Is Serum worth cashing out for, when you get Vital for free?

[WasteLand]

or try Vast Dynamics Vaporizer2, the site is outdated, but that doesn't mean that development has stopped. on the contrary, it will start again.
the version now available has already a lot, a lot. so it was already a stable, and full fledged wavetable synth.

of course with wavetable editor.

worthwile to demo this Wavetable synth, extreme routing, 4 wavetable oscillators, sample player (+granular, minimum, but adds nice textures), all the morphing suspects, 2 filters, 32 filters types (4 x times oversampled), wavetable oscillators are by definiton, if FFT is used, bandlimited, i.e. no aliasing.. effects als 4 times oversampled, a lot of effects. and did i mention the routing, route however you want.
5 MSEG's, 5 LFO's, etc. etc.

see the full list on KVR, or on the site.

https://www.vast-dynamics.com/?q=Vaporizer2

and MPE...

and the price....

[YnJ]

I have the Vaporizer 2. I haven't really gotten aroud to using it much yet, as Vital and Serum are much more intuitive, I need to sit down with the manual first or watch some videos

[Eine Alte Oma]

i think serum is just really well laid out. it has a lot of little details that make it versatile and comfortable to use. one of my favourite topics to rant about it mousewheel sensitive mode for example, because a lot of plugins don't have it and vital also doesn't, but serum does. i have not spent enough time with vital yet to tell you any other things that might be less nice than the stuff in serum. i guess that shows that vital is indeed really powerful, because otherwise my list of complains would be way longer, lmao.

now regardless of wether or not these features exist in both plugins or not (because i just don't know) here are some things that i like in

SERUM:
- importing images as wavetables. that's a lot of fun. especially try with blurred stuff!
- creating 3d wavetables from math formulars. this gives me real science vibes. you can come up with super unique modulations with that feature.
- importing audio as wavetables. especially when it's vocoded vocals. and then you scan them with an lfo synthstyle. yeah!

VITAL:
- a vocal synth for wavetable creation. basically a similiar fascination than the vocoded vocals-thing, but easier.
- 2 knobs with warp modes and most of them are just mad af! no need to explain further. that's sick.

--

my personal suggestion as your next synth is image line's harmor. it is quite affordable, already a little old, but not too oldschool and the only good additive synth i know. rather than giving the user control over every oscillator that runs in the background it has some more global controls for messing around with them, which makes this synth easy to use and its output unique. check out videos where people throw images at it. that is just really different than the sound you get from serum's image import.

[FapFilter]

I'm also interested (a bit) in Harmor again
But i don't think you can purchase it anymore, unless as a plugin for FL Studio only.

[arkmabat]

Oh heck, do previous purchasers get to keep the vst version at least?

[FapFilter]

Yes, they can.
You can still download and fully use the stuff you own.
Would keep backups of those + the key file though, to be really sure.
Not that IL will have take them down at one point, but better be safe.

[YnJ]

You get most IL synths as VST2 and standalone at Plugin Boutique and right here at the marketplace, the standalone comes wrapped in a minihost that can be used for any of your VST2 and multiple instanses as well, which is very usefull

[YnJ]

I'm also interested (a bit) in Harmor again
But i don't think you can purchase it anymore, unless as a plugin for FL Studio only.

You can at Plugin Boutique or right here at the marketplace

https://www.kvraudio.com/product/harmor-by-image-line

[FapFilter]

I noticed that too while googling it, but i wasn't sure wether those offers are actually still valid, or lead to “sorry, out of stock“ messages when actually trying to make the purchase.
It seems a bit strange though that the developer itself has stopped giving licences, but it's still possible to get those from vendors.

It doesn't really affect me, as while Harmor caught my interest again lately - i'm just being curious how it handles things. I actually have no intention to buy it as i don't really need anything atm.
For people with a purchase in mind, this info is of course pretty useful

[lobanov]

You get most IL synths as VST2 and standalone at Plugin Boutique and right here at the marketplace, the standalone comes wrapped in a minihost that can be used for any of your VST2 and multiple instanses as well, which is very usefull

IL products may not be resold. Reselling them is illegal (accordingly IL policies), so while selling or buying them you run risks to be stripped of your licences. It applies to a seller AND a buyer.

[YnJ]

You get most IL synths as VST2 and standalone at Plugin Boutique and right here at the marketplace, the standalone comes wrapped in a minihost that can be used for any of your VST2 and multiple instanses as well, which is very usefull

IL products may not be resold. Reselling them is illegal (accordingly IL policies), so while selling or buying them you run risks to be stripped of your licences. It applies to a seller AND a buyer.

They are not reselling them, they are vendors for IL synths. You purchase a license, then go to Image Line to register and download the synth, it's all perfectly legal

[arkmabat]

It seems a bit strange though that the developer itself has stopped giving licences, but it's still possible to get those from vendors.

As I understand it, they lost a key developer before Steinberg rolled out their VST3 authoritarian license agreement. They may not technically be licensed to distribute VST2 files currently, but the vendors already purchased keys to distribute before the legal agreement was signed.

[Biscotto]

Very informative and well done video (stuff I never imagine Vital could do).
I use Serum and Diva as my main tools but after this video I'm going for few days into Vital territory and see...



And what he does with the "Text to Wavetable" at the end is amazing

[lobanov]

You get most IL synths as VST2 and standalone at Plugin Boutique and right here at the marketplace, the standalone comes wrapped in a minihost that can be used for any of your VST2 and multiple instanses as well, which is very usefull

IL products may not be resold. Reselling them is illegal (accordingly IL policies), so while selling or buying them you run risks to be stripped of your licences. It applies to a seller AND a buyer.

They are not reselling them, they are vendors for IL synths. You purchase a license, then go to Image Line to register and download the synth, it's all perfectly legal

OK, you've meant KVR marketplace but not the Sell&Buy (second hand) forum. My mistake, sorry

I've not known that IL sells their plugins here.

[nIGhT-SoN]

For me, Serum has the better interface. Easier on the eyes, everything at your finger tip and more straightforward. That, for me is the most important thing because it helps me get to the sound I want faster. Also, this might be of interest to you, there are lots of sound banks for Serum, even free ones that are made really really well.
Another thing that made me choose Serum, was their rent-to-own plan, which was really helpful.