KVR Audio

p4tz3r · Post by **p4tz3r** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 2:40 am

foosnark wrote:So, just curious if anyone can answer: if Serum is a "cold" synth, what's "warm?"

I mean, I realize I'm just wasting my time with the question here because the same people who say that say it's "sterile" or "clinical" (which makes me wonder, are you just listening to the sub oscillator with A, B, filters, FX, and modulation all disabled? because DAMN). But indulge me.

I've been on this forum for 14 years and nobody has ever demonstrated what a "cold" or "warm" synth is and why one is supposed to be better than the other.

Ha! You know it when you hear it?

I can't find it now, but I thought there was a hifi review community that banned subjective terms (like "sweet" or "musical") because of all the snake oil and placebo effects. The closest I could find was this article, which does cover some of the issues, like useless exotic wires (excuse me, "interconnects").

That said, I do think some (not all) synths have distinct tonal characteristics you can hear ABX. Whether you like warm (I think Diva, e.g.) or cold (maybe Serum falls into this camp, but "precise" could be a better term?) is probably a matter of taste! I think the discussion is whether it's a good (or great) expression of that character. (Don't forget that effects make a big difference here too. If I use VVV instead of a synth's reverb, it often sounds pretty different to me.)

As with guitars, there's room for Telecasters and Les Pauls. Both are great instruments. And some prefer plugging in to a driven Blues Jr while others like Orange amps and still others want a face-shredding Randall.

(Of all these terms, bland, lifeless, and boring are probably the most damning — and again, pretty subjective.)

p4tz3r · Post by **p4tz3r** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 2:46 am

rod_zero wrote:mode audio has some great presets for Serum, not EDM but soft stuff.

Cool -- this is good. Thanks!

rod_zero · Post by **rod_zero** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 3:00 am

You have to accept lots of people who love gear as synths and other production gear think in religious terms, they build a belief system around subjective stuff like "warmth", "clarity", "character" and other woo words.

That adjectives around synths are totally subjective but then they apply it to things like converters and even to the DAW audio engine. It is pretty funny how some people like to believe in fairy dust.

Bump1 · Post by **Bump1** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 3:57 am

rod_zero wrote:You have to accept lots of people who love gear as synths and other production gear think in religious terms, they build a belief system around subjective stuff like "warmth", "clarity", "character" and other woo words.

That adjectives around synths are totally subjective but then they apply it to things like converters and even to the DAW audio engine. It is pretty funny how some people like to believe in fairy dust.

They're just words...yes, subjective but better than saying "this sounds good" and "this sounds bad"...

sfxsound3 · Post by **sfxsound3** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 5:57 am

cron wrote:The other negative for me is that wavetables aren't interpolated during modulation. It's always a hard 'jump' between one frame and the next. While I've only noticed popping artifacts with 'difficult' wavetables I crafted specifically to test Serum's abilities in this area, it's maybe something to think about if you're interested in the whole 'ambient journey' thing wavetable synthesis is usually good at. If your modulation is slow enough and the differences between frames large enough, you'll hear 'stepped' changes rather than smooth motion. Something like Massive's Carbon wavetable, which shines when you contrast very large against very small modulations, just wouldn't meaningfully work in Serum. Xfer use spectrogram images in their marketing to show how clean their oscillators are compared to competing wavetable synths, but I'd be very interested to see how those spectrograms look with wavetable modulation engaged. I expect the picture wouldn't be quite so flattering.

+1, it's a problem for me too. All kinds of pops and glitches and stuff. Hurts my ears. Could they fix that?

Other than that, I don't like the LFOs. Draw a shape and use it. No way to alter the shape, morph between shapes (PolyKB comes to mind), no LFO 'Gain' parameter... The result is precise and clinical in a cartoonish way.

Filters from the cookbook.

Etc........

ENV1 · Post by **ENV1** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 7:42 am

rod_zero wrote:You have to accept lots of people who love gear as synths and other production gear think in religious terms, they build a belief system around subjective stuff like "warmth", "clarity", "character" and other woo words.

I cant point you to any studies or anything, but just thinking about where this might come from it would seem logical to me that at least the usage of the words warm and cold isnt entirely subjective but simply related to frequency spectrum.

To see what i mean lets go to the video realm for a moment.

- You have red on the left side of the spectrum, representing the low frequencies. A picture with a lot of red is usually perceived as being warm.

- You have blue on the right side of the spectrum, representing the high frequencies. A picture with a lot of blue is usually described as being cold.

