Why Serum Is No Longer My Favorite Synth...

[@primalentity9824]

3:33 I hate to be that guy, but in serum you can right click "fine pitch" on the oscilator and then select chaos 1 or 2 as the mod source. Vital still rules, I just thought i'd mention this

[@hvh_music]

Yeah!

[@mugatu8732]

why u hate to be that guy? u just help people with that information.

[@Caelo_music]

I think Kiloheartz Phaseplant, Arturias Pigments or Reasons Europa are also great alternatives each with some individual twists. Great to see Vital as a free competitor in this space. Peace

[@bunningtonhevy]

Pigments is boss. Can get quite cpu heavy tho

[@adisaikkonen]

Phaseplant is amazing, and really my go-to synth for EDM-style synth sounds. It can get pretty dirty and "analog" if needed too.

[@dbzeroproduction1159]

You guys ever heard of uvi falcon 🐐

[@LoveMeBack]

@@dbzeroproduction1159 Loio.

[@dbzeroproduction1159]

@@LoveMeBack ??

[@Pw614]

very good points here. Serum needs a graphic eq. I'm tired of people saying "you need to hear the sound and not see it." Honestly it's gotta be both. If Serum can upgrade their eq that alone would be a great benefit.

[@ProWajxxx]

The people who say that are the same people who say that aNaLoG iS mUcH sUpErIoR tO dIGiTaL

[@TheUnrider]

I dont see any advantage in seeing it than that you can move the eq points around in a more free manner. The visual thing doesnt give me anything else.

[@ProWajxxx]

@@TheUnrider For me, it really helps me to work with a compressor where you can see what is it doing

[@gggz420]

@@ProWajxxx lol bro if you think analog isn’t better then digital you’re mentally challenged lmao. do you have ears? clearly not 😂 dude tried to do the spongebob meme on something that’s facts not even remotely debatable 😂

[@GWills-ys6rd]

Nope, EQ is always a separate bus to that from the instrument otherwise you'll lose control of the holistic audio mix. The outcome will be a clipping, leveling and distortion nightmare!

[@justinnelson9065]

yeah this is great - long time sylenth and serum user, this swayed me to finally go ahead and pick up/start learning vital. Appreciate it boss!

[@mb2811]

Am I the only one who is still in love with Sylenth1?

[@Max_Garden]

Nope, i'll soon finish my first melodic techno debut album and most of the tracks have sylenth as main sub/lead. Love this synth.

[@clickbaitpro]

Sylenth1 don't consume memory or cup unlike vital or serum

[@rachidow2125]

Lot of Toolroom tracks used Sylenth1

[@lukassbeataddicts]

It’s light on cpu and have unique sound. But Vital /Serum is a wavetable synth, they are much more capable than classic VST like Sylenth1. Saying that Sylenth1 is my favorite virtual synth

[@AlanAztec]

Doesn't serum and vital both use the same open source code for parts of the sound engine?

[@brillywilly2998]

I'm not sure, I looked up a while ago if you could transfer presets from one to the other and it's a definite no. Maybe some bits are?

[@KoziahMusic]

Serum is not opensource

[@KL-tn1xc]

@@KoziahMusic serum isn't open source, but could use parts of an open source project, not all open source projects requires that branches of it to also be open source. i.e. most frameworks or libraries.

[@KoziahMusic]

@@KL-tn1xc ok. makes sense

[@TheWtfareyoulooking]

@@KoziahMusic In other words, serum is not open source, but has been built with open source code.

[@TheK391]

great content

[@GrishaGetos]

the man himself 🥰😳

[@Haji84]

Wtf?!?!

[@GrishaGetos]

real recognize real

[@dynamics806]

Good to see ya here😅

[@helicopteroapache7177]

Papaapappa Ya lle gó el Ded

[@stevenhlushak8429]

Vital simply stepped it up by soooo much by simply adding that second filter section

[@DomZeal]

Good points. imo the point 1 isn't an issue, if I need say two osc into two different filters, I'd just use 2 instances of Serum. It's also better for mixing.

[@cglessman]

Can't wait to hear more of your Vital packs!

