Splice rent to own Serum plan, what do you think?

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[Nocturnal909]

I have Serum and got from a retailer here for 30 bucks less and still is.... (you gotta shop around).

You can kinda do this already from certain retailers. I use to shop at ZZounds. I got many software and hardware with their plan.

Now I wonder if I can rent to own some preset banks?

[Apostate]

Tried the demo again, still don't like it. Is it really just that it has the worst factory presets of any high price synth? Again, going by playing every single preset patch included, i can not for the life of me work out why people love this so much.

Can i ask this, is there any bank out there right now, 3rd party, commercial. that makes you say "WOAH, this is what serum can sound like". That way, I can listen to the MP3 of an expertly designed bank, that you guys think shows the synth *off properly*, and make a decision from there. Right now i don't have time to tweak or learn a new synth from scratch, i am still working every day learning my hardware stuff.

In your case, you might be best off just getting Nexus and a couple of the expansions (they have so many, you'll probably find one with plenty of things too suit you). It's a rompler and a bit costly, but it sounds phenomenal, and you don't have to work very hard at all if you don't want to. Or there's Predator, Blue II, Sylenth, SynthMaster...all have great presets and soundbanks.

As you probably surmised Serum is mostly for people looking to make their own way in sound. That kind of goal isn't for everybody, and it shouldn't be. Same with Nave, PPG Wavegenerator/'mapper, etc. There are plenty of vsts out their for folks that don't want that.

As for me, I'm getting a much more punchier sound now, with more weight. It took some fooling with. Serum still doesn't have anywhere near the presence of Zebra HZ or XILS IV, but it probably wasn't meant to anyway. I like it better than I did when I first bought it, so I might go Splice and pick it up again. Good thing about Splice, if I decide I don't need it, then it was a simple rental and I can just render all my tracks. Everybody's happy. Just under 10 a month isn't bad for what might be a simple rental, especially since I plan on taking a refresher course with the manual and using it as much as I can to master it. From there I'll decide on paying in full.

Besides, there are some older tracks I wrote that I used Serum on when I owned it, and forgot to render them. Probably best for me to eventually buy it in full anyway.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[Apostate]

I guess that is not an unreasonable request?

Of course not! I don't know the soundbanks for Serum (I just use it for my own music), but I imagine there are plenty here whom probably already have the best soundbanks and will help you.

[ATN69]

What is "the best sound bank" is of course depending on what kind of Music you make. But for a synth like Serum there are 2 options to consider. Wave table banks and preset banks, some times combined into one bank with both presets and wave tables. I found a lot of free stuff out there and I mainly been looking for wave tables. For example I found wave tables from Virus TI. Not that Serum will sound like Virus

The only presets/wave tables I bought was from Aiyn Zahev, http://aiynzahev-sounds.myshopify.com/p ... -for-serum . . . and that was suitable for my kind of Music.

[bungle]

Well, Serum's price is similar to Reveal Sound's Spire, Tone2 Icarus and Dune 2! I don't see a huge difference in the prices!

The major difference for me is that the other synths you mention all work in my particular host (Maschine) Serum does not, you cant change the noise shape or oscillator shapes or filter type, a ton of stuff, while it may seem priced fine to you because you just use a mouse, Maschine users tend to use the hardware with Maschine, so it is a very expensive synth in terms of workflow alone.

[acYm]

For me it is massively over priced because it works so poorly in Maschine, so far about 50% of the controls can't be mapped by Maschine leaving it less than useless unless you go back to using the mouse, which kind of defeats using Maschine, so yes to me i think it is massively over priced.

Hmm? Everything in Serum can be automated, except WT edit which would make no sense, osc select which if you have a huge list like me, also no good, and the lfo graphs, the only thing a mouse is good for anyway.

[blizzard]

Thank you Splice & Xfer! I now have Serum which would otherwise be still on my "want" list. Not that I don't have money but with my limited time I can spend in studio recently (moved to a new house - plenty of work in and outside) I couldn't justify paying $200 for a plugin which would get a little use now. It's completely the opposite if I consider $10 a month (which we always spent on stupid things now and then). Big up!

[EnGee]

I have 3 presets done (well, 4 but one is almost the same!) and they are attached with this post. They are not top notch at all, and won't wow you or anyone, but they are just an example of things can be done with Serum (it can be done with other synths as well, but Serum has a nice clarity). But for really vintage sounds (especially pads), I use Lush 101 and Diva now mostly. Anyway, I found such sounds very usable for my kind of music (synth pop, old electronica mostly).

I will try tonight to do some pads and see how good Serum can be for me. There are many filters/wavetables to play with and the results can vary really a lot. (BT, AZ ...etc from the non-dubstep world, are needed for making banks for Serum urgently )

[EnGee]

Well, Serum's price is similar to Reveal Sound's Spire, Tone2 Icarus and Dune 2! I don't see a huge difference in the prices!

