This was our 2022 roundup of deep house presets, and people still land on it every week. So I’ve cleaned it up for 2026: Serum is now Serum 2 (a free upgrade if you owned Serum 1), all the packs below have been updated for it, and I’ve added the actual settings I use when I build deep house patches from scratch.
Quick note before we start: every pack linked here ships Serum 2 versions now. If you’re brand new to the synth, my Serum 2 beginner guide covers the layout changes, and this short post shows where preset files go so they actually show up in the browser. And if you just want sounds to try right now, grab the free Serum 2 presets pack — 250+ patches, several of them deep house chords and basses.
What deep house actually sounds like
Deep house came out of Chicago in the mid-1980s. Producers like Larry Heard and Marshall Jefferson took the raw jack of house and slowed it down, softened it, and borrowed chords from jazz and soul. The result was warmer and moodier than anything else on the dancefloor.
The core ingredients haven’t changed in forty years: a 4/4 kick around 120-124 BPM, a rolling sub bass, extended seventh and ninth chords, and lots of space. Deep house breathes. If every bar is full, it’s not deep house anymore.
The early-2010s revival brought the sound back to the mainstream. If you want modern reference points, listen to these three:
- Disclosure — the pop-friendly end, tight garage-influenced grooves
- Jamie xx — sparse, emotional, huge use of space
- Nicolas Jaar — the experimental edge, slower tempos, organic textures
Also worth knowing: the “Selected” and “Spinnin’ Deep” style that dominates playlists now sits somewhere between classic deep house and slap house. Brighter basses, more sidechain, vocal chops. Most of the packs below cover both flavors.
The presets: producer picks
These are our deep house packs, all updated for Serum 2. I make these for a living, so yes, I’m biased — but the demos don’t lie, so listen before you decide.
Modern Deep House Serum 2 Presets Vol.1
This one is the starting point. Warm chord stacks, subby basses and airy pads aimed at the classic end of the genre. Every patch has the macros mapped, so the mod wheel and Macro 1 already do something musical out of the box.
Serum 2 Deep House Presets Vol.2
Volume 2 leans into the modern playlist sound — think Selected, Spinnin’ Deep. Punchier basses, brighter plucks, more aggressive sidechain-ready patches. If Vol.1 is late-night, Vol.2 is festival daytime.
Slap & Deep House MegaPack Vol.1
If your deep house drifts toward slap house basslines, the Slap & Deep House MegaPack covers both sides — presets plus bass loops and drums, so you can sketch a full groove in one session.
Serum 2 Melodic House Presets
For the deeper, more emotional end that crosses into melodic house and techno, North Sea is the pick. It also comes with a free organic drums folder that fits deep house grooves surprisingly well.
Serum 2 Piano Presets Vol.2
Not strictly a deep house pack, but these piano and keys patches nail the house-piano stab sound, and a slightly detuned electric piano over a deep groove is the fastest shortcut to that classic mood I know.
How to build a deep house patch in Serum 2
Presets are a starting point. Here’s how I’d build the two core sounds from init, with real numbers.
The chord stack
- Oscillator A: a soft wavetable (Basic Shapes works), warp mode off, unison 4-6, detune 0.10-0.15.
- Serum 2 gives you a third oscillator now — I put a sine or triangle one octave down on Osc C at low level to thicken the bottom of the chord.
- Filter: MG Low 12 or 24, cutoff around 400-800 Hz, then let an LFO or the mod wheel open it. Keep resonance low.
- Amp envelope: attack 5-15 ms, release 300-600 ms. Deep house chords are short and plucky, not sustained.
- FX: OTT-style multiband compression at 20-30% mix, plenty of reverb on a bus, and a touch of chorus. Serum 2’s new FX buses let you send only the wet reverb through a high-pass, which keeps the low end clean.
If you want to go deeper on movement, my Serum 2 modulation guide covers LFO shapes and macro mapping in detail.
The rolling bass
- One oscillator, sine or a dark analog wavetable. No unison — deep house bass is mono.
- Pitch: keep it between E1 and A1. Anything higher stops feeling deep.
- Amp envelope: attack 0, decay 200-400 ms, sustain around 50%, so each note pumps slightly on its own.
- Add a subtle saturation (Distortion, Tube, drive low) to make it audible on small speakers.
- Sidechain it to the kick — even a simple volume LFO synced to 1/4 with a dip of 3-4 dB works if you don’t want a compressor.
Groove matters more than sound design here. Offbeat bass notes (the “and” of each beat) against a four-on-the-floor kick is the whole genre in one sentence.
Quick arrangement and mix tips
- Stay at 120-124 BPM. Slower reads as chill-out, faster reads as tech house.
- Use seventh and ninth chords. A plain minor triad sounds like EDM; Am9 sounds like deep house.
- Cut everything below 30 Hz, and don’t let the bass and kick occupy the same octave. My tech house bass tutorial covers the kick-bass relationship in depth, and it applies here too.
- Long, sparse arrangements: 8-16 bar sections, one new element at a time. Deep house rewards patience.
- Leave the top end to hats and one bright element. If three sounds fight above 8 kHz, mute two.
FAQ: deep house Serum 2 presets
Do Serum 1 deep house presets work in Serum 2?
Yes. Serum 2 opens all Serum 1 patches and they sound identical. The reverse isn’t true — patches saved in Serum 2 won’t open in Serum 1. All packs on this page ship native Serum 2 versions anyway.
What BPM is deep house?
Typically 120-124 BPM. The classic Chicago records sat around 118-122, modern playlist deep house is usually 122-124. If you’re above 125, you’re drifting into tech house territory.
What chords does deep house use?
Mostly minor seventh, ninth and eleventh chords, often borrowed from jazz. Try Am7 – Dm9 – Em7 – Am7 as a starting loop, voiced across two octaves with the root left to the bass.
Are there free deep house presets for Serum 2?
Yes — our free Serum 2 presets guide lists everything worth downloading, and our own free pack includes deep house chords, basses and pads alongside 250+ other patches.
That’s the update. If you’re not sure whether any of the paid packs fit your sound, start with the free Serum 2 presets — same design approach, zero cost, and you’ll know within one session whether these sounds work for your tracks.
I run Monosounds.studio and make the packs myself. Ten-plus years of producing, 97+ releases, 16,000+ downloads. Every Serum 2 preset we ship passes a CPU check on a mid-range laptop and gets used in a real track before release. If it does not survive a mix, it does not go in the pack.
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