Official Serum 2 thread!

[swilow11]

Serum2 is way more powerful and interesting than S1.
But too heavy on cpu,not sure how am i gonna use more that 3-4 heavy presets,playing simultaneously in real time (freezing yeah,but it's annoying and waste of time)...
Wondering why Steve Duda doesn't make a lite version,something with 4 osc and 4 filters without other types of synthesis,just straight wavetable synth,which could be friendly on cpu.
I am saying this from sound designer's point - IT'S 2025,FOUR OSC AND FOUR FILTERS ARE MANDATORY for a solid 3D sound of a preset and yet almost nobody care about it.
Just wonder,did i hear something developers and users don't or what,how difficult could be to start with that idea 4 via 4???
Wavetable subtractive synths are most used and popular,why such a donkey stubbornness to justify a weak architecture,when next synth could be starter with the right idea...coming from another topic and really amazed how many people had absolutely no idea how to make pleasant and usable sound,but insist that 4x4 idea isn't something...
Not criticizing Duda specifically,just wonder why developers doesn't consider 4 osc and 4 filters as minimum for a modern synth???
Talking my 12 years experience,not just theory or chat in free time...
My prediction is that next guy who make something like serum,but 4x4 straight wavetable synth will be very successful developer ...
How many time same problems,same demands,giving free ideas like i do in this post and in the end the developers do something,that will have same issues and weak sides,criticized and discussed same way like before...

You can just not use rhe spectral or granular (or clip launcher or arp both of which seem very resource hungry). Although at that poi t, you might as well just use Serum 1...or Phase Plant.

It is pretty frustrating how intensive S2 is. I get that with great power comes great whatever but so much of s2 is unusable and it doesn't really make much sense. Phase Plant can do all the same cross mod as well as granular etc and similar patches on S2 and PP show clearly that PP is significantly more optimised. Or that Serum 2 is literally cutting edge and over time our CPUs will be more able to handle it.

But just throw on the S2 exp BP filter. Sounds nice enough but massive CPU load which IMO is not in proportion to how good it sounds. It's lovely, don't get me wrong. But not lovely enough for me to significantly change my workflow to accommodate its use.

[tumface]

Phase Plant's audio rate modulation has some built-in latency (not PDC, but within the audio rate routing itself) somewhere between 1 and 16 samples or so, depending on the routing configuration (aux module?) if I remember correctly, and can break up pretty easily when there is feedback. Serum 2's seems better. I haven't tried to measure it, but it seems to hold up better especially when there's feedback.

[coroknight]

But just throw on the S2 exp BP filter. Sounds nice enough but massive CPU load which IMO is not in proportion to how good it sounds. It's lovely, don't get me wrong. But not lovely enough for me to significantly change my workflow to accommodate its use.

Goodness, are you all running 20 year old computers?

I'm running, no joke, 100 instances of serum 2 with a saw wave + exp filter and it only takes 50% CPU. I have a decent CPU but it's not like I'm running a threadripper, just an AMD Ryzen x3d from a few years ago.

[coroknight]

Maybe some DAWs don't parallelize as well as others? Bitwig does a pretty good job of running plugins in multiple threads.

[tumface]

I don't think it has anything to do with the DAW. And there's no need to make those kinds of strawman insults at people. There is plenty of evidence that Serum 2 doesn't work well on some CPUs. My AMD PC has 2x-3x more CPU usage for the same preset in Serum 2 than Serum 1. On my Mac M1 Pro, Serum 2 has the same or slightly less CPU usage.

[SirKen]

But just throw on the S2 exp BP filter. Sounds nice enough but massive CPU load which IMO is not in proportion to how good it sounds. It's lovely, don't get me wrong. But not lovely enough for me to significantly change my workflow to accommodate its use.

Goodness, are you all running 20 year old computers?

I'm running, no joke, 100 instances of serum 2 with a saw wave + exp filter and it only takes 50% CPU. I have a decent CPU but it's not like I'm running a threadripper, just an AMD Ryzen x3d from a few years ago.

Could this be a Windows vs Mac build issue? Could people who are having issues with certain presets report on what their systems are CPU/OS and all?

[DrGonzo]

I don't think it has anything to do with the DAW. And there's no need to make those kinds of strawman insults at people. There is plenty of evidence that Serum 2 doesn't work well on some CPUs. My AMD PC has 2x-3x more CPU usage for the same preset in Serum 2 than Serum 1. On my Mac M1 Pro, Serum 2 has the same or slightly less CPU usage.