The major difference for me is that the other synths you mention all work in my particular host (Maschine) Serum does not, you cant change the noise shape or oscillator shapes or filter type, a ton of stuff, while it may seem priced fine to you because you just use a mouse, Maschine users tend to use the hardware with Maschine, so it is a very expensive synth in terms of workflow alone.

Well, you have a point here. It is good to know also for Machine owners.

Yes, I use the mouse mainly in editing while in automating/recording I use the knobs on my controller. Well, I hope there will be a support for Machine then, have you requested this or suggested it to Xfer?

[Ingonator]

I just noticed that the Serum demo version available at the official website still seems to be from October 2014 (checked this today). Both the GUi and the DLL file of the VST2 plugin do show version v1.017 here. Is the latest version only available as a Trial version via Splice? At both teh official website and Splice it does not seem to be posible to try Serum without having to register at the website (with Xfer i had already done that in the past). If i search for an update of Serum at Google i get lots of links for cracked versions. Latest version i found via Google seems to be v1.10. So far i hesitate to also register at Splice just to try a current version of Serum.

I had tested that demo of Serum (version from the official website, have not checked the version available at Splice yet) at least 5 times (or more) since it was released and i really wanted to like it also due to the many positive comments here at KVR. FWIW i had also tried to create my own wavetables and patches with it.
So far I did not like the overall sound (including the filters) and the CPU use seemed to be much too high IMO, especially with pad sounds and when the Unison is involved. Not sure if and how far this changed with the latest versions, at least the CPU use. Xfer should really update the demo version at their official website or pople coudl get a wrong impression of the plugin if certain things were already updated. Anyway i do not expect the overall sound was changed so much that i would finally love it now.


Anyway with Tone2 Icarus (was finally released last week and that i used since more than 6 monst now, also during the closed Beta) and a bunch of other great wavetable synths (Plugins like all of the Waldorf and PPG ones, DUNE 2.5, Falcon, Synthmaster, Massive and also Codex) i do not really need Serum anyway.
Those other synths give me the sounds i like and need and Icarus, while it does not have every feature you could imagine, has a ton of features (several that are not included in Serum yet) and like Serum it ihas a powerful wavetable and waveform editor to craete your own waves and wavetables from scratch (or use WAV files of your own single cycle waves there).
The Resynthesis also ofeers options to import longer samples.
A nice source for new waveforms and wavetables is aso to use the corresponding Random features in teh editor.

Icarus uses WAV files to load and save wavetables and the format seems to be compatible with Serum.
With the demo version of Serum i was able to load/import Icarus wavetables.
This also means that wavetables in Serum format like those included with Serum, wavetables exported in Audio Term using the Serum export format and also the Galbanum WAV wavetables could be directly loaded in Icarus without using the Resynthesis. On the other hand also wavetables created with Icarus should be compatible with Serum and it should be possible to load them there.
I am also able to use wavetables created in Icarus (or previously in Audio Term) within the wavetable oscillator module in UVI Falcon. t is also possible to load those with the Resynthesis in Waldorf Nave.

For some free wavetables you could check the current discussion at this and previous pages of the Icarus thread:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... start=1695



PS:
This long post is not simply about being a "fanboi" for a certain developer or just "spamming" a Serum related thread. I had done Beta testing for Tone2, Waldorf, PPG and also Synapse Audio that all created competing wavetable synths (BTW those 4 developers are all from Germany, so i could communicate in my mother language with them...). I got and use wavetable synths from even more develeopers than those.
If Xfer would approach me to do some testing for them (like it happened with some other developers in the past) i guess it would be OK for me but i have not contacted them myself yet. I also doubt that after the longer time that Serum already exists they would really need me as an additional tester.

[pdxindy]

I will never use a service like Splice. And of at some point a synth is only available that way, then I would not buy it.

[ErikH]

This is the same method as the one used by Allegorithmic, a company that creates painting software for 3D.
It is *not* an eternal rent system that forces users to pay each month and if you don't, you lose the soft, far from.
It is buying the software but paying in monthly installments untill you have fully paid and then the software is yours forever. You do not have to pay any extra: the price is the same as when you buy it directly from XFer.

I can't understand what you could have against this. Pay $189 at once or pay $189 in 19 monthly payments...

If you want Serum, than this is a good method to get it.

[EnGee]

I just noticed that the Serum demo version available at the official website still seems to be from October 2014 (checked this today). Both the GUi and the DLL file of the VST2 plugin do show version v1.017 here. Is the latest version only available as a Trial version via Splice? At both teh official website and Splice it does not seem to be posible to try Serum without having to register at the website (with Xfer i had already done that in the past). If i search for an update of Serum at Google i get lots of links for cracked versions. Latest version i found via Google seems to be v1.10. So far i hesitate to also register at Splice just to try a current version of Serum.

Splice's version is 1.109

Anyway with Tone2 Icarus .....

Of course... of course.