[@baroufess]

Great !!Now if you could do a series about this synth would be wonderful

[@bloodcell6282]

Nice video, makes it even more enticing coming from someone like yourself who well versed in sound design to begin with. I have it but have not gotten deeper into it yet

[@MIDNIGHTCVLT]

Steve duda has been working on Serum 2.0 for a year, i hope it comes this year

[@NotStanley-td5nn]

i love that you love vital. it's a great synth. but i thought for sure phase plant was going to be mentioned. I know it's not free unlike vital but it's very reasonably priced imho. personally once i got the hang of it, i can't go back to any other synth. literally unlimited oscillators, unlimited LFOs and envelopes, unlimited effects. I mean.. it's completely unrivaled among literally all other synths imho. I can't put it down. I think i might be an addict

[@garret765]

Phaseplant is where its at...just pricey because you need all the snapins but well worth it....the complaint people say that it doesn't have filters don't know how to use slice eq to make any kind of filter you want

[@matts_official]

Yeah, but Vital is free and awesome as well. (I have the full PhasePlant btw.) And as BigZ states there is no stereo imager in Vital? There is the Stereo modulation?

[@tredfxman]

The key is not the Synth but the EQ. These days just select a synth that fits your workflow. Then focus on EQ - Get none other than SliceEQ - Because NO OTHER can do the same job so easy at present! 👍

[@hazmatproduction4562]

The non linear snap in was an improvement. I love phaseplant but it’s modular flexibility can get in the way of creativity sometimes. Take delay as an example. To get the same results as the zebra 2 delay (which is made to sound good as is) you would have to add up to 4 khs delays to a snapheap chain and time pan them all separately. It’s a great synth for really going in on sound design, but you can get results much faster in serum, zebra, hive than phaseplant until you have a nice selection of snapheap or multipass chains saved

[@youngkizzi9944]

Sick video man, as always!

[@Eugmaofficial]

Basically you need 2serums with 2EQ to have full bass line, in Vital you can make full bass with 3 layers.

[@Eugmaofficial]

@Martin Demsky i have no idea, because i don't use them at all. If you can filter each layer inside your VST, that means that you don't need to make 2-3 vst instead of 1 vst with 2-3 layers

[@flowmeter624]

you can use serum's sub osc with direct out button on to divide sub from filtered oscillators. it also possibilty for crazy stereo panning while sub region locked in mono

[@JayVucci]

I know this is two years ago but if you're still alive maybe you can answer this question. Is there a button that I can push to make sure that all the sounds that I'm creating in serum or mono compatible so they'll still sound good in the club....

[@Arcessitor]

My main problem with serum is also due to having only one internal filter, it means I can't use both a lowpass with a decay envelope to make pluck sounds out of a sound, while also have it be a rising cutoff future bass chord. This seems like such an obvious thing, it's in fact how most future bass chords are made, but I'm limited to using either or here, and using a volume automation instead. Now you can do that externally, but then it happens after the serum processing, and that's not the sound I'm going for. So I had to move away from using Serum for future bass chords, which is a shame considering how easy it is to automate and lfo everything else.

[@maxking2034]

Serum has two filters, there is one in the fx that works the exact same way as the one you see in the main screen

[@Arcessitor]

@@maxking2034 That one has a built in highcut at 16k that you cannot turn off. Not useable I'm afraid.

[@AsherBKNY]

Awesom !!! Big Thank You sir!!!

[@HowardCharlesUK]

Hopefully this means more packs for Vital 🙌

[@damonomusic]

I know I’m way to invested in Serum at this point 😆

[@brillywilly2998]

@@damonomusic I literally just bought serum ouch

[@4IS44C]

tysm, I got so mad when my serum trial ended and i couldn't afford to buy it. This works very well and some of the sounds I like even better than serum!

[@leafy218]

You can actually route serums noises to vitals noise oscillator to get serums noises

[@mexezmusic]

YES!

[@mondamnil]

Vital has a great concept. Unfortunately i don´t have Serum yet, just because it´s so expensive, but from what i hear on KZbin (Demos and Tutorials), Serum sounds much richer, fatter and clearer to me.

[@KordTaylor]

Really a nice comparison. Thank you. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@DJVasC]

Great video! Objective Approach.

