Magic Serum
While analysing Simon Patterson - Opulence I cam across XFer's Serum and decided to make my experience a post about my first day with Serum.
(XferRecords, 2017)
Wavetable Synthesis
A wavetable is a group of samples of an audio source or single cycle waveforms that are looped to produce and evolving waveform. The speed of each cycle or loop is controlled by midi information and this rate controls the perceived pitch of the resulting tone. (On Cloud Sine, 2017)
"Wavetable synthesis is a technique used in certain digital music synthesizers to produce natural tone-like sounds. The sound of an existing instrument (a single note) is sampled and parsed into a sequence of circular tables of samples or wavetables, each having one period or cycle per table. A set of wavetables with user specified harmonic content can also be generated mathematically. Upon playback, these wavetables are used to fetch samples (table-lookup) in the same manner as in a numerically-controlled oscillator to produce a waveform. However, in wavetable synthesis, the output waveform is not normally static and evolves slowly in time as one wavetable is mixed with another, creating a changing waveform. Looping occurs when the wavetable evolution is halted, slowed, or reversed in time."
(Wikiaudio.org, 2017)
The advantage of this style of synthesis is it's less demanding on computer resources as the computation of the table is already compiled and the synthesiser only has to extrapolate the position in the wavetable allowing the creation of evolving complex sounds. This is achieved by crossfading between tables as well as modulating via another wavetable.
(Bristow-Johnson, 2017)
Serum
Oscillators
Serum has 2 wavetable oscillators each containing up to 256 single cycle waveforms created form sample audio sliced into 256 frames. Each table can be automated to travel through any frame with in each oscillator creating complex evolving sounds.
The controls for each oscillator are similar to many other synthesisers should you like to explore them in more depth there is an interesting tutorial here.
Some of my favourite features is automatic volume reduction when unison is applied and the warp knob which allows tactile control of the waveform. You can also modulate oscillator A from Oscillator B via the warp knob as well. (On Cloud Sine, 2017)
Filter
The filter section allows shaping of sound using subtractive synthesis. The filter can be applied to either oscillator, the noise and sub harmonic generators as well as the keyboard allowing the cut off frequency to be changed automatically in relation to the frequency of the note being played.
There is a plethora of filter options available with automation of all parameters. To understand more check out the tutorial here.
Interestingly the central knob on the bottom row of controls is a variable knob. Its parameters change depending on which filter type is active. (On Cloud Sine, 2017)
Noise Oscillator
The noise oscillator is a noise generator. It is a little more powerful than simple white noise though. With the ability to change phase and randomise the starting position of each waveform as well as being able to pan and change the fundamental pitch creating the noise you can generate interesting layers of noise. You can one shot or loop the noise and allow the pitch of the sample to change in relation to midi data coming in. Learn more here. (On Cloud Sine, 2017)
Sub Oscillator
The sub oscillator has six different wave forms to choose from Sine, Rounded Rectangle, Triangle, Saw, Square and Pulse. This powerful oscillator can add harmonics relative to the midi note being played. You can pan the sound as well as use this oscillator as a modulator for oscillators A & B. Learn more here. (On Cloud Sine, 2017)
Envelopes
Serum has three envelopes which are able to be routed to almost any control that is able to be automated.Envelope one is the dedicated amplitude envelope. Using a drag and drop approach to set you mapping. Learn more here. (On Cloud Sine, 2017)
LFO's
LFO stands for low frequency oscillator which is a time variant controller usually a sub 20 Hz frequency that creates phase distortion. The listener doesn't hear the tone itself rather the phase distortion created by the the LFO.(Stolet, 2017)
In Serum there are 8 LFOs available all of which are able to be mapped to any control of Serum with the drag and drop method. There are three modes available and every LFO can be designed manually with the grid. For more information check out this great tutorial here. (On Cloud Sine, 2017)
FX
Serum has a powerful FX module containing 10 FX. This rack's signal flow flows from top to bottom and effects the entire signal before being routed to the master. The only exception is the Sub Oscillators direct out option whereby it bypasses any effects and goes straight to the master. To learn more check the tutorial out here. (On Cloud Sine, 2017)
Mod Matrix
Serum's modulation matrix is where you can see all of the routing you have set on other windows. This handy tool lists all routing that you have set out as well as a few option available only available in the matrix. Serum has 29 modulation sources, 9 different modulation destinations with multiple sub destinations within those 9 and a total of 32 modulations. To better understand this matrix check out the tutorial here. (On Cloud Sine, 2017)
My Patch
You may have landed on this page from my case study on Simon Patterson - Opulence (Original Mix). If so you may be looking for how I went about deconstructing the Driving Synth and here it is. This is the original sound I was looking to emulate.
