Cutting Edge Sound Design with Serum by Defazed

Master one of the most powerful and innovative new software synthesisers on the market today, Xfer Records’ Serum, with this new course from Producertech tutor Defazed. With a background producing a variety of styles including Drum and Bass, Glitch Hop and experimental electronic music, Defazed brings a wealth of experience and sound design knowledge to the table.

With a hands on approach from the outset, Defazed guides you through the intricate workings of this advanced wavetable synth, explaining in detail all the features of Serum, including the LFOs, custom wavetables, inbuilt FX and the multitude of routing and modulation possibilities available, thus enabling you to create awesome sounds from the outset. As well as guiding you through the theoretical background of Serum, Defazed also showcases how this knowledge can be applied in a practical sense. Throughout the course he constructs a variety of patches that make full use of Serum’s immense sound design possiblities. These include an EDM style bass and lead, a cinematic evolving pad, a complex sequenced patch and a riser FX, all built entirely from scratch.

The course is available for streaming 24/7/365 after purchase, and includes the Ableton Live set from the course, as well as the Serum patches created in the tutorials. Make sure to check out the course excerpt and module descriptions below:

Module 1 - Serum Basics and Creating an Initial Patch

Defazed kicks off the course by introducing Serum and some of the basic feautures of the synth, including the oscillators, wavetables and modulation sources.

Module 2 - Voicing, Filters and FX

This module takes you through some more features of Serum, voicing settings, the filter section, the routing matrix and finally the inbuilt FX rack.

Module 3 - Creating a Bass Patch

Using the features discussed in previous modules, this video focuses on the creation of an EDM style bass patch from scratch. The patch incorporates a custom wavetable generated from a sample, showcasing this powerful feature.

Module 4 - Creating an Epic Lead Patch

Defazed guides you through the creation of another patch from scratch, this time building an anthemic lead patch. The module looks at some new areas of Serum, including polyphony and using the modulation wheel as a performance control.

Module 5 - Creating an Evolving Pad Patch

This module shows the construction of an evolving pad patch, equally at home in a dancefloor filler or a cinematic soundtrack. Defazed takes a look at the sound design considerations of making a pad before diving into Serum to build one from scratch.

Module 6 - Creating a Sequenced Patch

Defazed shows how to use a sequenced LFO to expand the modulation possibilities within Serum, resulting in the creation of a sonically evolving sequenced patch.

Module 7 - Creating an FX Patch

The course concludes with this lesson on creating one of dance music's staple sounds, the riser FX. The module once again takes you though filter settings, routing and modulation before finishing off with a practical demonstration of the patches created.