[@TwinTailsRyu]

Definitely gonna check dis out, thanks

[@brianmartin7710]

thanx for the explenation. i will take a look at vital ...

[@nj1255]

I love Vital as well! Bought it the day it was released. I've never tried Serum though, so can't say anything about it. I also use Arturia Pigments 2 for it's versatility and U-he Diva for virtual analogue stuff.

[@99_problems_band]

Yes is 🔥

[@ELLIOT8209]

I can't decide between Diva and Zebra. Still saving up

[@hazmatproduction4562]

@@ELLIOT8209 very different instruments. Diva is semi modular, but each module is analog modelled from old analog synths, complete with the limitations of those synths. Zebra is a workhorse all-rounder capable of so much more than Diva. It’s almost an apples to oranges comparison. Zebra is more comparable to phaseplant, or serum.

[@ELLIOT8209]

@@hazmatproduction4562 which one would you buy if you could only buy one?

[@hazmatproduction4562]

@@ELLIOT8209 definitely zebra 2

[@aaronbazil]

Like any relationship, once you're no longer in love, and it's close to the end, you start fighting over the little stuff. Stuff you used to never care about before. Especially after you know you've met someone else and you wanna pursue them instead. This is always the case with justifying new plugins. We start finding things that are "wrong."

[@aaronbazil]

@@jensenraylight8011 completely missed my point.

[@iixmusic]

Well both are useful 🙂

[@powershift_]

Filters are the reason why im not sure, serum has so many filter types like reverb filters, that i find hard to find in even filter plugins

[@athomesongwriting]

Great video. Thanks for introducing me to a new synth!

[@johnwilmer2551]

THANKS ! love this synth

[@erikfox8471]

..did you try parawave Rapid? im sure you gonna like it...it has so much potential..regards

[@hugoboss3689]

I sadly just hate the filters on vital. I cant get them to sound the way i want to. And on serum it does exactly what i would expect. I know that this is just me. But i wonder if anybody else had trouble to adjust to the filters on vital coming from serum.

[@mvricks90]

same dont like the GUI, serum is more logic to me

[@planb5260]

To me serum sounds crisper and sharp where in vital everything sounds a bit dull, like there's an invisible highcut filter on everything behind the scenes. May very well just be my ignorance though, I haven't used vital much.

[@planb5260]

@mattio Thanks, I'm going to look more into vital, also because of the points big z made.

[@Nightowl427272]

Great video “Vital has basically copied the main layout of Serum but just made everything better and easier to use.” I’ve always wondered why over the last eight years, Steve Duda never did this. Why did he never upgrade Serum to 2.0?

[@rene.rodriguez]

Amazing video. Do you still prefer Vital? I see your newer videos use Serum.

[@SoundPeaks]

For Serum you need RandOnNote function in the drop-down menu. Chaos is not good.

[@housegeek3511]

About EQ, I understand what you say but IMO it's better using the synth internal EQ just for cutting and using a "Hi-Quality" external EQ for boosting frequencies.

[@JonHarris77]

The main issue with having to use an external EQ is that you can’t include it in your synth patch.

[@pham4925]

Big Z! Appreciating your videos a lot! If I can recommend you a synth with similar capabilities, I'd go with Massive X. It retains some of the advanced intramodulations that Serum has but has a ton of really good features to make warm sounds. I replaced every synth with that one and I know it gets a pretty bad rep but it sounds SO GOOD.

[@psilozine]

Yes couldn't agree more - the Massive X user interface is a car crash but the sound engine is amazing. Shame really - I just hope NI make the effort to rework the UI at some point.

[@Ryahu]

Well with serum you can just turn the filter on for osc A and B but let the sub osc bypass the filter which essentially does the same as what you're doing by low passing the two higher layers with the second filter

[@99_problems_band]

Nice video 🔥

[@grahamtaylor6883]

Just downloaded it to check it out. It's seems pretty awesome. Especially considering there's a free version.

[@Adam-kx6od]

Oh btw like to mention that technically serum has 3 filters (if the same thing works with vital then i guess that one has 7 filters). By adding distortion on a sound and choosing "X-Shaper" and leaving it on the default it won't distort the sound(it might get a bit quieter tho) but now you can use the low/band/high filter within. I hope some people will find this useful :D

[@StefanvanGestel]

yeah but in Serum you can also just add an extra filter in the fx page. You cannot put it individually on any oscillator though.

