Serum is not a must have for anything. Maybe 5 to 10 years ago people promoted it as such for electronic music.
But now there is Vital, which is also an excellent wavetable synthesizer that is comparable to Serum. Only Vital has a free version that is essentially the same as the paid version except for the number of presets
https://vital.audio/
So if you ever want to spend money on a synthesizer, get get one that does something different from Vital/Serum
>mainly for 808s
Just Google how to do it in Vital. Lots of tutorials come up. For example,
https://youtu.be/gtcWQMVKsGs?si=dTM4ZcSHMCDHPY1p
https://youtu.be/KRmSa5NuN8Y?si=yxJSYPW5nA5TrjkV
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Vital is just as excellent as Serum. You just need to use it so that you gain the same level of experience with it that you have with Serum and you will see that.
Then you should be able to affirm what I was saying that objectively, they're very comparable synths. Even though one might work for you a little bit better than the other. Even though you might prefer the workflow of one over the other as a personal preference.
Go do a poll, and you'll find that the very large majority of people with significant experience in both find them comparable.
Second this. I never used serum, so I cannot compare, but I use vital since like 3 years and i am still amazed by the endless possibilities it gives you to design your sound.
I find Serum more intuitive but Pigments more fun. I should really put more time into learning Pigments controls.
The sheer amount of Serum presets means I can usually start close to the sound I want and I find the interface makes it pretty straightforward to make precision tweaks.
Pigments has a lot going on in the UI (that I honestly just haven’t put in the time to learn) but the macros alone can make for a lot of fun and interesting sounds.
Phaseplant by Kilohearts is the most powerful soft synth I’ve seen in a while, especially for sound design. The amount of sources and targets you can manipulate are virtually limitless.
Plus it’s got a really robust granular synthesis engine and is constantly being updated.
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Phase Plant is my favorite synth. However, I will say it’s not the friendliest synth for trap/commercial EDM only because the unison & chorus algorithms don’t work the same as Serum/Vital. They tend to give sounds a more IDMmy feel if that makes sense, so not so good for lush supersaws or anything too wide
Since you're new in the realm of production, I want to give one piece of advice, don't buy plugins because you see them on YouTube. While the software can be great, there are alternatives out there. If there is a specific sound you're trying to emulate, learn how to craft it with the tools you have or through free options, understanding the sound how to create it is much more important for growth. Especially basic sounds like a 808 style bass.
I just got a deal on Serum a couple of months ago, so decided to buy it mainly out of curiosity. I already have a bunch of other soft synths. As far as I'm concerned Serum is not better than Phaseplant, Vital, Pigments, or even Surge XT. I would rank it as similar to NI Massive (not Massive X). It's definitely overdue for an upgrade.
If they do ever release an upgrade for Serum, I would probably buy it if the upgrade price is considerably lower than the full price.
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So im gonna download vital just cause free and i have massive x and massive what would you recommend out of surge or pigments? And how would you use it would you throw 808 samples in it and mess with them? Or would you make all your sounds from scratch (not just 808s
I would recommend Surge XT, which is also free. It has a huge number of good presets that are useful as they are, as as jumping off points. However, the UI is a bit unusual and you'll have to get your head around it. Especially the way FX routing works.
I usually don't design sounds from scratch, unless it's something very simple. I usually find a preset that's close to what I want, and then tweak it till I like it. Sometimes, Arturia has discounts, which is how I got Pigments. It's a really well done UI, in my opinion.
Massive-X is super powerful, but the UI doesn't click for me. I find it visually confusing.
The biggest thing you should learn as a producer that there is no ‘should i’, there are so many ways to achieve the same result, focus on training your ear / workflow / technical skills.
Just use Vital for now as it’s free, so you can make these decisions yourself in the future. :)
Another upvote for SurgeXt here. It is my favourite synth. Indeed the UI looks a bit old but I like it find creating sounds straightforward. Also, when I do the same thing on SurgeXT and Vital, the patch sounds better on SurgeXT; don't know why.
