We have made eight piano and keys packs for Serum over the years. Two are free and six are paid, and they don’t overlap much: one is for dance pianos, one for dark hip-hop keys, one for house, one for grand pianos and so on. This page plays a demo from each and says what it suits, so you can pick the one you need.
A note on formats first. The two free packs are .SerumPreset files, which only Serum 2 opens. The six paid packs are .fxp files, which load in Serum 2 and in the original Serum.
Start with the free ones
Free Serum 2 Piano Presets has 15 patches across the main piano types: Classic Piano, Soft Piano, Mark II (a Rhodes-style electric), Wurkeys (Wurlitzer-style), Pianet, Jazz Chords, two house pianos and a Video Game Piano. If you only write the occasional piano part, this may be all you need.
Free Serum 2 Keys Presets is the other free one, with 15 keys including vintage pianos, electric keys and organs.
Dance and pop: Vol.1
Serum Piano Presets Vol.1 is the most dance-oriented pack. Of its 24 presets, Dance Piano Classic, Night Party Piano, Summer Anthems and Dance Machine are made for house chords and EDM breakdowns, and Pool Side Piano comes in a version layered with brass. Felt Piano and Felt Slow Dance Piano cover the quiet intros.
Hip-hop, drill and R&B: Vol.2
Vol.2 has 35 darker keys. The names tell you where they were used: Drill, Escobar, Kingz, Play The Sadness, Lonely Keys. There is also an electric piano called Dead Rhodes, a reversed piano and a piano layered with guitar.
For R&B specifically, the RnB Serum presets pack has 10 piano keys of its own next to pads, leads and bells, and 25 MIDI melodies.
House and lo-fi: Vol.3
Vol.3 has 25 presets aimed at house and lo-fi: Piano House, House Collection, LoFi House, Festival Chords, M1 Pro, Piano Synth 80s. It also includes 50 MIDI files of piano chords and melodies, five in each of ten minor keys.
Big grand pianos: Vol.4
Vol.4 is 20 grand pianos (Giant Grand Piano, New Grand Era, Grand Pop, Love Ballad) and 50 MIDI progressions sorted by tempo: 20 at 100 BPM, 10 at 120 BPM and 20 at 140 BPM.
Ballads and film cues: The Genius
The Genius is the pack for slow, exposed piano: 40 presets with names like Moonlight Sonata, Little Mozart and The Silent Symphony. Junos Rhodes is the one electric piano in it.
Other keyboards: Keys of Majesty
Keys of Majesty is the pack to get if you need something other than a piano. Its 51 presets include a Clavinet, a Digital Harpsichord, Dusty Celesta, Music Box, Soft Wurli, D Rhodes and an Upright Acoustic, plus a few odd ones such as Gameboy and Trap Bell.
All packs side by side
| Pack | Presets | MIDI | Best for | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Piano Presets | 15 | none | Trying the sound, Serum 2 only | Free |
| Free Keys Presets | 15 | none | Pianos, electric keys, organs, Serum 2 only | Free |
| Vol.1 | 24 | none | Dance, pop, house | $19 |
| Vol.2 | 35 | none | Hip-hop, drill, R&B | $19 |
| Vol.3 | 25 | 50 | House, lo-fi | $19 |
| Vol.4 | 20 | 50 | Grand piano, ballads, pop | $19 |
| The Genius | 40 | none | Ballads, film and game cues | $19 |
| Keys of Majesty | 51 | none | Clavinet, harpsichord, celesta, Wurli, Rhodes | $19 |
| Piano bundle (all six paid) | 195 | 100 | Everything above except the free packs | $29 |
Two paid packs cost $38, so the Serum piano presets bundle at $29 is cheaper as soon as you want more than one.
Getting a preset piano to sit in a mix
A piano preset that sounds big on its own usually fights the bass once the track is full. Cut the piano below roughly 100 to 150 Hz when a bass is playing, and let the bass own that range. Pianos also take up a lot of the low mids, so if the mix gets muddy, a small cut around 250 to 400 Hz on the piano usually helps more than boosting the top.
Velocity matters more on piano than on most synth sounds. If every note is at 127, the part sounds programmed. Vary it, keep the left hand a little quieter than the melody, and shift a few note starts by some milliseconds. Our chord progression guide has progressions to practise this on, and the electric piano article shows how to build a Rhodes-style patch from scratch.
FAQ
Do .fxp piano presets work in Serum 2?
Yes. Serum 2 opens .fxp files from the original Serum, so all six paid packs work in both versions. The two free packs use the newer .SerumPreset format and need Serum 2.
Can Serum sound like a real acoustic piano?
These presets are built in Serum, so they sound like a well-made synth piano rather than a sampled concert grand. For a sampled piano, Serum 2’s multisample engine ships with factory pianos; the multisample guide explains how to load them.
Which pack is best for lo-fi?
Vol.3, which has LoFi House and a LoFi Edition of Find The Way, and Vol.2 for darker hip-hop keys.
Is there a free Serum piano pack?
Yes, two: 15 free piano presets and 15 free keys presets, both for Serum 2.
Can I use the presets in commercial music?
Yes. All packs are royalty-free for your own releases, beats you sell and client work.
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.
More about Maxim & the studio →Looking for the packs themselves? Here is the full Serum 2 preset catalogue — sorted by genre and by sound, with a demo on every one.