[@Adam-kx6od]

@@StefanvanGestel Yeah i know, but sometimes 2 filters aren't enough. That's why you can use this technique to (technically) have 3 filters :D And yeah i know vital is more flexible with filters this wasn't me trying to say it wasn't or "serum is better" it was just a useful tip and correction to the video

[@shifttowel1515]

Yeah All we need is a u-he HIVE2 Right?

[@clickbaitpro]

For me that's true. Vital takes too much of cpu

[@Chameo-San]

Man I'm using all of em. Serum, Vital, phaseplant, pigments, massive etc!

[@TecknologyTV]

Preciate the content. Can you or will you do a few Vital tutorials please. I need to learn how to make those phat basslines...cheers.

[@dariusmines]

Spot on!

[@AlexEscalante]

Yesterday I started messing around with Vital to make a snare and I could see why you need better noise sources! Nevertheless, it's a great synth, and your video is very good also.

[@AFRoSHEENT3ARCMICHAEL69]

I wonder if Steve Duda is gonna update Serum or do a Serum 2.

[@KL-tn1xc]

with serum you can remove the fundamental, effectively doing the same thing as having two filters.

[@MIDNIGHTCVLT]

It can be done in vital aswell but maybe he hasn't figured it out yet

[@KL-tn1xc]

@@MIDNIGHTCVLT great stuff, yeah i don't really like this mans tutorials. he always picks the difficult route to a outcome, or just plain wrong.

[@robjanssen7420]

Serum's filter routing is fundamentally serial; you can't make it parallel by adding more filters. Massive's parallel routing is even better though - you can control how much an oscillator is sending to filter 1 or 2. As for removing the fundamental, you can also do this in the wavetable editor itself; Serum's approach is permanent, Vital's is procedural.

[@shitmandood]

@@MIDNIGHTCVLT It begs the question of why bother with Vital if you can already do it with Serum.

[@MIDNIGHTCVLT]

@@shitmandood vital has different warp modes which are super cool and since it's free its always an option

[@Honestcosby]

Phase plant is a beast of a synth.

[@lawinter1949]

I'd love to see what you think of Phaseplant. That is one of the most powerful yet user friendly synths IMO. Its my go to synth now for making sounds.

[@hazmatproduction4562]

Love the kilohearts ecosystem. It got me imagining how cool it’d be if I could do that with any 3rd party plugin, so I switched from cubase to Bitwig studio, and now I don’t have to imagine. It’s a reality for me now

[@lawinter1949]

@@hazmatproduction4562 yeah I use Bitwig too. It has my favorite work flow.

[@amp4105]

Not user friendly at all imo

[@spoolyz0296]

I made the switch recently as well. Cant say i miss serum all too much Vital does exactly what I need it to do

[@akira20ish]

Vital has three oscillators serum only has two I’m sure with other updates vital will get more filters I sold serum what I mostly use though is wave table in live 10 SUITE

[@tomverswyvel6370]

Great feedback :)

[@owlmuso]

I still use Serum despite the limitations you talk about because I just think its tonal quality is better. Not streets better than its rivals when it came out, but a few percentage points better

[@GermoStaalfeldt]

It is till has unlimited possibilities, he still uses Serum lol

[@djkidii]

For me pigments is better serum alternative

[@99_problems_band]

🔥

[@bobhope7364]

I went from using ANA (don't know anyone who use it) to Serum and now Vital is my go-to synth. It just offers so much and is so easy to use.

[@pattyboomba3887]

Can confirm ANA is great

[@busywl69]

we live in extra spoiled times with music hardware and software when stuff like this is posted lol.

[@ritchxmusic]

What do you think of vital vs pigments?

[@hazmatproduction4562]

Haven’t used serum once since I got phaseplant & the khs ultimate bundle. Now I have Bitwig, I never open phaseplant lol

[@smooverida]

Plus you can import the dope serum wavetables into vital!

[@tunefulsoulonaroll7669]

I have sylenth and massive . So I should not buy serum and just master vital ?

[@LoveMeBack]

Duda is cooking up some stuff. Believe me.

