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

[cmartin303]

Serum is definitely better than vital. Obviously more expensive, but worth it alone for the wealth of knowledge online.

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

Don't need it in my mix,but could use it somewhere,not big fan of all this cold mechanical soulless sound lately every kid do,isn't exactly impressive neither from sound design point nor as usability.
Try to make a song only with wow sounds,it doesn't sound as music at all.
Just saying...
Cheers

Here not much "wow" sounds and a very good music production individual.
He mostly uses Serum and Diva and lately Vital as well.

The whole track with Serum.


Track mostly with Vital


Got some good preset banks from him for Serum and Vital.

Nice sounds for common use.
Remove reverb and delay and may not be so interesting
Serum is more user friendly and simple for use in some directions so it's more suitable for mass productions,Vital is better for experiments.
Both are nice.

[Biscotto]

Don't need it in my mix,but could use it somewhere,not big fan of all this cold mechanical soulless sound lately every kid do,isn't exactly impressive neither from sound design point nor as usability.
Try to make a song only with wow sounds,it doesn't sound as music at all.
Just saying...
Cheers

Here not much "wow" sounds and a very good music production individual.
He mostly uses Serum and Diva and lately Vital as well.

The whole track with Serum.


Track mostly with Vital


Got some good preset banks from him for Serum and Vital.

Nice sounds for common use.
Remove reverb and delay and may not be so interesting
Serum is more user friendly and simple for use in some directions so it's more suitable for mass productions,Vital is better for experiments.
Both are nice.

Yes, I'm having fun with Vital actually as an extension to Serum.
I don't really see "common uses" being the appropriate definition for something quite subjective but perhaps that's your workflow and music DNA that "common uses" has a valuable meaning.

I find Serum quite amazing still after so many years of use.
Just added the latest Serum Alpha from The Unfinished and again, it took Serum for another classic spin out of the "ordinary" which for me was actually a tutorial about the depth of Serum (and Vital if you will).

So much to learn. Still lost in my ZebraHZ rabbit hole of course

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

from my humble point of view Serum gives a lot of really nice and easy to use tools to create everything a modern producer need from a single multitasking synth,especially wavtable modulations,but why you need to spend so much money to make a simple sound like a pluck let say,when can do it with so many others,some free,other with unique character?
Especially if your taste of quality music is tons of fx over the basic sound,which in the end can't be defined as instrumental type because of so much fx on it?
Better buy expensive reverb or something...
Maybe have to spend more time with serum demo to find something interesting beyond limitations it has,but i'm just filtered sound lover and in that direction Serum is just an ordinary synth to me - in most cases i can squeeze something better when combine few synths like Sylenth1,V-Station and Synth1 than Serum alone is able to generate.
I really like Serum just wont buy it till see some serious discount as it is now.
If Serum 2 offer more advanced options in filter section,could consider it,but man,just one filter,this is basic even for beginner subtractive synthesis lover in 2021.
Vital can do even simple bass sound with two filter modulations more dynamic and interesting for like 30 sec.
Vital has mod matrix limitations and i don't find it very intuitive plus missing some functionalities other fav synths have,but you can achieve very easy two filters dynamics with few clicks - impossible with Serum's one filter.
Cheers

[ckoe]

When Vital gets better Filters sometime it could be beat Serum

[Trensharo]

When Vital gets better Filters sometime it could be beat Serum

Vital, Massive X, Pigments, Falcon, HALion, etc. These are all already more than good enough for practically everything.

Not sure why people seem to think it's a competition.

Serum is the Kontakt of Wavetable Synths. 75% of the people buying it are doing so because it has a gazillion preset packs available for it. They're rarely - if ever - going to design a sound from scratch in Serum, the same way 90% of Kontakt users never use it for sampling.

[excuse me please]

50 tricks Vital video:

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

You can load really nice free wavetables in free Vital and do stuff Serum can't,what R we talking about?
For free...
Respect to all hard working people made it so popular and useful for music scene,but Serum need upgrade.
If see such,probably will be one of the first buyers developing original sound for it
Music is fantasy and everybody need a tool to make it reality
Some people play guitar on first two strings ,other use more
Competition is not a bad thing if let to improvement
Cheers

[kobal]

you have synth like serum vital rapid pigment and more to me they are all more or less in same categori , then you have largo and massive X that are a tier above with a slighty more exciting sound but not a replacement to the other ones.

[zerocrossing]

I don’t really use Serum or Vital that much. Frankly, I’d rather use Dune 3.

[ckoe]

When Vital gets better Filters sometime it could be beat Serum

Vital, Massive X, Pigments, Falcon, HALion, etc. These are all already more than good enough for practically everything.

Not sure why people seem to think it's a competition.

Serum is the Kontakt of Wavetable Synths. 75% of the people buying it are doing so because it has a gazillion preset packs available for it. They're rarely - if ever - going to design a sound from scratch in Serum, the same way 90% of Kontakt users never use it for sampling.

It is no competition. I do not use Serum Presets a lot, I like of the raw sound of Serum: simple Saw with MG Filter Cutoff Env Mod is often enough. I cant reproduce that simple sound in Vital, I tried it 2 Days but never come to a close result of pushiness, warmth etc. whatever you wanna call it. If Vital where close to Serum than I had cancel my rent to own on Splice immediately and use Vital, but Vital is not close to Serum.

But I will install and test Vital again today, maybe my first try was wrong.

[Biome_Digital]

When Vital gets better Filters sometime it could be beat Serum

Vital, Massive X, Pigments, Falcon, HALion, etc. These are all already more than good enough for practically everything.

Not sure why people seem to think it's a competition.

Serum is the Kontakt of Wavetable Synths. 75% of the people buying it are doing so because it has a gazillion preset packs available for it. They're rarely - if ever - going to design a sound from scratch in Serum, the same way 90% of Kontakt users never use it for sampling.

It is no competition. I do not use Serum Presets a lot, I like of the raw sound of Serum: simple Saw with MG Filter Cutoff Env Mod is often enough. I cant reproduce that simple sound in Vital, I tried it 2 Days but never come to a close result of pushiness, warmth etc. whatever you wanna call it. If Vital where close to Serum than I had cancel my rent to own on Splice immediately and use Vital, but Vital is not close to Serum.

But I will install and test Vital again today, maybe my first try was wrong.

So 1 saw through the filter with an envelope? A pluck envelope I guess as you mention punch?

[Biome_Digital]

Just tried it, got closest with the drive filter (I think). Just as punchy from my test.

[Biscotto]

Vital has mod matrix limitations and i don't find it very intuitive plus missing some functionalities

Try to spend some time with the MOD REMAP in Vital.

You'll discover some unexpected "less limitations" first encountered by most Vital superficial explorers.
One single LFO or ENV can behave in a different way in each Mod Slot for example.
Serum don't have such a tool.

But Serum can modulate each LFO envelope's Point allowing you to change the behavior of the LFO on the fly via Macro or with other modulators.
Vital don't have such a tool.

I use both according to my needs and I feel they are like and extension of the other.

Vast territory for sound design.

After studying The Unfinished "Serum Alpha" sound set, I decided to use Zebra-HZ instead of Diva. With these 3 synth (and BWS + Repro to taste) I'm quite covered actually and made my production life quite simple (with complex synths )

[ckoe]

Yes I have short Env for a snappy bass pluck sound.

So I tested a littly again and Vital is not so bad as it was in my mind, still the filters are not so good, but I can work with. Additionally I installed Arturias Pigments and here are the filters excellent, same fast results as with serum.