Serum 2, 11 years in development, is here. And it looks ready to take on its rivals, with an updated interface, arpeggiator expanded oscillator architecture (phase distortion!), granular and multisampler and spectral oscillators, new effects features, and – surprise, even a clip sequencer. It’s really an all-in-one synth now without sacrificing its trademark accessibility. Here’s everything in a nutshell.
Someone must be excited, as it seems they’ve managed to crash the Xfer site. (You haven’t broken YouTube, though, so added those videos below. )
Let’s do this at a glance:
Oscillators alone get major updates:
- Smooth interpolation mode for wavetables. (“near-infinite frame positions” – interesting)
- Expanded wavetable oscillator features: Filtering, FM, phase distortion, ring mod, distortions, and wavetable warps
- Multisample oscillator. Uh, whoa – yeah, they just crammed a multisampler into there with an elegant interface and standard sfz file support, meaning a bunch of multisamples work out of the box – just like Serum’s wavetables.
- Sample oscillator. So… Simpler in an oscillator, and then some. I like the warp, waveshaping, and distortion modes – again FM, phase distortion, and distortion types, plus loopin with snap loop detection, loop modulation, and rate for “tape stop”, slicing… wait, “realtime score extraction,” what?!
- Granular oscillator with the usual fixin’s. Doesn’t look quite as deep as some competing granular oscillators, but it also looks really accessible in a way some of those aren’t (cough).
- Spectral oscillator for resynthesis of samples – total curveball for this kind of synth.
Adding all that in a single instrument is unprecedented, especially when you throw in the spectral oscillator. That helps this contrast nicely with Arturia’s Pigments 6 and modal synthesis – and it’s great that these synths aren’t all doing exactly the same thing, kitchen-sink style. So each of these till feels very, erm, Serum-ish.
Everyone does see to be adding disperser/diffuser filters (hello, Live 12.2). New filters:
- Comb 2
- Diffuser filter
- Second filter (not just one)
All new FX overhaul. Three effects channels, multi-band, mid/side, and the ability to instantiate an effect more than once. Plus:
- Convolution reverb
- Bode frequency shifter
And still more:
- Expanded modulation options
- Chaos modulation and strange attractors (mmmmm – Lorenz systems!)
- Arpeggiator
- MIDI clip player (okay, as I think about this, this fits the “import a wavetable easily” ethos of the original)
Put together the clip launching and sampler / multisampler features, and you could use this the way some people use tools like Ableton Live. There’s something appealing to putting a bit part of your song in the instrument and playing it.
The wonderful Databroth has a must-read review and video stream; I definitely recommend that – my kind of people (I mean, you get that from “data” and “broth,” really):
Been enjoying the livestream from them as I write this:
And you can support DATABROTH with their presets/wavetables on Gumroad. Much prefer this to some of the breathless Serum coverage out there.
But this looks really promising. Strange attractors, sample and MIDI clip manipulation, spectral resynthesis – those are all combined in a package here you don’t necessarily get in Pigments 6 or Massive X or the U-he line or Surge XT, etc. It’s clear this fills in some gaps in Serum that those rivals offered, but at the same time, it isn’t just a convergence where all these plug-ins converge. And that’s not what we want, really; you want them to borrow the best ideas and workflow tips but continue to be distinct tools, which appears to be what’s happening.
And I love how much the UI fits into one window while still having panes to navigate. They’ve managed to do all of this without disrupting the basic user interface and workflow, which I expect is part of why Massive X never caught on the way the original Massive did, even as Massive’s design launched this whole instrument category.
One to watch for sure. Xfer Records’ site for once they get it back up. Why I haven’t had a server issue since, uh, okay that was Saturday morning but let’s not talk about that it’s fixed now goodnight.
https://xferrecords.com/products/serum-2
Free for existing users; US$189 intro price if you don’t own Serum ($249 thereafter).
macOS/Windows – Linux users, you’re still on Surge and Bitwig Studio, etc.
Here’s a great walkthrough from letsynthesize: