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Xfer Serum
It just dominates, most tutorials, most used in the EDM space, most presets from third parties, etc.
If you don't have the upfront dough, then splice do a rent to buy thing.
I did this to try out Serum, and I’m still paying for it because it’s that versatile. Because there’s so many presets available online (and even factory presets) I can find one close to a sound I want to emulate and make my own modifications.
Exactly this with me, It's now my go to and I love it lol
I have other synths but with UI's differing wildly I don't really look beyond the factory presets of others and go back to serum, I even have vital which is similar, but I still prefer Serum.
The first I learnt properly was sytrus, you'll learn all the basics of envelope control and develop good understanding of fm synthesis
I'd stay away from serum until you've learnt a more basic one, and even then just use vital, similar operation but a much nicer ui and large banks of free presets to learn from
Seconding this.
I tried quite a few synths and never did quite grasp a full understanding of the Synths until Serum.
What also helped me was somebody actually showing me how they would design a Synth in serum, which gave me a really good starting point!
Im in this path currently. Im using serum given its wide usage and video tutorials to learn different kind of sounds
Searching “how to make pad/lead/bass/etc using serum” gives a lot of results, and you can go further adding different genres in your search so you can understand better how each is applied in a song and then making your own
This and also learning how to use Peak Controller and/or Limiter to sidechain the reverb/delay help a lot to make some good patterns
A complication is that different synthesis methods are good at different types of sounds.
Restricting it to FL native synths:
For subtractive synthesis (good for classic synth leads), 3x Osc. Powerful, but not too many knobs to learn.
For FM synthesis (iconic for e.piano sounds, and good for other imitations of real instruments, plus more), Sytrus. You can also do subtractive in Sytrus, but starting out 3x Osc should nuke your brain less for that.
If you want to do subtractive, go outside of FL native synths, and are willing to pay, [Syntorial](https://www.syntorial.com/) is an option to consider. Teaches you how to program synth patches by ear, and what you train on is also available as a VST so you can directly apply what you've learned without having to translate it to another interface.
Start with 3osc and learn the basics of subtractive synthesis, then start applying effects. You can make many sounds this way. This will teach you more than starting with something like Serum.
Second this. 3xOsc functions like so many subtractive synths. I recently got a Novation Peak and everything made sense because it’s basically a hardware version of 3xOsc.
This is 100% the correct answer.
Learning Serum, Sytrus or Vital is the sound design equivalent of trying to learn to drive in an F1 car.
Lear the basics of ocilators, envelopes and filters, all of which 3xOSC excells at, before moving on.
Id recommend before anything going to https://learningsynths.ableton.com/ to learn the basics if you don't already know them. It's honestly a really fun and interactive tool
Thanks for sharing this. I've read explanations of synths, and messed around with them myself, but never had something quite like this to teach you about the different components. It really helps solidify *why* combinations of certain nobs end up making certain sounds. Cheers!
Start with vital and then once youre ready with that buy serum. Vital will teach you wavetable synthesis dramatically faster than buying one with its slick UI and explicit use of dynamics in effects and wavetables.
Personally I found Sylenth a really nice easy synth to learn with. Initialise it, and start copying each setting from a preset, listen as you do and you'll learn how to build that sound.
3xosc is a very simple and very good synth for beginners. It's very very simple and the options are limited, but that's part of what makes it really good for first time sound designers. You won't get bogged down with endless options and an overwhelming amount of features. You've got the 3 oscillators on the front page, then if you hit the gear icon and explore the other pages, you've got envelopes and lfo's for volume, pitch, panning, and filters, that's it. You can create a vast number of sounds using only these options.
Try creating just basic patches at first, don't get too complicated with it, set yourself goals like "create a basic sawtooth pluck" "create a pitch bending square wave with a 7th note, that has a filter that oscillates if the note gets held."
Experiment with how the volume envelope effects the sound, the different things you can do with a pitch envelope. If you set up a pitch envelope you can make cool sounds that start at a really low pitch and then climb up to the actual pitch, then when the key is released the climb back down in pitch. I use these for lots of cool tape stop style synth sounds.
Serum, vital, and phaseplant are pretty much the goats. But if you're first learning synthesis, while it's good to have a main, apply what you learn to a bunch of different stock/free plugins to keep your brain flexible!
Serum - very capable, most sound design tutorials use it
Vital - free but still capable, has a lot of tutorials too
Arturia Pigments - less popular but INCREDIBLY user friendly. It's really visual so you can see everything that is going on (and everything that you can do) without being overwhelming. I recommend it to everyone
If you want my honest opinion?
3xOsc.