The reason for this perception would appear to be quite literally related to temperature, i.e.:

- Red / Fire / Warm

- Blue / Ice / Cold

The fact that color too is being described in values of temperature further supports this.

So going back to audio i think we are finding the same phenomenon. If a sound is dominated by the low/red end of the frequency spectrum it is perceived as being warm, and if it is dominated by the high/blue end of the frequency spectrum it is perceived as being cold. Same as it is with video, only within the frequency spectrum of sound.

In any event, it seems obvious to me that there is some connection there. Warm/Cold would therefore seem to be acceptable terms to describe sound, at least if used properly.

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 9:58 am

cron wrote:Steve is very conservative when it comes to calling an update 'finished'. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a release without the beta tag. Maybe a consequence of the speed at which he fixes bugs and pushes updates out. He's easily the hardest working, most active and approachable developer I've dealt with.

Yeah but blurring the lines between beta and release is a bad idea. He really should release properly once in a while instead of this perpetual beta mode. The whole point of the distinction is that betas are expected to be more unstable and should not (at least at users risk) be installed for production purposes whereas releases are ready for production use. By undermining that distinction I'm left wondering if these betas really are 'safe' for production then why are they designated betas, but if that is the case where does beta testing go on? Or are we all just guinea pigs, in which case we never know if a beta is going to really be safe, then this is just a trust thing. Either way it's not ideal.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 11:46 am

As mentioned earlier i had tried the Serum demo several times in the past and a big problem (besides others...) was that for ages (more than 1 year or even closer to 2 years...) the demo version at the official website did not seem to be updated.

Just out of curiosity i just downloaded the demo again (at the Xfer website) and the version is v1.20b7 which must be a new or newer version. The credit in the plugin do show this is from June 25 2017 which is less than a month ago.

Just had a first look at the CPU use of the latest demo using Live 9.7.3 64-bit at Windows 10 64-bit.
The CPU use could be still very high but at least the presets, especially pads, seem to be playable at an i5-3350P Quad Core CPU.

foosnark · Post by **foosnark** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:43 pm

ENV1 wrote:So going back to audio i think we are finding the same phenomenon. If a sound is dominated by the low/red end of the frequency spectrum it is perceived as being warm, and if it is dominated by the high/blue end of the frequency spectrum it is perceived as being cold.

Logical, except of course that the supposedly "cold" synths have no trouble pushing the low end, and there are such things as filters and EQ built right into the synth.

There's also the idea of loudness/saturation as "warm" or "hot", but again that doesn't really seem to be the issue.

I can't really think of any simple characteristic that "cold" can mean that isn't easily fixed within the synth or with one additional plugin in the chain.

Armagibbon · Post by **Armagibbon** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:44 pm

Serum toasting cpu? Gonna be happy to see threadripper out soon then huh. 32 logical cores at 4ghz for cheap mmmmhmm

Armagibbon · Post by **Armagibbon** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:48 pm

foosnark wrote:
ENV1 wrote:So going back to audio i think we are finding the same phenomenon. If a sound is dominated by the low/red end of the frequency spectrum it is perceived as being warm, and if it is dominated by the high/blue end of the frequency spectrum it is perceived as being cold.
Logical, except of course that the supposedly "cold" synths have no trouble pushing the low end, and there are such things as filters and EQ built right into the synth.

There's also the idea of loudness/saturation as "warm" or "hot", but again that doesn't really seem to be the issue.

I can't really think of any simple characteristic that "cold" can mean that isn't easily fixed within the synth or with one additional plugin in the chain.

Always figured that warm was more to do with cooking the mid range with distortion and smoothing out the highs. Cold is just lacking all that I guess? And yea nothing some fx can't fix.

cron · Post by **cron** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 2:54 pm

sfxsound3 wrote:
cron wrote:The other negative for me is that wavetables aren't interpolated during modulation. It's always a hard 'jump' between one frame and the next. While I've only noticed popping artifacts with 'difficult' wavetables I crafted specifically to test Serum's abilities in this area, it's maybe something to think about if you're interested in the whole 'ambient journey' thing wavetable synthesis is usually good at. If your modulation is slow enough and the differences between frames large enough, you'll hear 'stepped' changes rather than smooth motion. Something like Massive's Carbon wavetable, which shines when you contrast very large against very small modulations, just wouldn't meaningfully work in Serum. Xfer use spectrogram images in their marketing to show how clean their oscillators are compared to competing wavetable synths, but I'd be very interested to see how those spectrograms look with wavetable modulation engaged. I expect the picture wouldn't be quite so flattering.
+1, it's a problem for me too. All kinds of pops and glitches and stuff. Hurts my ears. Could they fix that?

