Serum 2 🧻🧻🧻🧻🧻

It’s been so long since Serum 1 was released that Serum 2 resembles all the software inspired by its decade old ancestor – you might at first glance compare it to Vital or Pigments – but turn around – this was the standard, torn away from the old school of PPG and Waldorf. That it is a free update feels disturbingly generous given all the changes – that normally applies for a point upgrade. (I threw in a $5 tip to try overcome my guilt but that didn’t work.) Looking at github they’ve been updating v1. consistently over that decade, so I guess this has been a long long time in the making.

In that time wavetables (and their users) have for the main part standardised into Serum format. It was once Massive, but Native Instruments fell into grandeur and business solutions. That Serum has been the answer for so long tells you something about getting things right.

Serum 2 -is- an upgrade – the interface hasn’t changed dramatically. Old patches will load. More of this, more of that, same basic work flow. There are now three main oscillators. The sampling feature is fully formed and been based on SFZ multisamples. You can now convert wavetables and samples into spectral oscillators. LFOs are now 2 dimensional and can have chaotic forms. All of this is MORE, with the features of the older version left intact.

Spectral?

As a spectral sound junkie the first thing I did was convert some samples into spectral forms – and Steinberg’s PadShop has nothing to worry about. PadShop can take one note and spread it all across the keys with a happy little ta da! Serum 2 can get about an octave up and down before it starts wheezing and whining. Perhaps try three spectral waves, one for each octave? It’s good… but it’s not that good – only about as good as all the other PadShop wannabes. That’s OK… you are more likely to build some complex structure in Serum that just needs spectral as part of the recipe, where PadShop is for instant sound-stealing gratification. You could use Halion to do everything that Serum does (including the 2D LFO’s) and more (multichannel wavetables) BUT it will take a lot longer in that vast system than Serum.

Sampling?

The problem with sampling has long been – where do you stash your multisamples and in which format? Do you stay with the old school (Kontakt or Halion) or try to be across all platforms (SFZ) – it seems like you can’t settle on the one format for all the different players. That’s one major reason I use PadShop, because it Just Works. But here you might decide – bugger it – everything is going to go to SFZ and be happy.

Synthesis?

No complaints here – three high quality oscillators can feud with each other in many curious high bandwidth ways. Multiple filter types are available (less than in Pigments and not exotic as in Halion). There’s an excellent patchable mixer for chaining filters, mixers, effects and so on to make a complex multi-layered mix. The effects are not exotic but very useful.

In testing Serum 2 I tried some of the chaotic LFO features to create a very flowing, swirling and unpredictable soundscape upon holding two notes. It was, in my (not humble) opinion equal to any complicated and tedious patch made on a virtual modular rig. I then pulled out a few virtual analogues and compared the quality of sound. A few held their ground, but some tasted like cardboard. Sorry – but it’s true.

Vital is still a contender. Don’t write it off yet. There are ways of bending and twisting the wavetables that were taken from Serum 1 and are greatly expanded and improved in Vital. But the sample section is minimal. Only one developer means it’s going to take a while – but Vital 2 could still land a killer punch!

And still the best tool for creating a quality wavetable from a sample is Icarus. It just is. Sorry.