Invest in Serum?
Invest in Serum?
Hi
I'm new to the forum so apologies if this has been asked before...
If you were to buy one soft synth to help you understand sound design and last a few years through creative possibilities, what would you buy?
I've been running a demo of Serum and really like the visualisation and sound quality. I'm producing deep house so using it for pads, bass, fx, keys etc. It chews up my CPU but figure that should change as CPUs inevitably get more powerful and I could always freeze and flatten tracks to get around that for now.
Am I overlooking some worthy competition - Massive, etc?
I'm new to the forum so apologies if this has been asked before...
If you were to buy one soft synth to help you understand sound design and last a few years through creative possibilities, what would you buy?
I've been running a demo of Serum and really like the visualisation and sound quality. I'm producing deep house so using it for pads, bass, fx, keys etc. It chews up my CPU but figure that should change as CPUs inevitably get more powerful and I could always freeze and flatten tracks to get around that for now.
Am I overlooking some worthy competition - Massive, etc?
Re: Invest in Serum?
IMO Serum is the best synth on the market overall - got a number of awards and highlights.
Certainly it will help you visualise sound deign and has broad possibilities to learn, will stay alive and keep you interested for years.
The CPU, as far as I found out, comes from Warp functions used over multiple voices. Yes, it can eat a lot of CPU, but you don't need to use it all the time on every sound. For simple pluck or bassline it's light on CPU.
Certainly it will help you visualise sound deign and has broad possibilities to learn, will stay alive and keep you interested for years.
The CPU, as far as I found out, comes from Warp functions used over multiple voices. Yes, it can eat a lot of CPU, but you don't need to use it all the time on every sound. For simple pluck or bassline it's light on CPU.
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Re: Invest in Serum?
You might want to check out Circle2. I tried the demo recently and was amazed at how visually intuitive it is when creating your own sounds. Within 20 minutes, I had created three new patches and they were some of the best I've made on any synth.
The design concept is such that when you click and drag on a modulation source, all the possible destinations are highlighted. You then drag and drop the source to the destination, which makes the connection and enables a depth control for that modulation path. Both sources and destinations can have multiple modulation paths connected to them, and the connections are color coded when you create them so you can easily see what is modulating what.
It also includes an extensive wavetable library and the available presets make a great jumping-off point for hearing what the instrument is capable of.
You can download the demo here: http://www.futureaudioworkshop.com/circle/
Pretty good demo video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7ZZyjZSWUk
The design concept is such that when you click and drag on a modulation source, all the possible destinations are highlighted. You then drag and drop the source to the destination, which makes the connection and enables a depth control for that modulation path. Both sources and destinations can have multiple modulation paths connected to them, and the connections are color coded when you create them so you can easily see what is modulating what.
It also includes an extensive wavetable library and the available presets make a great jumping-off point for hearing what the instrument is capable of.
You can download the demo here: http://www.futureaudioworkshop.com/circle/
Pretty good demo video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7ZZyjZSWUk
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Re: Invest in Serum?
Serum is a solid choice. However, If you really want to learn a LOT about sound design I would recommend getting Max for Live and buying a copy of Electronic Music and Sound Design - Theory and Practice with Max and Msp - Volume 1 (http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Music- ... 8890548452).Subijacko wrote:Hi
If you were to buy one soft synth to help you understand sound design and last a few years through creative possibilities, what would you buy?
Can't recommend that book enough if you are interested in really understanding the ins and outs of sound design. It is pricy ($50ish), but you will easily invest over a hundred hours in it.
Re: Invest in Serum?
If you want to learn sound design and synthesis
http://www.syntorial.com
One price gets you the desktop version of their tutorial app, the iPad version of the tutorial app, and the plugin version of their softsynth you learn on.
The tutorials start with 1 parameter and once you pass the test by dialing in the sound they designed it adds another parameter and you dial in a sound using those 2 parameters, and repeat I think up to 66 parameters. The free demo has the first 20 or so lessons.
http://www.syntorial.com
One price gets you the desktop version of their tutorial app, the iPad version of the tutorial app, and the plugin version of their softsynth you learn on.
The tutorials start with 1 parameter and once you pass the test by dialing in the sound they designed it adds another parameter and you dial in a sound using those 2 parameters, and repeat I think up to 66 parameters. The free demo has the first 20 or so lessons.
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Re: Invest in Serum?
Serum seems like a good investment - interface looks really good to work with, I've heard some very good sounds from it, it seems very flexible, and I hear good things about it from its users.
That said, any synth would be good for your purpose. I'm still discovering new uses for Synth1, for example. Most important thing is choosing a synth you enjoy tweaking.
That said, any synth would be good for your purpose. I'm still discovering new uses for Synth1, for example. Most important thing is choosing a synth you enjoy tweaking.
Re: Invest in Serum?
Yeah I would get this first for learning, after completing the course you will really know what synth to get.beats me wrote:If you want to learn sound design and synthesis
http://www.syntorial.com
One price gets you the desktop version of their tutorial app, the iPad version of the tutorial app, and the plugin version of their softsynth you learn on.
The tutorials start with 1 parameter and once you pass the test by dialing in the sound they designed it adds another parameter and you dial in a sound using those 2 parameters, and repeat I think up to 66 parameters. The free demo has the first 20 or so lessons.
Serum is great but IMHO it uses way too much CPU for the sound.
Last edited by login on Tue Jul 14, 2015 6:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Invest in Serum?
I second Syntorial. While I havent used it I think starting from scratch and learning the basics of synthesis is the way to go. It will force you to actually study what you are doing instead of you just twisting knobs around and creating what you want through trial and error, and would ultimately save you time as you would know what settings to use to get the sounds you want. I have been studying sound design for years and I still am not that great at it as I have learned through experimentation, which is fun, but will take longer to learn this way. For the most part all synths are the same at their basic level, so learning the basics will allow you to learn a variety of synths quicker too.
Re: Invest in Serum?
One of the advantages of following the tutorial process of syntorial is it keeps you focused. It’s not just learning a couple parameters and then you go down the rabbit hole of tweaking things beyond that, that you don’t quite understand yet. It’s very easy to get distracted and unfocused learning on just any softsynth without discipline.
Re: Invest in Serum?
Thanks all for the advice. Syntorial sounds like a useful resource and will check it out.
Re: Invest in Serum?
Serum is awesome. On my laptop is does use a lot of CPU. I use it mostly on my desktop computer instead. I wish it had another filter.
Re: Invest in Serum?
Watched some vids on Serum and it does look pretty sweet with a very visual (helpful) method of doing things. Looks like the big CPU hit comes from unison abuse. 2 oscillators with the unison set to 16 on both, hit a 3 note chord and that’s 96 voices at once and it has the capabilities to well surpass where even Massive would cut you off.
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Re: Invest in Serum?
+1 on beats me's Syntorial recommendation. Per his advice I've worked through most of the free lessons...it's really good shit!
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Re: Invest in Serum?
Thanks for the Syntorial suggestion 'beats me'. Bought my copy last week and have been learning so much that I can apply to all synths. Great recommendation.
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Re: Invest in Serum?
If you don't mind using an external filter check out The Drop.granted wrote:Serum is awesome. On my laptop is does use a lot of CPU. I use it mostly on my desktop computer instead. I wish it had another filter.