New Wavetable VI from Xfer - Serum!!!

[DonaldM]

Our friends from Xfer, the guys who brought us Cthulhu, that nifty riff generator plugin, are releasing what looks to be a dynamite, powerful wavetable synth VI called Serum. (love the name!)

Here's a bit of audio examples. Sure sounds sweet to me. And from the description it sounds like there will be TONS of ways to manipulate, create, import sounds to do whatever you wish.

Normal price should be $189, but introductory price is set at $129 until 10/31. I expect a LOT of sound designers are going to hammering out tons of sound banks for this baby, too. RELEASE DATE SET FOR TOMORROW, SEPT 19th!! (none of this "soon" crap! an actual date!)

Here's some more sound examples.

May be well worth it for the introductory price. One of the beta testers described it as "Massive on cocaine!" Hmmm....

[DonaldM]

Serum is released!. This looks like an amazing VI, with the ability to import your own audio to create custom wavetables that can be chopped or manipulated in any number of ways.

[DonaldM]

Got it tonight, and have only run through about 1/3 of the presets..but OMG is this a cool sounding VI. Easy to use, edit, play with...and sounds fabulous.

At the least, go check out the demo version!

I suspect a lot of sound developers will be creating all kinds of cool patches for this baby!

Congrats to Steve Duda and Xfer on this one!

[DetroitT]

I like this...
The sounds are nice however tuning roots varies between pitch-patches.
(A is not always A for example)

Definitely a power hog at least as far as changing sound patches.


Well worth looking into though!

[DonaldM]

Yes, it is a bit heavy on CPU, but remember how much processing is going with it. As for the other issue...I haven't run into that at all. You might mention it on the Serum forum on the Xfer website. Steve Duda is pretty good about responding to any potential bugs.

One really nice feature he has it that for automation, there's a complete list of all the knobs with the automation menu in the VI window so you know exactly what's what when setting up an automation lane. There's so many, that just use numbers and you can't label them!

I know there are already some pro sound developers getting ready to offer up some new sound banks for Serum in the next month or so.

This a great overview video of Serum from Plugin Guru John "Skippy" Lehmkuhl.

[DetroitT]

Thanks for the links.
T


"Yes, it is a bit heavy on CPU, " But solid!

[Stereo Missile]

Been using this the last few days, Serum is amazing for upfront dance stuff, sounds are incredible!

[Kinh]

Originally Posted by DonaldM

Yes, it is a bit heavy on CPU, but remember how much processing is going with it.

That's an understatement! This thing maxes a 6core processor with one preset! I thought session horns and Omnisphere were bad. Yeah the sounds are great but how in God's name can you use this in a session??

It says on the site that it doesn't "tax your CPU any more than the typical (decent quality) soft synth already does." Yet most of its presets crank your cpu from at least 30 to 100% with no trouble at all. Ive never hit the 100 mark before with any other plugin, this is the 1st.

Great sounds but totally impractical unless its used as a one preset standalone.

[WernerF]

Anyone else seeing this kind of extreme CPU usage behavior? This synth has pretty much instantly become extremely popular in the EDM world and it would be strange that this kind of CPU usage behavior would make it usable for that many poeple. I just bought it but am not at my studio at the moment to observe the usage. I will report back next week when it has been tested on that system.

[Kinh]

Originally Posted by WernerF

Anyone else seeing this kind of extreme CPU usage behavior? This synth has pretty much instantly become extremely popular in the EDM world and it would be strange that this kind of CPU usage behavior would make it usable for that many poeple. I just bought it but am not at my studio at the moment to observe the usage. I will report back next week when it has been tested on that system.

Best to wait for the next demo version.

There's a new 1.01 version due this week which is supposed to have some CPU improvements for AAX.