Is Serum Still Good for Bass Design in 2023?

[@kidsonicofficial]

There is a way to randomise stuff In serum. If you map the cutoff to the Chaos modifier in the matrix, it acts like a sample and hold and can be smoothed.

[@Alckemy]

I’m aware. I don’t like it because of how limited it is. The behavior is also super jittery.

[@xxHEADSHOTTxx]

Thanks for being so detailed in your explanations and for addressing techniques & topics at a level both beginners and advanced users can learn from! Also side note would love to see a Vital/Serum/Phaseplant pros & cons video, like certain sound design aspects each lacks or does well compared to eachother!

[@Alckemy]

Thanks for the recommendation and kind words. I do have a vital vs phaseplant video you can watch in the meantime:)

[@codexstudios]

Thanks for this! I started making a neurobass in Serum, ended up with an awesome filter/phat/reverb/neuro rack. Bitwig modulators help my sound design process so much

[@No.0.o.0]

I still use serum for certain things I just love serum’s LFOs, so fast and you can modulate the points! Don’t have to open a window to edit the shape! Wink wink

[@BingBoing652]

There's artists who still use massive as their main synth, just get really good at one synth

[@Alckemy]

It’s all the same

[@MrOuija-rr8kq]

Yeah I just watched someone go crazy with 3xOSC lol

[@johnjohntv1195]

@@MrOuija-rr8kqFeedMe loves 3xOsc

[@deltarose7277]

Even though phase plant is extremely capable, and its really fun messing around in it, I always use serum for something in a project. I guess since its the synth I saw the most when I was starting I kind of just default to it and the workflow it has, and the limitations it has compared to phase plant make it feel easier to get results faster to me, probably a skill issue on my end though. I bet if I spent more time diving deeper into phase plant Id use it more equally to serum. Still love them both

[@Alckemy]

I don’t think it matters if what you use is what you like. I was trying to make a point about how knowledge can transfer to other programs and at the same time understand what serum can and can’t do. Serums great! I just found a cooler program for me

[@deltarose7277]

@@Alckemy oh yeah definitely, I think what I was touchin on is I think i can do cooler things in phase plant and vital than in serum but for some reason i keep going back lol

[@Xenowave]

4:35 Exactly, I'd argue a good sound designer is extremely comfortable knowing what they need to do to get the result they want. 💃💃

[@RemAtmos]

Xeno!!

[@Xenowave]

@@RemAtmos Yooooo it's Rem 🙏💃💃

[@rlti9914]

Thank you for great video and good knoledge!!! Anyway, if I got SerumFx and snap heap, is Infiltrator 2 still great?

[@kriss12loverap]

Infiltrator is kinda like serumfx but with more effects. I would say yes go for it. But if ur new to music it’s better to focus on : Staying in key, Having a proper rythem Making ur drums hit Make sure the mix highlight the sounds u want to poke out And learn have to go from one place to the next (arrangement). These are more important than any plugin for somebody new. Remember fx are only polish on top of what u started with. It’s better to have a good structured beat, Than a beat with the most fancy fx.

[@Alckemy]

Infiltrator has a very specific kind of sound that I’m not a particular fan of but other people live it. I’d say demo it and see if you think the stuff you get out of it seems usable

[@AFRoSHEENT3ARCMICHAEL69]

Hell yeah it is. Infiltrator will make basic sounds come to life. I really like how you can randomize the presets.

[@FluxNoise]

Hey Alckemy! I have a little video idea for you. Not exactly a request but i think it might be interesting for new people getting into music/production and it might also be a concept that can work for shorts. How about a "What makes XY" series? It could be things like "What makes a Reese bass? - Some kind of 2 slightly different frequencies interfering with each other". Or you can quickly explain some genres "What makes Neurofunk? - Typically these kind of Basses, short synthetic drums, these kind of rythms" etc. Of course these are not meant to be definitive answers but more like startingpoints for people who want to get into genres, bass styles or whatever. Not too deep, just general typical attributes a thing usually has and maybe a few examples how to make things in their simplest form etc. It would also be helpful for people who just wanna know "What's a Growl exactly?" or something like this. I remember that it was hard for me at the beginning to figure out the terminology that gets referenced in alot of videos or figuring out how a specific atmosphere of a genre comes to be and things like that. And your library of simple bass sound presets for PP helped alot with that but i still had to figure out how these sounds work myself and i also had to dig a bit deeper to get the presets in the first place. Just having a small list of short videos that are searchable on youtube would have been helpfull and might also help to be discovered by new producers who search for the simple stuff and learn the basics. I think alot of times new people who search for things like "how to make bases like Noisia" don't actually want to make a bass like Noisia but they just don't know how a bass they heared in a Noisia track is actually called. If you hear a Reese in a Noisia track for the first time and you don't know what a reese is you might as well thing that's a Noisia thing. I for sure thought that about Neuro style filtering for a while :D

[@Alckemy]

Thanks for the suggestion, have you seen the bass dictionary i made?

[@FluxNoise]

@@Alckemy Yes thats the PP presets i was talking about that were so helpful to me. But the idea was to not just make these videos about basses but also styles, genres, drums, fx like „what makes a snare a snare and not a hat?“ etc. It would be possible to make these about all kinds of music related stuff really and get alot of small dictionaries in video form that way. Easily searchable and optainable. At least in my head it sounds pretty useful especially for newcomers.

[@Alckemy]

Let me think on it for a bit

[@Blammerz]

This is a great video! Love that you addressed that it's about focusing on the mechanics on what sound designers are doing rather than "how do I make this exact sound?"; That was a mentality I had for a long time. In my opinion, Serum is still pretty good for Bass Design, but not on the level of Phase Plant. I still use Serum for simple sounds in my tracks, but when it comes to making bass sounds, I use Phase Plant more.