I'm getting the same feeling. The CPU usage is all over the place even for relatively simple sounds. I am sure things will be optimized as we go along. I'd rather have S2 for what it is today than wait another year for CPU perfection.

[tumface]

I think it is actually pretty well optimized already, if your CPU agrees with it. It works great on my M1 Mac. I have no special knowledge of the internals of Serum 2, but it's possible it's using SIMD constructs that work better on some Intel and AMD microarchitectures than others. (It seems to always work great on Apple's ARM chips.) Please keep in mind this is just a guess and I have no special knowledge.

[DrGonzo]

It's not just CPU usage. I get lots of attack clicks when cycling through the first set of voices. When you've gone through all the available voices all acts normal. It's stuff like this. Nothing bad, just small details that indicate there is still places for improvement.

Fantastic synth though. I absolutely love the sound.

[swilow11]

Absolutely fantastic. I feel like my negative remarks over previous pages probably overstated things a bit.

Throwing a nice wavetable in. Modulate index, bounce and drag into the spectral oscillator, apply warps, bounce and drag into the sampler. Maybe even throw it into the Convolver. Wild stuff with one wavetable.

[JO512]

I have a fairly powerful gaming laptop, a Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 16IRX9, last year's model, with an Intel Core i9-14900HX with 32GB RAM, running windows 11 Home. My audio interface is a Motu M2. When I run a single instance of Serum 2, even a very simple patch, like a single oscillator with no extra unisons, set to monophonic, and using only one filter, even one like the simple MG 12, with nothing else loaded in my DAW except maybe a reverb, I get occasional audio stutters/dropouts/pops/crackles, which basically doesn't happen at all for me with any other VST under the same circumstances. This happens in both Reaper and Bitwig. I am using a buffer size of 128 or 256 samples at 48kHz. When this is happening, Reaper reports that Serum 2 is only using something like 0.1% or 0.2% of my CPU.

I still use it because it is otherwise a dream synth. But I have been hoping an update would come along that would solve this. I can build the same exact patch in Serum 1 and there isn't even a remote chance that I would get a stutter/dropout/pop. It is interesting too that with Serum 2, I can use lots of unisons, up to a certain point, and it doesn't seem to make a difference in the stutters. They just happen at roughly the same rate. It doesn't seem to be a function of how heavy the patch is, unless I push it to crazy extremes, at which point the audio falls apart.

[Morty-C-137]

I am pretty pleased with the performance on my lowly M1 iMac, but I will say this: takes longer than any other plugin I have to load! Maybe that's because it's the wrapper (from VST3 to AU)?

[RobGee]

No CPU issues on any patches I’ve created, I’ve not used many presets as most of them sound crap to me…

W11 Pro
Intel 14900K
ASUS Z790-A
Corsair 64GB DDR5
2 x WD Black 4TB SSD

[dysjoint]

I have a fairly powerful gaming laptop, a Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 16IRX9, last year's model, with an Intel Core i9-14900HX with 32GB RAM, running windows 11 Home. My audio interface is a Motu M2. When I run a single instance of Serum 2, even a very simple patch, like a single oscillator with no extra unisons, set to monophonic, and using only one filter, even one like the simple MG 12, with nothing else loaded in my DAW except maybe a reverb, I get occasional audio stutters/dropouts/pops/crackles, which basically doesn't happen at all for me with any other VST under the same circumstances. This happens in both Reaper and Bitwig. I am using a buffer size of 128 or 256 samples at 48kHz. When this is happening, Reaper reports that Serum 2 is only using something like 0.1% or 0.2% of my CPU.

Not related to Serum2 specifically, but I finally had luck with audio dropouts when I looked into Windows core parking (12th gen i9).

[Gam456]

I have a fairly powerful gaming laptop, a Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 16IRX9, last year's model, with an Intel Core i9-14900HX with 32GB RAM, running windows 11 Home. My audio interface is a Motu M2. When I run a single instance of Serum 2, even a very simple patch, like a single oscillator with no extra unisons, set to monophonic, and using only one filter, even one like the simple MG 12, with nothing else loaded in my DAW except maybe a reverb, I get occasional audio stutters/dropouts/pops/crackles, which basically doesn't happen at all for me with any other VST under the same circumstances. This happens in both Reaper and Bitwig. I am using a buffer size of 128 or 256 samples at 48kHz. When this is happening, Reaper reports that Serum 2 is only using something like 0.1% or 0.2% of my CPU.

Not related to Serum2 specifically, but I finally had luck with audio dropouts when I looked into Windows core parking (12th gen i9).

Yes It's night and days