Melodic house is the genre people put on when they want to feel something. Long builds, warm pads, drums that breathe. Artists like Anyma, Innellea, Stephan Bodzin, Ben Böhmer and Monolink turned it into one of the biggest sounds in electronic music, and it hasn’t slowed down since.
This roundup started as my 2022 list of melodic house and melodic techno packs. I’ve updated it for 2026: dead links are gone, the picks are current, and everything here works with Serum 2. If you’d rather build these sounds from scratch instead of buying them, I wrote a full melodic techno in Serum 2 tutorial that covers the rolling bass and the pads step by step.
Quick context before the list. Serum itself changed a lot since this post first went up. Serum 2 shipped in March 2025 as a free upgrade for Serum 1 owners, with three oscillators, five sound engines including granular and spectral, new FX buses and a built-in sequencer. Every preset pack below runs in it. If you’re still deciding whether to update, my Serum 1 vs Serum 2 comparison breaks down what actually changed.
#1 North Sea – Melodic House & Melodic Techno Serum 2 Presets + Organic Drums
North Sea is still my top pick, and yes, I’m biased – we made it. But it stayed at #1 for a simple reason: it covers the whole genre in one download. You get Serum 2 presets, organic drum samples and MIDI files that all sit in the same sound world, so a sketch comes together in an evening instead of a week.
The preset side leans on recreated classic analog tones – the kind of Moog-style basses and glassy poly sounds you hear on Afterlife and Diynamic records. The drum folder is the part most packs get wrong: instead of loud EDM one-shots, these are soft, organic hits and grooves that leave room for the melodic layers.
Here’s a full demo built only with sounds from the pack:
If you produce melodic house or melodic techno regularly, this is the one I’d start with.
#2 Technocraft – Techno Presets for Serum 2
When your tracks lean darker and harder – more peak-time warehouse than sunset rooftop – Technocraft is the better fit. It’s a Serum 2 preset collection built around driving basses, acid-flavored sequences and stabs that cut through a big system.
The basses are the highlight. They’re designed to loop on one or two notes for eight bars without getting boring, which is basically the whole job description of a melodic techno bassline.
#3 Modern Deep House Serum 2 Presets Vol.1
Melodic house borrows a lot from deep house, and Modern Deep House Serum 2 Presets Vol.1 covers that softer end: warm chord stabs, round subs and plucks with a lot of air around them. I reach for these when a track needs groove more than drama.
For a wider spread of house sounds in one place, the Melomagic house mega pack is the bigger, more general-purpose option – basses, leads, plucks and pads across most house subgenres.
How to make these sounds work in a track
A good pack gets you halfway. Here’s what I actually do with these sounds, with numbers you can copy:
- Tempo: melodic house sits around 118–122 BPM, melodic techno around 120–126. If a demo melody feels rushed, drop 2 BPM before you touch anything else.
- Sidechain everything melodic: pads, plucks and bass all duck to the kick – about 3–6 dB of gain reduction, fast attack, release around 150–250 ms. That pumping space is half the genre.
- High-pass the pads: cut everything below 150–200 Hz on pads and atmospheres. The bass and kick own that range. If your pads sound thin solo but full in the mix, you did it right.
- Keep bass mono below 120 Hz. Width goes on the pads and FX, not the low end.
- Long reverb on a send, not an insert: 2–4 seconds of decay, 100% wet on the return, then high-pass the return around 300 Hz so the tail doesn’t turn the mix to mud.
- One dotted-eighth delay at 20–30% mix on the lead pluck instantly makes a two-note melody feel like a hook.
Serum 2 makes the pad side of this much easier than Serum 1 did – the granular and spectral engines are built for slow, evolving textures. I go deeper on that in my Serum 2 pads and atmospheres guide.
FAQ: melodic house and melodic techno packs
Do I need Serum 2 to use these preset packs?
You need Serum 2, but if you own Serum 1 the upgrade is free – update through your account at xferrecords.com. All the preset packs above are built for Serum 2. If presets don’t show up after installing, here’s how to install Serum 2 presets properly.
What’s the difference between melodic house and melodic techno?
Mostly energy and tempo. Melodic house is warmer and slower, around 118–122 BPM, with more organic percussion and softer chords. Melodic techno is darker and more driving, up to about 126 BPM, with rolling basslines and harder drums. The synth palette overlaps a lot, which is why a pack like North Sea covers both.
Can I use these samples and presets in commercial releases?
Yes. Everything in our packs is royalty-free: release the tracks you make on any label or platform without crediting us or paying anything extra. The only thing you can’t do is resell the raw sounds as your own pack.
Are there free melodic house sounds to start with?
Yes – grab our free Serum 2 presets pack. It’s 250+ presets across genres, including pads, plucks and basses that fit melodic house, so you can test the sound quality before spending money.
That’s the list. Start with the free pack, and if the North Sea demo above sounds like the records you’re chasing, you know where to go next.
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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