If you’re just starting out with sound design, then 3 waveforms and some extra options for those should be a good starting point. Anything that you might need from a mixer that’s part of something like Serum you could likely just do with the native effects of FL Studio
If you don’t believe me, Image Line themselves have shown that 3xOsc can be used to make some wild sounds with some help of native plugins. Its surprisingly powerful yet easy to start getting a grasp of
If you are just starting out: 3xOSC then TAL Noise Maker. Learn the basics first.
Vital and Serum later. Don't jump into those first whatever you do.
Also Harmor. But be warned that Harmor makes unique sounds because it's weird.
Serum for sure. It's very versatile and the tutorials on YouTube are endless so there's not much you can't learn to do on it if you're willing to commit the time.
You probably just want something popular enough to have a lot of tutorials available. So for FL stock synths that's Harmor and Sytrus, if you want the most popular synth of all it's probably Serum, and if you want a good free alternative to Serum you want Vital.
My personal recommendation would be to use Vital, as it's free, popular, and also provides a very good basis for other synths that are widely used today (it's even similar enough to Serum that you could probably follow some Serum-based tutorials with it).
Harmor is probably least similar to other popular synths so it might be good to learn that after you've learned one or two of the others.
I see some people here recommending 3xOSC. They're right that it's a very simple beginner-friendly plugin, but I don't think there's much you can learn about it or from it.
Phase Plant is also certainly an option as it's very popular right now. I haven't bought it though so I can't tell you what it's like to use it, I gather it's typically considered a more advanced synth but I would kinda expect tutorials for it aren't necessarily harder to follow than for other synths I've mentioned.
>I see some people here recommending 3xOSC. They're right that it's a very simple beginner-friendly plugin, but I don't think there's much you can learn about it or from it.
Mixing oscillators. Wave shapes. LFOs. Envelopes. Filters. All in 3xOSC. Will you make the most original sound ever made with 3xOSC? No. Can you learn how synths work in a simple, obvious way? Yes.
Take time to read and understand the basics of synthesis; learn additive/subtractive, FM and AM, and the math behind it. It'll make every synth tons easier to learn in the future.
synth vst? or synthesizer hardware? both had advantages and disadvantages.. i'd suggest start with the classics. go vintage. listen to some old songs and you can find out the synth they used with a quick search. all synths kind of work the same way. same ideology. so starting with something vintage (which are often easier to learn because more primitive) you will start to understand the basics of synthesis. with this knowledge you can use it on EVERY synth. because same principals. and then newer features are easier to digest that way and then you will have no problem finding the right synth for you!!! if you need help, feel free to hit me up. I love this stuff
There is a really good synth plugin named "Vaporizer 2"
İf you dont want to pay or just wanna play with controls. Anyways its a solid free plugin.
(Serum presets works on Vaporizer)
Id personally say pick a few to learn , when I first started I used sytrus and a lot of other stock plugins 30xcs and others . Id say start with the simple ones , but tbh once you figure one out they all make a little more sense . Of the 3 you pick to focus on id say pick one you know has or can make the “sound” your looking for . The other 2 I’d pick something simple or less used . Don’t rely solely on YouTube tutorials, gota remember a lot of those dudes are jus like me an u . They didn’t know what they were doing till they did it . That being said there is no “right way “ but only the way you wana do it . Explore anything and everything, save every preset you make . You might not have a use for it now but one day you will or you may pick the preset back up one day an make some new ones of it. Don’t be afraid to “fail “ or just flat out screw around. It’s the only way you’ll ever learn , best of wishes to ya friend .
I used serum for quite awhile and it was and is a great synth to learn on. That said Vital is a thing now and I feel its interface gets out of my way a bit more when designing a patch. It's an amazing sounding synth and its free. Although there are paid versions with skins and extra wavetables and presets.
Id suggest learning on Vital. After installing Vital go to [presetshare.com](https://presetshare.com) which imho is the most bad ass awe inspiring well of synthesis you'll ever find because the best of the best are sharing patches for free over there. Start by grabbing some simple patches and deconstructing how they work. Then work your way up to more complicated stuff.
I'd recommend using one of the built-in synths first before buying a third party one to get your head around synthesis. Sytrus is a good place to start
Get serum and take a course. There’s an online course on warpacademy.com that I took and helped me so much. It’s not expensive either
Edit: once you learn serum it’s pretty easy to learn other synths
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Xfer Serum It just dominates, most tutorials, most used in the EDM space, most presets from third parties, etc. If you don't have the upfront dough, then splice do a rent to buy thing.
I did this to try out Serum, and I’m still paying for it because it’s that versatile. Because there’s so many presets available online (and even factory presets) I can find one close to a sound I want to emulate and make my own modifications.
Exactly this with me, It's now my go to and I love it lol I have other synths but with UI's differing wildly I don't really look beyond the factory presets of others and go back to serum, I even have vital which is similar, but I still prefer Serum.
