Official Serum 2 thread!

[martinjuenke]

If it's "hold for xx seconds" or something like this,

how many seconds is 0 hz?

Screenshot 2025-03-20 184433.png

Don't use this at 0 Hz, a Black Hole will open and eat your CPU!

[kraster]

Btw. in PhasePlant, Falcon or MSoundFactory it's "Sample & Hold" and it works like I described, not "Track & Hold". I don't understand why my opinion starts offensive comments. Is it really needed?

I finally found a method to made it works like I described. A small trick. This zero rate was something I tried before, but I paired it with wrong modulator thinking that it works different. Now, after a while, when I know how it works (random generator with rate control) I can made my Sample&Hold exactly what I wanted.

Or just use 0 hz on the sample and hold LFO and use key retrigger for a different value every time the note is triggered.

The Sample & hold implementation in Serum 2 is the classic "noise as a source" sample and hold.

[Sampleconstruct]

The spectral oscillator can do some amazing things, I'm really impressed.

Playing a tonal wind-chime texture, sampled today in Serum 2's spectral oscillator, using two warp modes with modulation and a notch-filter/reverb.

[PeterBPL]

Btw. in PhasePlant, Falcon or MSoundFactory it's "Sample & Hold" and it works like I described, not "Track & Hold". I don't understand why my opinion starts offensive comments. Is it really needed?

I finally found a method to made it works like I described. A small trick. This zero rate was something I tried before, but I paired it with wrong modulator thinking that it works different. Now, after a while, when I know how it works (random generator with rate control) I can made my Sample&Hold exactly what I wanted.

Or just use 0 hz on the sample and hold LFO and use key retrigger for a different value every time the note is triggered.

The Sample & hold implementation in Serum 2 is the classic "noise as a source" sample and hold.

That's exactly method I was using when I wrote that "I found a method". Instead of retrigger, I use ENV (extremely short) to move s&h rate from zero to max for a minimal amount of time time.

I still think that it might be made better (like in PhasePlant), not just as noise generator with adjusted speed. It works pretty good as random values generator (that user may hold), but not for holding (sampling) second lfo at given point in time.

[Touch The Universe]

Does it have ability to audition the wavetable before import like phaseplant?

[kvotchin]

What kinds of PC specs are you guys using when playing with this synth? And where have you set buffer size, or whatever else might be relevant?

I've tried the demo, and wow, even quite a few of the apparently fairly minimalist presets just kill my - admittedly oldish - PC. Playing more than one note at a time, anyway. If that, in some cases.

Is it time (and I already suspected it might be...) to upgrade? And if so, to what, would you say?

No, I'm not likely to get this synth regardless, but assuming this is anything to go by, other software could easily be just as demanding, or more so...

[Cuauhtli]

Looking through the manual, you can import a wavetable into the wavetable editor. So does that count as auditioning? I've never tried Serum before so maybe someone else can give a better answer.

I have a laptop with an i5 (10th gen) core. I do have a lot of RAM and Windows 10. Haven't had any issues with serum2 yet but I've done nothing crazy (basic 2 or 3 oscillators set to wavetables with lfos modulating them and an lfo modulating the filter with delay and reverb. I just noticed the quality setting was on High. It's been fine so far. I'll try the presets and see how it performs.

[Touch The Universe]

No, not even close, lol. In Phaseplant, you can adjust the playback key which alters the import significantly. In fact, nothing else is more important than the import key, just importing that arbitrarily (without fine tuning with audition) is a huge flaw and weakness, but being able to experiment with different import key settings even different than that original key it was sampled at itself can yield very interesting results. In addition there are many other things you can tweak and audition in real time like cropping tone and different import algorythms to test which ones works best for the sample.

[ChanceB]

Does it have ability to audition the wavetable before import like phaseplant?

No the wavetable browser is the same as Serum 1,no audio preview or visual representation

[Vortifex]

What kinds of PC specs are you guys using when playing with this synth? And where have you set buffer size, or whatever else might be relevant?

I've tried the demo, and wow, even quite a few of the apparently fairly minimalist presets just kill my - admittedly oldish - PC. Playing more than one note at a time, anyway. If that, in some cases.

I'm using a Ryzen 7 9700X with a buffer of 256 and the pad Pacific Rain with quality on High pushes the CPU meter in FL to 100%. If I drop quality to Good it takes about 10% off that. But that's without adjusting its high polyphony count. Cutting polyphony to 12 halves the CPU hit. Most of the patches are well under 30% with normal use.

I'd say it's about on par with Pigments in terms of CPU hit.

[aMUSEd]

Seems pretty decent performance for me with the default setting on my MI Max Studio - nothing has led to it choking so far - but obviously raising voice count and quality drives it up.

[aMUSEd]

Seems pretty decent performance for me with the default setting on my MI Max Studio - nothing has led to it choking so far - but obviously raising voice count and quality drives it up.

[NoobMan1]

The only thing I can complain about Serum is that it has no character, it doesn't sound like it's any kind of energy Virus is known for it sounds a bit raw and gives energy thats it.

[db3]

What kinds of PC specs are you guys using when playing with this synth? And where have you set buffer size, or whatever else might be relevant?

I've tried the demo, and wow, even quite a few of the apparently fairly minimalist presets just kill my - admittedly oldish - PC. Playing more than one note at a time, anyway. If that, in some cases.

I'm using a Ryzen 7 9700X with a buffer of 256 and the pad Pacific Rain with quality on High pushes the CPU meter in FL to 100%. If I drop quality to Good it takes about 10% off that. But that's without adjusting its high polyphony count. Cutting polyphony to 12 halves the CPU hit. Most of the patches are well under 30% with normal use. I'd say it's about on par with Pigments in terms of CPU hit.

Pacific Rain with 4 notes held shows up to 40% audio buffer processing in Live 12 on my M1 Max with 64/128/256 buffer. I think the Spectral engine needs more juice than others which are significantly lower. Although, in overall CPU use terms that only equates to less than 4%, so multiple instances would be fine across all cores. Korg Multi/Poly is similar for multi-layer pads.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

What kinds of PC specs are you guys using when playing with this synth? And where have you set buffer size, or whatever else might be relevant?

I've tried the demo, and wow, even quite a few of the apparently fairly minimalist presets just kill my - admittedly oldish - PC. Playing more than one note at a time, anyway. If that, in some cases.

Is it time (and I already suspected it might be...) to upgrade? And if so, to what, would you say?

No, I'm not likely to get this synth regardless, but assuming this is anything to go by, other software could easily be just as demanding, or more so...

If the high CPU patches are using the Granular oscillator, quite a few of us believe there may be a CPU bug affecting that particular osc type. I don't think it's confirmed by anyone yet, but that is the likely culprit.