(Doctor Duck, 2017)
After watching a few tutorials and a hint from a colleague to look at Dark Psy lead tutorials (there is a good one here). The following is how I went about replicating the sound based on that tutorial and my own ears. Check out this little video describing my process. (All the photo's used above are the individual section of the patch I've created). A few things I forgot to mention in the video was the Warp knob on oscillator one I set to PWM (Pulse width modulation) and the Warp knob on oscillator B was set to FM from A (Frequency modulation from oscillator A).
(Doctor Duck, 2017)
Conclusion
Serum is an extremely power synthesiser that I will definitely be using heavily in a lot of my productions. I am actually blown away by how much control you have and how intuitive the interface is. My patch is not as close to the original sound as I would like but for my first day on Serum I think its quite good. I can't wait to dive deeper into Serum's functionality and bring to life some awesome creations with it.
Tutorials
I would have never got this far with out the tutorials I listed above they have been invaluable to me and On Cloud Sine deserve some credit for an awesome set of tutorials. Please check them out for yourself 36 episodes covering every aspect of synthesis on Serum. All available below.
(On Cloud Sine, 2017)
References
Bristow-Johnson, R. (2017). Wavetable Synthesis 101, A Fundamental Perspective. Retrieved from http://www.musicdsp.org/files/Wavetable-101.pdf
Doctor Duck. (2017, August 3). Opulence Driving Synth Original by Doctor Duck | Free Listening on SoundCloud. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/doctorduck/opulence-driving-synth-original/s-T5J1W
Doctor Duck. (2017, August 5). YouTube [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/dD2ge7tuwWg
On Cloud Sine. (2017, January 10). Serum ~ Wavetable Oscillators ~ RTFM! Tutorial [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnUHtF8_8K4
On Cloud Sine. (2017, January 18). Serum ~ Filters ~ RTFM! Tutorial. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfFvfAvhsXc
On Cloud Sine. (2017, January 11). Serum ~ Wavetable Oscillators ~ RTFM! Tutorial. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnUHtF8_8K4
On Cloud Sine. (2017, January 12). Serum ~ Noise Oscillator ~ RTFM! Tutorial. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUznPf_52MQ
On Cloud Sine. (2017, January 11). Serum ~ Sub Oscillator ~ RTFM! Tutorial. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJVGUz1YTkA
On Cloud Sine. (2017, February 15). Serum ~ Envelopes ~ RTFM! Tutorial. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1zQicoePzI
On Cloud Sine. (2017, February 20). Serum ~ LFOs ~ RTFM! Tutorial. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkFlYBk07ik
On Cloud Sine. (2017, January 21). Serum ~ FX Overview ~ RTFM! Tutorial. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te6TQKyh9AE
On Cloud Sine. (2017, March 1). Serum ~ Mod Matrix ~ RTFM! Tutorial. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtmFCULZPlM
On Cloud Sine. (2017, January 10). Serum ~ Course Overview ~ RTFM! Tutorial [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqAE3ATij4E&list=PL-NzMNM2cyt87h2NL4_umddmBOd0WZ2_d
Stolet, J. (2017). Electronic Music Interactive, 2nd edition. Retrieved from http://pages.uoregon.edu/emi/31.php
Wikiaudio.org. (2017). Wavetable synthesis. Retrieved from http://en.wikiaudio.org/Wavetable_synthesis#Confusion_with_sample-based_synthesis
XferRecords. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.xferrecords.com/products/serum