual Steve and Xfer made the UI. You can see exactly what the envelopes, velocity, and LFOs are doing and how they're modulating parameters. You can drop a wavetable on the osccillator and see how it was imported and where on the WT you are. It lacks some of the warmth and presence of other synths out of the box, but I'll try different WT, filters, and effects to see how things evolve.

I do think other synths sound great (Zebra2, Dune2, Spire, Icarus, and others), but they're much harder for me to program. Diva is wonderful, but I already have Repro-1 (and soon Repro-5!) for retro analogue vibe, and oy that CPU hit. I'm also working with Sylenth1, but it's more limited in the scope of sounds I can reach with its synthesis model (though the sounds it does make within its range are very nice, I think, and it's super light on the CPU).

I'll keep experimenting with Serum (and the others mentioned here) and work towards the tones that sound good to me. I think the idea of adding efffects outside the VST is a good one (though having everything included in the patch is super convenient). I'd love to hear any other suggestions or experience you all might have.

[pdxindy]

How do people like the conversion from audio to wavetables in Serum? I'm not particularly pleased with my results... but I only tried a dozen times or so on the demo. Maybe there are some tricks to learn that I did not figure out but I like the results and capability in Icarus more.

[pdxindy]

These are are really great replies and suggestions. I think (as many have mentioned), with an array of good VSTs out there what makes Serum still stand out is how intuitive and visual Steve and Xfer made the UI.

I'll keep experimenting with Serum (and the others mentioned here) and work towards the tones that sound good to me.

If you have to work towards a tone that sounds good to you, then the synth isn't actually easy to use (in practice).