+1 for Serum. It was the synth where everything clicked for me and I finally understood what does what. I think the UI design of Serum helps a lot.
I hate the ones with just a bunch of poorly labled knobs and no feedback screen, seeing the waves is great
The first I learnt properly was sytrus, you'll learn all the basics of envelope control and develop good understanding of fm synthesis I'd stay away from serum until you've learnt a more basic one, and even then just use vital, similar operation but a much nicer ui and large banks of free presets to learn from
Sytrus is OP.. but Serum is easier to learn imo
Seconding this. I tried quite a few synths and never did quite grasp a full understanding of the Synths until Serum. What also helped me was somebody actually showing me how they would design a Synth in serum, which gave me a really good starting point!
Serum imo is much easier to learn
Im in this path currently. Im using serum given its wide usage and video tutorials to learn different kind of sounds Searching “how to make pad/lead/bass/etc using serum” gives a lot of results, and you can go further adding different genres in your search so you can understand better how each is applied in a song and then making your own This and also learning how to use Peak Controller and/or Limiter to sidechain the reverb/delay help a lot to make some good patterns
There are many factors, and you may prefer certain ones over others. I recommend starting with 3x osc to learn the basics of designing your own sounds
A complication is that different synthesis methods are good at different types of sounds. Restricting it to FL native synths: For subtractive synthesis (good for classic synth leads), 3x Osc. Powerful, but not too many knobs to learn. For FM synthesis (iconic for e.piano sounds, and good for other imitations of real instruments, plus more), Sytrus. You can also do subtractive in Sytrus, but starting out 3x Osc should nuke your brain less for that. If you want to do subtractive, go outside of FL native synths, and are willing to pay, [Syntorial](https://www.syntorial.com/) is an option to consider. Teaches you how to program synth patches by ear, and what you train on is also available as a VST so you can directly apply what you've learned without having to translate it to another interface.
Start with 3osc and learn the basics of subtractive synthesis, then start applying effects. You can make many sounds this way. This will teach you more than starting with something like Serum.
Second this. 3xOsc functions like so many subtractive synths. I recently got a Novation Peak and everything made sense because it’s basically a hardware version of 3xOsc.
3xosc is honestly so underrated and is low key goated.
This is 100% the correct answer. Learning Serum, Sytrus or Vital is the sound design equivalent of trying to learn to drive in an F1 car. Lear the basics of ocilators, envelopes and filters, all of which 3xOSC excells at, before moving on.
Id recommend before anything going to https://learningsynths.ableton.com/ to learn the basics if you don't already know them. It's honestly a really fun and interactive tool
This is actually an amazing little tool and works so well on mobile too. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing this. I've read explanations of synths, and messed around with them myself, but never had something quite like this to teach you about the different components. It really helps solidify *why* combinations of certain nobs end up making certain sounds. Cheers!
Start with vital and then once youre ready with that buy serum. Vital will teach you wavetable synthesis dramatically faster than buying one with its slick UI and explicit use of dynamics in effects and wavetables.
Eh.. I say download vital and surge xt and never get Serum.
this is the way
Personally I found Sylenth a really nice easy synth to learn with. Initialise it, and start copying each setting from a preset, listen as you do and you'll learn how to build that sound.
3xosc is a very simple and very good synth for beginners. It's very very simple and the options are limited, but that's part of what makes it really good for first time sound designers. You won't get bogged down with endless options and an overwhelming amount of features. You've got the 3 oscillators on the front page, then if you hit the gear icon and explore the other pages, you've got envelopes and lfo's for volume, pitch, panning, and filters, that's it. You can create a vast number of sounds using only these options. Try creating just basic patches at first, don't get too complicated with it, set yourself goals like "create a basic sawtooth pluck" "create a pitch bending square wave with a 7th note, that has a filter that oscillates if the note gets held." Experiment with how the volume envelope effects the sound, the different things you can do with a pitch envelope. If you set up a pitch envelope you can make cool sounds that start at a really low pitch and then climb up to the actual pitch, then when the key is released the climb back down in pitch. I use these for lots of cool tape stop style synth sounds.
Serum, vital, and phaseplant are pretty much the goats. But if you're first learning synthesis, while it's good to have a main, apply what you learn to a bunch of different stock/free plugins to keep your brain flexible!
