How to make custom risers in Serum!

Join me for the premiere of my latest YouTube video “making a custom riser from start to finish in Serum”

2 Likes

Big thank you to @Seven_Tears for coming on the live chat when this video dropped. Awesome to talk in real time and chat over all things synth.

1 Like

Was a pleasure to support you my friend,

i can highly recommend @all to watch that video. Its a extremly good explanation on risers.

Well done @Geoffers

1 Like

Ah thank you! I’m really glad that you found it useful!

These techniques can be transferred onto pretty much any synth that has LFO’s/Envelopes :slight_smile:

At some point I will do an in depth look at the different arts of the synth too, to match the blog post I did about it in here. I may use a different Synth for that one too.

Lets take a free one and make some presets for all here

1 Like

I think that would be an awesome idea. Perhaps we should create a topic with this video on top and we make it into a group project. Everyone makes one preset.

We could do this with lots of types of sounds. A community that helps eachother out with presets. :wink:

1 Like

Cool demo Geoffers. Have to admit synths scare me—all those parameters and knobs and all give me a headache. That being said, I do own Serum, might as well learn how to use it :sweat_smile:

1 Like

Haha! I know what you mean :sweat_smile: I used to be exactly the same!

The best thing to do is just go and have fun with it. Spend time just experimenting.

I think it was @Seven_Tears who asked me to explain what an envelope is. This is probably the hardest thing to get your head around… but it’s just the way you shape the sound.

This is the most important part of the sound creation process in a synth. It’s split up into 4 or sometimes 5 parts. The ADSR (or ADHSR). I’m sure you’ve sen that before. Here is - breakdown.

A - Attack, how quick the note comes in.

D- Decay, how quickly the note starts to fall from the peak of the attack.

H- Hold, at what point the note holds at a specific velocity (determined by your decay, this is usually not included)

S- Sustain, sustain is the same as Hold. If hold is included then Sustain means includes variables… essentially giving the note variation.

R- Release, how quickly the note decays.

That’s literally as complex as it gets. You set that up and the type of sound you’ve made is done. Then it’s just playing around with timbre which is done by mixing the sounds of oscillators.

You can also set up multiple envelopes/LFO’s (low frequency oscillators, which are used to oscillate the sound over time) and route them to the parameters you want to control like I have in this video :slight_smile:

That’s all of the hard stuff which is actually fairly straightforward… it just takes a bit of time in playing about to get used to it. :smiley:

3 Likes

Probably the simplest explanation I’ve seen :smiley: Time to mess around and see if I can create some BRAAAAAAAAAAMS and downers too!

2 Likes

Glad it was helpful!! :smiley:

Braams are suuuuuper easy!

Simply get a saw wave and add a load of voices, detune them a bit so they sound wide, then you can add a comb filter on the filtered section and add a bit of resonance. Put the octave down two on the oscillator and you are done :smiley:

The rest is all subjective. Use your envelope to make the note as long or short as you like and add a bit of tonal variety with your LFO :slight_smile:

1 Like

For downers, get a sine wave. Distort it in the effects section. Add a low pass and roll off all the top end. Add an LFO that’s set to something like a quater note and set the slope so it looks like this . Then add your LFO to the oscillators semitone pitch function. This will give you your downer.

You can also set a second LFO up if you want to automate your level so it fades out.

Add verb and jobs a good’n

1 Like

Awesome! When I get a free minute I’ll need to try this.

1 Like

Thanks! Very informative and that tremolo plugin is really cool. :slight_smile:

1 Like

Hey Petr, really glad you enjoyed it!

Yes, I enjoy the Tremolo plugin too! It’s definitely worth getting as I use it even more than the paid tremolos I have.

1 Like

Nice vid Geoff.

1 Like

Ah cheers Mike!! Really appreciate that.