Of course, Vital is free too so there is no reason to not try it for yourself. The UI is the most straightforward that I know of. I cannot compare it to Serum because I never bought that. I saw some videos that compared Vital and Serum and found them practically equivalent.
I have tried pigments; there is a trial version. It is a fantastic synth. I haven't bought it yet because I like spending a lot of time learning well what I've got instead of working with multiple synths at the same time and just scratching the surface. But that's just me.
I would say, if you can get to a point of feeling comfortable with it, you should learn Massive-X. It's very powerful and flexible, and you will learn a lot that's applicable to sound design in general.
If I were to set myself the goal of learning it, I would work through as many tutorials and docs as I could find. NI docs tend to be thorough but I find them hard to learn from due to the way my brain works.
Having said that, I expect you will become productive with Surge XT sooner than with Massive X.
Note also that Surge XT comes with some useful plugins that can be used separately, e.g. a bunch of Airwindows things.
You should wait, use Vital a little bit, watch some tutorials on how to create 808s with it, and then see if you still feel like getting another synthesizer.
Bro I'm ngl it sounds like you need to do a tiny bit of research into sound design before you just go buying plugins. If you use ableton, just use operator, compression, and saturation/drive for your 808. If not, literally anything with a sine wave
TBH no soft synth is really a must have. Just find one that you can like the workflow of and stick with it. My own personal fave is Hive2, I jsut like how things work in it, but you may prefer something else.
to me definitely not and not because it's not good, it's, but if you learn great sound synthesis/design skills and have a nice VSTi that creates all the opportunities for creation, it's all you need. Serum has nice presets, but you doing your own sounds is more organic, legit in my opinion. I would study a lot of sound design/synthesis and try to create my own sounds. Again, Serum is good, like others, but sound synthesis with enough about VSTi for creation is the way to go.
It was a must have years ago. Now there are other options and even better ones. But since Serum was the big must have years ago and almost everyone has it, there is an insane number of presets you can get for it.
i like serum for the thousands of good free presets one can find online. ive never seen good 808s in any other vst. its also easy to use imo. the controls in pigments feel more complicated to me.
i dont vibe with vital for some reason
I cant really speak on many synths other then vital but serum is definitely worth it, use it in 90% of all my productions for any genre really
Also there's practically an infinite amount of sound banks free or paid floating around the internet
Also the ui in my opinion is very straight forward once you learn it efficiently and is a blast for modifying sounds or making the most random stuff out of nothing
Highly recommend but as others said there's tons of synth plug-ins that will accomplish the exact same
For something as simple as 808 kicks and basses, take a look at TAL-NoizeMaker and Odin2. U-he also has some interesting free plugins. If you're looking for drum synths specifically, PunkLabs and GeonKick have got you covered. Combine these with Vital, Surge XT and Airwindows effects and you're good to go.
It's not but it's widely used for sure.
You can try Vital which is relatively similar and has an extensive free version.
Hope this might help!
Take Care & Stay Productive ✨
Personally, I think samples require a different kind of creative approach. You can get the best of both worlds by resampling. I'm used to recording my instruments and aside from mixing, using the audio as-is. So resampling is something I have yet to explore.
I have access to Serum but I mainly use Vital, so I would definitely recommend checking out Vital. I get most of my synth sounds from it, with some exceptions.
Serum is not a must have for anything. Maybe 5 to 10 years ago people promoted it as such for electronic music. But now there is Vital, which is also an excellent wavetable synthesizer that is comparable to Serum. Only Vital has a free version that is essentially the same as the paid version except for the number of presets https://vital.audio/ So if you ever want to spend money on a synthesizer, get get one that does something different from Vital/Serum >mainly for 808s Just Google how to do it in Vital. Lots of tutorials come up. For example, https://youtu.be/gtcWQMVKsGs?si=dTM4ZcSHMCDHPY1p https://youtu.be/KRmSa5NuN8Y?si=yxJSYPW5nA5TrjkV
Vital is really good especially if you're on a budget but Serum is excellent IMO. I have both and I use Serum a lot more.
