Sound design breakdowns, production techniques and honest studio advice from the team behind 97+ packs — written for producers who finish tracks.
A pluck is the easiest sound to build in Serum 2 and the hardest to build well. The easy part is the envelope. The hard part is making it sound like an instrument instead of a doorbell. This is the…
The full patch behind the rolling psytrance bass: one saw wave, a fast envelope, a closed filter and three disciplined 16th notes after every kick.
Leads are where Serum 2 shows off. Unison, warp modes, three oscillators, a mixer. It is also where people overdo it and end up with a sound that is wide, bright, and impossible to mix. Here is the lead patch…
The 2-step pocket, organ bass, warped vocal chops and swing — UK garage essentials built in Serum 2.
A synth bass is the first thing most people try to build in Serum 2, and the first thing they give up on. The patch ends up thin, or muddy, or it sounds fine on headphones and vanishes on a…
Serum 2 has eight macros and most presets ship with all of them empty. Which is a shame, because a macro is the difference between a preset you tweak and a preset you play. I put macros in every preset…
One good cowbell preset can push a sketch across the line into record territory. It’s a tiny sound carrying serious weight: the offbeat in tech house rides on it, latin-leaning grooves swing on it, and it tops off half the…
Reese first, sub separate, one-note basslines that move by filter — the DnB essentials in Serum 2 at 174 BPM.
A good bell preset often separates a sketch from a record. It’s the bell that makes a trap melody feel expensive, gives a house breakdown its emotion, and puts the finishing gloss on a pop hook. And unlike most patch…
Supersaws an octave too high, clippers in the right order, big pitch bends and vocal-ish plucks — the hyperpop toolkit in Serum 2.
The gap between a sketch and a record is often one good chord preset. And chord patches are odd beasts: they need enough size to carry a drop, yet enough cleanliness that six simultaneous notes don’t collapse into noise. Here…
Plucky PWM bass, chorused pads, driving arps and the gated snare — the whole synthwave recipe inside Serum 2.