When people want music that makes them feel something, melodic house is what goes on. Slow builds, warm pads, drums with room to breathe. Anyma, Innellea, Stephan Bodzin, Ben Böhmer, Monolink and their peers pushed it into becoming one of electronic music’s biggest sounds, and the momentum hasn’t let up.
What you’re reading began life as my 2022 roundup of melodic house and melodic techno packs. For 2026 it’s been refreshed: dead links removed, picks brought up to date, and every item confirmed working with Serum 2. Prefer designing these sounds yourself over buying them? My full melodic techno in Serum 2 tutorial walks through the rolling bass and the pads one step at a time.
Some quick context first. Serum itself has moved a long way since this post originally appeared. March 2025 brought Serum 2 as a free upgrade for Serum 1 owners: three oscillators, five sound engines including granular and spectral, new FX buses and a built-in sequencer. All the preset packs below run in it. Still on the fence about updating? My Serum 1 vs Serum 2 comparison lays out what genuinely changed.
#1 North Sea – Melodic House & Melodic Techno Serum 2 Presets + Organic Drums
North Sea keeps its spot at the top, and sure, I’m biased since it’s ours. The reason it stays at #1 is simple though: one download covers the entire genre. Inside are Serum 2 presets, organic drum samples and MIDI files that share a single sound world, so a sketch takes an evening rather than a week.
On the preset side, the focus is recreated classic analog tones: the Moog-style basses and glassy poly sounds all over Afterlife and Diynamic releases. The drums are where most packs fail, and here they get it right. Rather than loud EDM one-shots, you get soft, organic hits and grooves that actually leave space for the melodic layers.
This full demo uses nothing but sounds from the pack:
Anyone producing melodic house or melodic techno on a regular basis: start here.
#2 Technocraft – Techno Presets for Serum 2
If your tracks run darker and harder, peak-time warehouse rather than sunset rooftop, Technocraft is the smarter choice. It’s a Serum 2 preset collection centered on driving basses, acid-tinted sequences and stabs with enough edge to survive a big system.
The standout section is the basses. Each one is built to sit on one or two notes for eight bars without going stale, and honestly that’s the entire job description of a melodic techno bassline.
#3 Modern Deep House Serum 2 Presets Vol.1
A lot of melodic house DNA comes from deep house, and Modern Deep House Serum 2 Presets Vol.1 handles that gentler end of the spectrum: warm chord stabs, round subs, and plucks surrounded by air. These are what I load when a track calls for groove instead of drama.
Need a broader palette of house sounds in a single package? The Melomagic house mega pack is the bigger general-purpose pick, spanning basses, leads, plucks and pads across most house subgenres.
How to make these sounds work in a track
Even a great pack only takes you halfway. What follows is my actual workflow with these sounds, numbers included so you can copy them:
- Tempo: melodic house lives around 118–122 BPM, melodic techno around 120–126. When a demo melody feels hurried, pull the tempo down 2 BPM before adjusting anything else.
- Sidechain everything melodic: pads, plucks and bass should all duck under the kick, roughly 3–6 dB of gain reduction with a fast attack and release around 150–250 ms. That pumping space is half of what defines the genre.
- High-pass the pads: everything under 150–200 Hz gets cut on pads and atmospheres, because kick and bass own that territory. Pads sounding thin in solo but full in context means you nailed it.
- Keep bass mono below 120 Hz. Save the width for pads and FX; the low end stays centered.
- Long reverb on a send, not an insert: decay of 2–4 seconds, return at 100% wet, then a high-pass on the return near 300 Hz to stop the tail from muddying everything.
- One dotted-eighth delay on the lead pluck at 20–30% mix turns a two-note melody into something that reads as a hook.
The pad work here is far easier in Serum 2 than it ever was in Serum 1, since the granular and spectral engines exist precisely for slow, evolving textures. There’s a deeper dive 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?
Serum 2 is required, but Serum 1 owners get the upgrade free through their account at xferrecords.com. Every preset pack above targets Serum 2. And if nothing appears after installation, here’s how to install Serum 2 presets the right way.
What’s the difference between melodic house and melodic techno?
Chiefly tempo and energy. Melodic house runs warmer and slower, around 118–122 BPM, with softer chords and more organic percussion. Melodic techno pushes darker and harder, up to roughly 126 BPM, built on rolling basslines and tougher drums. Their synth palettes overlap heavily, which is exactly why one pack like North Sea serves both.
Can I use these samples and presets in commercial releases?
Yes. Our packs are entirely royalty-free, so release your tracks on any label or platform with no credit owed and nothing extra to pay. The single exception: repackaging the raw sounds and selling them as your own pack.
Are there free melodic house sounds to start with?
There are: our free Serum 2 presets pack. That’s 250+ presets spanning genres, with pads, plucks and basses that suit melodic house, letting you judge the sound quality before any money changes hands.
And that’s the list. Begin with the free pack, and if that North Sea demo above matches the records you’re chasing, the next step is obvious.
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.