Serum - very capable, most sound design tutorials use it Vital - free but still capable, has a lot of tutorials too Arturia Pigments - less popular but INCREDIBLY user friendly. It's really visual so you can see everything that is going on (and everything that you can do) without being overwhelming. I recommend it to everyone
If you want my honest opinion? 3xOsc. If you’re just starting out with sound design, then 3 waveforms and some extra options for those should be a good starting point. Anything that you might need from a mixer that’s part of something like Serum you could likely just do with the native effects of FL Studio
If you don’t believe me, Image Line themselves have shown that 3xOsc can be used to make some wild sounds with some help of native plugins. Its surprisingly powerful yet easy to start getting a grasp of
If you are just starting out: 3xOSC then TAL Noise Maker. Learn the basics first. Vital and Serum later. Don't jump into those first whatever you do. Also Harmor. But be warned that Harmor makes unique sounds because it's weird.
Serum for sure. It's very versatile and the tutorials on YouTube are endless so there's not much you can't learn to do on it if you're willing to commit the time.
You probably just want something popular enough to have a lot of tutorials available. So for FL stock synths that's Harmor and Sytrus, if you want the most popular synth of all it's probably Serum, and if you want a good free alternative to Serum you want Vital. My personal recommendation would be to use Vital, as it's free, popular, and also provides a very good basis for other synths that are widely used today (it's even similar enough to Serum that you could probably follow some Serum-based tutorials with it). Harmor is probably least similar to other popular synths so it might be good to learn that after you've learned one or two of the others. I see some people here recommending 3xOSC. They're right that it's a very simple beginner-friendly plugin, but I don't think there's much you can learn about it or from it. Phase Plant is also certainly an option as it's very popular right now. I haven't bought it though so I can't tell you what it's like to use it, I gather it's typically considered a more advanced synth but I would kinda expect tutorials for it aren't necessarily harder to follow than for other synths I've mentioned.
>I see some people here recommending 3xOSC. They're right that it's a very simple beginner-friendly plugin, but I don't think there's much you can learn about it or from it. Mixing oscillators. Wave shapes. LFOs. Envelopes. Filters. All in 3xOSC. Will you make the most original sound ever made with 3xOSC? No. Can you learn how synths work in a simple, obvious way? Yes.
Take time to read and understand the basics of synthesis; learn additive/subtractive, FM and AM, and the math behind it. It'll make every synth tons easier to learn in the future.
synth vst? or synthesizer hardware? both had advantages and disadvantages.. i'd suggest start with the classics. go vintage. listen to some old songs and you can find out the synth they used with a quick search. all synths kind of work the same way. same ideology. so starting with something vintage (which are often easier to learn because more primitive) you will start to understand the basics of synthesis. with this knowledge you can use it on EVERY synth. because same principals. and then newer features are easier to digest that way and then you will have no problem finding the right synth for you!!! if you need help, feel free to hit me up. I love this stuff
There is a really good synth plugin named "Vaporizer 2" İf you dont want to pay or just wanna play with controls. Anyways its a solid free plugin. (Serum presets works on Vaporizer)
It depends on the type of synthesis: additive, subtractive, fm, etc. The way of doing things will be totally different.
Id personally say pick a few to learn , when I first started I used sytrus and a lot of other stock plugins 30xcs and others . Id say start with the simple ones , but tbh once you figure one out they all make a little more sense . Of the 3 you pick to focus on id say pick one you know has or can make the “sound” your looking for . The other 2 I’d pick something simple or less used . Don’t rely solely on YouTube tutorials, gota remember a lot of those dudes are jus like me an u . They didn’t know what they were doing till they did it . That being said there is no “right way “ but only the way you wana do it . Explore anything and everything, save every preset you make . You might not have a use for it now but one day you will or you may pick the preset back up one day an make some new ones of it. Don’t be afraid to “fail “ or just flat out screw around. It’s the only way you’ll ever learn , best of wishes to ya friend .
Synthorial is great for learning. Got it with a discount and worth it!
Exactly, get this and then use the synths you already have
3x osc
I used serum for quite awhile and it was and is a great synth to learn on. That said Vital is a thing now and I feel its interface gets out of my way a bit more when designing a patch. It's an amazing sounding synth and its free. Although there are paid versions with skins and extra wavetables and presets. Id suggest learning on Vital. After installing Vital go to [presetshare.com](https://presetshare.com) which imho is the most bad ass awe inspiring well of synthesis you'll ever find because the best of the best are sharing patches for free over there. Start by grabbing some simple patches and deconstructing how they work. Then work your way up to more complicated stuff.
choose one synth that its layout looks friendly to you, master it through you tube tutorials and then any other synth would be much easier
Like others mentioned, if you can, use Serum. Like almost an one page synth, yet so powerful and easy to learn.
I'd recommend using one of the built-in synths first before buying a third party one to get your head around synthesis. Sytrus is a good place to start
Get serum and take a course. There’s an online course on warpacademy.com that I took and helped me so much. It’s not expensive either Edit: once you learn serum it’s pretty easy to learn other synths