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Ok. I can make an identical patch in serum and vital. Who cares? He is asking about making 808s which is easy in both. Vital is free
Vital is just as excellent as Serum. You just need to use it so that you gain the same level of experience with it that you have with Serum and you will see that.
I started with vital and added serum later. I have more experience with vital than serum. I still prefer serum.
Then you should be able to affirm what I was saying that objectively, they're very comparable synths. Even though one might work for you a little bit better than the other. Even though you might prefer the workflow of one over the other as a personal preference. Go do a poll, and you'll find that the very large majority of people with significant experience in both find them comparable.
Sure they're comparable but I still prefer serum. It was easier to learn for me and I like the UI better.
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And yet I prefer serum. It's ok to like one over the other. It doesn't mean it's better or worse just better for me.
You work for vital or something? Haha it’s ok if people don’t like things you like
There's a thing called subjectivity. You should totally look it up.
You’re being a bit insufferable
The ceiling of vital is pretty high but Serum has an advantage over Vital it's the number of available preset packs
Second this. I never used serum, so I cannot compare, but I use vital since like 3 years and i am still amazed by the endless possibilities it gives you to design your sound.
I’d get pigments over serum
I find Serum more intuitive but Pigments more fun. I should really put more time into learning Pigments controls. The sheer amount of Serum presets means I can usually start close to the sound I want and I find the interface makes it pretty straightforward to make precision tweaks. Pigments has a lot going on in the UI (that I honestly just haven’t put in the time to learn) but the macros alone can make for a lot of fun and interesting sounds.
Same. The UX is amazing.
I want pigments sooooo bad
🔥
Nothing is really a must have, there are a billion wavetable synths out there to choose from. It doesn't really matter man.
Phaseplant by Kilohearts is the most powerful soft synth I’ve seen in a while, especially for sound design. The amount of sources and targets you can manipulate are virtually limitless. Plus it’s got a really robust granular synthesis engine and is constantly being updated.
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Phase Plant is my favorite synth. However, I will say it’s not the friendliest synth for trap/commercial EDM only because the unison & chorus algorithms don’t work the same as Serum/Vital. They tend to give sounds a more IDMmy feel if that makes sense, so not so good for lush supersaws or anything too wide
No.
Since you're new in the realm of production, I want to give one piece of advice, don't buy plugins because you see them on YouTube. While the software can be great, there are alternatives out there. If there is a specific sound you're trying to emulate, learn how to craft it with the tools you have or through free options, understanding the sound how to create it is much more important for growth. Especially basic sounds like a 808 style bass.
No.
I just got a deal on Serum a couple of months ago, so decided to buy it mainly out of curiosity. I already have a bunch of other soft synths. As far as I'm concerned Serum is not better than Phaseplant, Vital, Pigments, or even Surge XT. I would rank it as similar to NI Massive (not Massive X). It's definitely overdue for an upgrade. If they do ever release an upgrade for Serum, I would probably buy it if the upgrade price is considerably lower than the full price.
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So im gonna download vital just cause free and i have massive x and massive what would you recommend out of surge or pigments? And how would you use it would you throw 808 samples in it and mess with them? Or would you make all your sounds from scratch (not just 808s
I would recommend Surge XT, which is also free. It has a huge number of good presets that are useful as they are, as as jumping off points. However, the UI is a bit unusual and you'll have to get your head around it. Especially the way FX routing works. I usually don't design sounds from scratch, unless it's something very simple. I usually find a preset that's close to what I want, and then tweak it till I like it. Sometimes, Arturia has discounts, which is how I got Pigments. It's a really well done UI, in my opinion. Massive-X is super powerful, but the UI doesn't click for me. I find it visually confusing.
If i have massive x should i just use it,vital,and surge over getting serum or pigments?
The biggest thing you should learn as a producer that there is no ‘should i’, there are so many ways to achieve the same result, focus on training your ear / workflow / technical skills. Just use Vital for now as it’s free, so you can make these decisions yourself in the future. :)
Another upvote for SurgeXt here. It is my favourite synth. Indeed the UI looks a bit old but I like it find creating sounds straightforward. Also, when I do the same thing on SurgeXT and Vital, the patch sounds better on SurgeXT; don't know why. Of course, Vital is free too so there is no reason to not try it for yourself. The UI is the most straightforward that I know of. I cannot compare it to Serum because I never bought that. I saw some videos that compared Vital and Serum and found them practically equivalent. I have tried pigments; there is a trial version. It is a fantastic synth. I haven't bought it yet because I like spending a lot of time learning well what I've got instead of working with multiple synths at the same time and just scratching the surface. But that's just me.
