Xfer Records – Serum 2 v2.1.5 for WiN

The original motivation for creating Serum was the desire to create a dream synth that didn’t exist yet: a wavetable synth with truly high-quality sound, a workflow-focused visual and creative interface to make creating and modifying sounds fun rather than tedious, and the ability to “dive deep” when needed – create/import/edit/transform wavetables and manipulate them while playing back in real time.

Serum version 2 opens up the sonic palette in a big way, offering the user incredible power, control and sonic expressiveness – with multiple oscillator types, flexible effects customization, an arpeggiator and clip sequencer – the goal of Serum 2 was to give Serum users the ability to fully realize their sonic and musical ideas into form. Did we mention that Serum 2 is a free update for Serum 1 owners? Lifetime free updates actually mean lifetime free updates.

WAVE OSCILLATOR

Serum’s now legendary wavetable oscillator is now more flexible. A smooth interpolation mode allows for a virtually infinite number of frame positions in the wavetable (no conversion required). There’s filtering, FM, PD, ring modification, distortion, and new waveform distortions. Even we’ve yet to fully explore the dual distortion capabilities available for any of the major oscillator types.

MULTIPLE SAMPLE GENERATOR

Allows you to reproduce real instruments and sounds found elsewhere. Serum 2 comes with an extensive, exclusive and original library of real instruments recorded around the world, including orchestras, choirs, pianos, guitars and more. Create or import your own recordings from multiple samples using the sfz file format (open standard and user-friendly).

SAMPLE GENERATOR

Despite the simple premise of sample playback, the sample generator is highly productive. While the sample generator is really good at sample playback and supports FM/PD/distortion types, it also supports looping with instant cycle detection, flexible cyclic modulation, frequency control for “tape stop” and similar effects, sample slicing with real-time score extraction/playback and tile mode, and much more.

GRANULAR GENERATOR

Serum 2 adds a powerful granular generator that, despite its small appearance, packs a lot of complex features, allowing you to experiment with a wide range of ways to create new sounds / breathe new life into sample material.

SPECTRAL GENERATOR

The spectral generator provides real-time harmonic-level resynthesis of samples, and transient detection processing similar to that used in advanced time-stretching algorithms allows for radical time and frequency changes.

NEW MODULATIONS

The modulation section has seen some changes, allowing you to use up to 10 LFOs, but the chaos modulators from the original global section are missing. Instead, we can switch any LFO to one of three chaos modes: Lorenz, Rossler, and S&H. Lorenz and Rossler are nice controlled chaos based on strange attractors, each with separate X and Y modulation outputs. The new LFO Path mode lets you draw a vector path that generates X and Y modulated outputs, allowing Serum 2 to support up to 20 LFO sources.

The path and 2D chaos modulators are great for modulating LFO points. In the previous version of serum, LFO point modulation was convenient to use, but often the modulators would run out before you could use the feature to its full potential. This time around, LFO point modulation has become even more exciting thanks to the modulation remaps feature that single-handedly made me fall in love with Vital, and is now back in Serum 2. You can now remap any modulation, meaning that as long as you plan on maintaining multiple LFO shapes with the same LFO rate, you can simply remap a simple ramp to as many LFO shapes as you want.

EFFECTS

Effects have been heavily reworked, previously Serum only had one instance of each effect in a serial layout. Now we get three effect channels, multiple instances of each effect, and multi-band or intermediate split paths.

The ability to compose effects in different configurations and load multiple instances of each effect is a significant improvement. Chaining copies of the same effect can lead to a wide range of experimental techniques. Additionally, using intermediate EQ and distortion will add a new level of polish to the presets.

A couple of new effects have been added, as well as some new reverb modes. The new Bode frequency converter is really cool, it has a delay built into the feedback channel and even a blur control. The addition of convolution reverb is great, you can use it to create physically modeled instrument bodies or to create realistic reverb conditions in your patches. The large number of built-in IRS and the new reverb modes also greatly improve the reverb styles.

ARPEGGIATOR AND MIDI

Serum 2 finally has an ARP and midi clip player. Each has a key range that lets you switch between different snapshots, similar to many Native Instruments synths. The arp is nice to have, and it’s fun to play around with the snapshots while simultaneously playing different chords for arpeggios. I’ve seen this feature before, but it feels a little more intuitive here.

The clip launcher is great though: the ability to save melodies and rhythms as a preset makes Serum 2 feel even more like a groovebox than a synth. I can imagine a setup using just a few instances of Serum 2 and simply swapping snapshots to complete a set. It’s also worth noting that each clip snapshot can contain automation for macros and even probabilities for note attributes. The new clip creation system opens up a lot of potential.

MIXER

Serum 2 also features a completely redesigned mixing workflow. It features a new mixing section/tab with a full mixer with dedicated channels for each oscillator, filter, bus, and master section. This eliminates the old mixing workflow in Serum 1 and allows for more flexible mixing of sounds and layering of effects.

There are also some great additions in the effects section. Firstly, you can work with a new M/S and L/H splitter, which allows you to prepare your sounds even better for recording. Secondly, you can work with a new convolution reverb with ready-to-use IRs that can load custom files.

In addition, they are no longer limited to the main signal. The new mixing engine of Serum 2 gives you the ability to add effects to the bus 1 and bus 2 channels as well.

IN THE SET

Serum 2 comes with over 626 presets and 288 wavetables.