Other than that, I don't like the LFOs. Draw a shape and use it. No way to alter the shape, morph between shapes (PolyKB comes to mind), no LFO 'Gain' parameter... The result is precise and clinical in a cartoonish way.

Filters from the cookbook.

Etc........

I'm guessing wavetable interpolation would be a version 2 feature if it happens. On the other hand Steve hasn't been shy about adding huge features in point updates (the 4 extra LFOs being the standout) so it could happen before that. Just searched the Xfer forum for "interpolation" and nothing seems to match, oddly enough. Most of the results are about graphics stuff. Perhaps this is one of the reasons it's seen as an EDM synth: it does that kinda 'post-dubstep', tempo-synced, full range wavetable modulation that goes back and forth between two timbres beautifully. You're fine so long as your modulation is fast enough and you leave plenty of room to build the smoothing 'into' the wavetable, which of course imposes a limit on how many timbres the wavetable can contain or how complex it can be before transition issues become a problem.

It is possible to crossfade between two LFO shapes and add LFO gain capabilities with some canny routing, and it's more feasible now that you've got 8 LFOs to play with. LFO gain is as easy as adding an aux source in the mod matrix. Crossfading 2 LFOs is a bit more complicated though. The image below shows the routing that'll let you use Macro 1 to crossfade between LFOs 1 and 2, but of course you could use another LFO or envelope or whatever instead of the Macro to automate the crossfade. I appreciate that it's a right fanny on compared to many other synths, but it can be done!

aMUSEd wrote:Yeah but blurring the lines between beta and release is a bad idea. He really should release properly once in a while instead of this perpetual beta mode. The whole point of the distinction is that betas are expected to be more unstable and should not (at least at users risk) be installed for production purposes whereas releases are ready for production use. By undermining that distinction I'm left wondering if these betas really are 'safe' for production then why are they designated betas, but if that is the case where does beta testing go on? Or are we all just guinea pigs, in which case we never know if a beta is going to really be safe, then this is just a trust thing. Either way it's not ideal.

Yeah, I agree here. The word 'beta' means completely different things depending on which developer is using it. It could mean anything from a crashy piece of shit to a rock solid release candidate. I guess he's being modest, and it's perhaps risky to label things 'final' when you're pushing out bugfixes faster than you can possibly test all areas of the synth for side-effects. Having a 'proper' release once in a while would certainly put people's minds at rest. Maybe there has been a proper release and I've just missed it, but I'm pretty sure the download area has always offered the latest beta.

Quite apart from this, I've never had a problem with Serum since version 1.0. Gone through countless betas without a single hitch, and none of them have ever felt like betas. Still, regardless of how stable the so-called betas have been in my experience, I fully appreciate that the label hardly inspires confidence.

Armagibbon · Post by **Armagibbon** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 4:03 pm

Seen full releases of other plugs less stable and buggy as f*ck compared to serum over here. It's like something being a permabeta these days just means it's living software, gets tons of updates at high freq.

p4tz3r · Post by **p4tz3r** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 6:05 pm

Going back to the cold/sterile issue, I was experimenting with effects outside my synths and holy heck can you alter the character with different filters. I'm using Filtershaper 3 on a few synth tracks and it completely changes the tonality. (I'm sure others like Volano 2 or The Drop would be great as well.) Interesting to try different components (altering filters, changing reverbs, using other delays) to alter the tracks. Maybe deconstructing and changing elements will help isolate where each instrument derives aspects of its final sound (oscillators, filters, or effects).

I can hear people saying, "well then you're not really using that synth." True enough, but back to the guitar analogy -- it's fair game to change amps and effects to alter a guitar's sound to fit the purpose. (Maybe also think of a VST synth in a more modular fashion rather than a take-it-or-leave-it monolithic instrument?)

Big downsides, of course, are things like losing much of the single-interface workflow, envelope modulation, and patch saving (and maybe others I haven't though of).

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 6:18 pm

p4tz3r wrote:... I'm using Filtershaper 3 on a few synth tracks and it completely changes the tonality. (I'm sure others like Volano 2 or The Drop would be great as well.)

I'm sure it won't

You want, most certainly, to say tone colour or timbre, not tonality (which is a different thing).

The State of Serum in 2017