[@aphonicsound]

Just wait 'till he hears about Phaseplant...

[@h.hristov]

What about Phaseplant

[@dudearlo]

you can get a serum looking skin for vital if youre missin the green :D

[@JayantChakradhari]

and also vital is free that's incredible

[@Carstuff101]

Very cool. Definitely gonna try vital. I wonder if serum would release a new version.

[@Eugmaofficial]

Big Z, i want to really thank you for all you do, all your videos is just really usefull, you're the person, whom i would shake hands with.

[@ettiennelane9173]

Are the presets good? Normally I only like a hand full of presets from any synth.

[@Paraay]

Vital is dope 💓🔥...xfer records under danger 😂😂

[@TCHHCTN]

Can you set the fundamental to be constant like you can in Serum?

[@capjoneslives]

Preach! I love vital and this video got you the sub

[@Diserpier]

I'm a big fan of BigZ and well, I don't know if this is propaganda or not for the program, but for months now I have used the Serum less precisely because the interface becomes a bit tedious. I was thinking of looking for a new VST and I am going to test it to see how it works.

[@electro5107]

Perfect 🔥

[@skorobagatko]

Try Phase Plant by Kilohearts

[@mabian69]

This is quite interesting, but do you think Vital filter quality and choice is on par with the Serum ones?

[@bengsynthmusic]

It's lesser.

[@griffinmpc8144]

Vital lost me with the filters and effects. I actually started with Vital and used it for quite a while, but once I got Serum I never went back.

[@Blacktronics]

Vital came out basically yesterday, i'm not sure how you used it for "quite a while", nobody has really.

[@griffinmpc8144]

@@Blacktronics You seem confused. Vital was released in November of 2020. If that's "basically yesterday" for you, cool.

[@Blacktronics]

@@griffinmpc8144 yeah that was a little over a year ago lol If you started with vital and switched to serum you've not been around long haha

[@griffinmpc8144]

@@Blacktronics Lol that you didn't know what you were talking about, tried to sound smart, then got mad when you were wrong and resorted to weak personal attacks. Good luck with the rest of your life. I have no time for folks like you.

[@peterGraumüller-x4f]

Can Jou make cherry moon tracks with serum or vital ?

[@nuvisionprinting]

My 2 go to's are vital & phaseplant. Looking at maybe adding pigments to that in the future!

[@NathanChisholm041]

Pigments v4 is a beast!

[@sirob9532]

Not quite true about having to use the chaos function to randomise pitch in serum, it actually has the same random feature, not used serum in ages but I think it's called random 1 and random 2 which you can assign to pretty much anything

[@mladenjovanovic2218]

because you get another sponsor :D

[@geegoboyrecords1975]

Make a beat with vital 💯🙏🏽

[@AdamoFiscella]

Alchemy has this option. But no wavetables😔

[@DJInvisibleBoy]

Nice video bro

[@Corre569]

Have both. 🤷‍♂️

[@briancase6180]

Very cool review of features that matter, thanks! One thing you didn't discuss is sound quality. I'm guessing you find no issue here, but I ask because when serum came out, one of the things that set it apart was sound quality. Steve Duda spent real money working with a math consultant to get the algorithms for the oscillators right so that sounds seem right throughout the frequency spectrum.. It sounds to me like vital has equal sound quality, but I'm wondering if you have any comments about it. Thanks!

[@xnaut_g]

This is the information short of mentioning Serum is created from Steve Duda. Great video I’m going to subscribe.

[@DjMass89]

I use both

[@deadlinkofficialartst5592]

Dude use serum fx to more effects tools

[@AdamoFiscella]

You should do a video on Arturia Pigments

[@karlonehouserecords]

Can't believe it is free... so I wanted to be fair with the Creator of Vital and got paid version which is still quite cheap. Serum has work to do. And it is going to be hard to get back lost users. The only thing that can force to come back will be presets packs from Serum.

[@bani_daciu]

Now we can be friends!!!

[@tomaszgorzelak8723]

I agree in 100% !

[@SyncrisisVideos]

in summary, Vital does basically what Europa has been doing for years :P

[@BuzzaB77]

its a triumph of UI design.

[@satisfieduser2696]

Vital is killer