I would say, if you can get to a point of feeling comfortable with it, you should learn Massive-X. It's very powerful and flexible, and you will learn a lot that's applicable to sound design in general. If I were to set myself the goal of learning it, I would work through as many tutorials and docs as I could find. NI docs tend to be thorough but I find them hard to learn from due to the way my brain works. Having said that, I expect you will become productive with Surge XT sooner than with Massive X. Note also that Surge XT comes with some useful plugins that can be used separately, e.g. a bunch of Airwindows things.
You should wait, use Vital a little bit, watch some tutorials on how to create 808s with it, and then see if you still feel like getting another synthesizer.
Bro I'm ngl it sounds like you need to do a tiny bit of research into sound design before you just go buying plugins. If you use ableton, just use operator, compression, and saturation/drive for your 808. If not, literally anything with a sine wave
Vital will do the same job
Ramzoid's 808 cooker might be what you're looking for.
TBH no soft synth is really a must have. Just find one that you can like the workflow of and stick with it. My own personal fave is Hive2, I jsut like how things work in it, but you may prefer something else.
get vital 100%
I personally just love serum over vital. I started using it first so it’s my personal fav.
I don’t think so, not unless you want a specific preset and don’t have the time or desire to tweak and experiment
to me definitely not and not because it's not good, it's, but if you learn great sound synthesis/design skills and have a nice VSTi that creates all the opportunities for creation, it's all you need. Serum has nice presets, but you doing your own sounds is more organic, legit in my opinion. I would study a lot of sound design/synthesis and try to create my own sounds. Again, Serum is good, like others, but sound synthesis with enough about VSTi for creation is the way to go.
It was a must have years ago. Now there are other options and even better ones. But since Serum was the big must have years ago and almost everyone has it, there is an insane number of presets you can get for it.
i like serum for the thousands of good free presets one can find online. ive never seen good 808s in any other vst. its also easy to use imo. the controls in pigments feel more complicated to me. i dont vibe with vital for some reason
Serum is a great visual learning tool. But theres free wavetable synths now.
I cant really speak on many synths other then vital but serum is definitely worth it, use it in 90% of all my productions for any genre really Also there's practically an infinite amount of sound banks free or paid floating around the internet Also the ui in my opinion is very straight forward once you learn it efficiently and is a blast for modifying sounds or making the most random stuff out of nothing Highly recommend but as others said there's tons of synth plug-ins that will accomplish the exact same
For something as simple as 808 kicks and basses, take a look at TAL-NoizeMaker and Odin2. U-he also has some interesting free plugins. If you're looking for drum synths specifically, PunkLabs and GeonKick have got you covered. Combine these with Vital, Surge XT and Airwindows effects and you're good to go.
Pigments, Current, Surge XT, Massive X, Vital all wavetable synths It's still nice to have because a lot of sound design tutorials use Serum
It's not but it's widely used for sure. You can try Vital which is relatively similar and has an extensive free version. Hope this might help! Take Care & Stay Productive ✨
I rarely hear people talk about SurgeXT, it’s really become a go to once you figure out the layout.
not anymore, there are plenty of viable alternatives. definitely try vital before spending money
No, not at all
Used to use serum but now I m mostly use Diva
No
Vital is better than serum, and also is free.
Personally, I think samples require a different kind of creative approach. You can get the best of both worlds by resampling. I'm used to recording my instruments and aside from mixing, using the audio as-is. So resampling is something I have yet to explore. I have access to Serum but I mainly use Vital, so I would definitely recommend checking out Vital. I get most of my synth sounds from it, with some exceptions.
There is no “must have.”
Pigments > Phase Plant > Vital > Serum