25 Serum Tips You Need To Know |

CymaticsFM
This blog is a written version of the tutorial 25 Serum Tips You Need To Know.

(Serum Tips #1) Holding alt while clicking a knob

Instead of getting very accurate when changing the mod depth (clicking the tiny blue circle dot)
hold Alt and click+drag a knob to change the modulation depth.

(Serum Tips #2) Copy 1 LFO to Another

Copy 1 LFO to another by holding Alt and clicking+dragging the LFO1 tab (or any FLO#) and
dropping it on-top of another.

(Serum Tips #3) The Compressor is a Limiter

Set the compressors ratio all the way to the right, to limit to turn serum into a limiter.

(Serum Tips #4) Chorus/Flanger/Phaser 0 Rate

Unlike most Chorus/Flanger/Phaser units, in Serum you can set the rate to 0 for ultimate control.

 (Serum Tips #5) Mouse Over Help

If ever confused while using serum, hover your mouse over a parameter and wait, for a
description window to pop, up without referring to the manual.

(Serum Tips #6) Change All LFO Curves At Once

Hold Alt while changing LFO curves to change them all at once.

 (Serum Tips #7) Add Curves To Modulators For Nonlinear

Curves
In the Matrix tab, its possible to adjust the curve of modulators. Click and drag on the curve
slope to change it.

(Serum Tips #8) Serum FX Envelope Trigger

Send MIDI to Serum FX on a separate channel to trigger the envelopes.

 (Serum Tips #9) Give Your LFOs Attack

Give your LFOs attack with the rise knob.

This means that whatever parameter the LFO is mapped to, it will take 1/128 time of the BPM for
the LFO to reach its full range of motion. In Env mode, this behaves as a fade-into the
envelope.

(Serum Tips #10) One Shot Noise Mode

Deactivate the forward facing arrow in Serum for one shot noise. This is excellent for percussive
bursts on the front of sounds.

(Serum Tips #11) Loop LFOs In Envelope Mode

When using an LFO in envelope mode (for triggering with every new note input)
press Shift+Command+Click (Mac)/shift+Ctrl+Click (PC) to create a loop point, in which it will
continuously loop. (Click on a pre-existing curve node to turn it into a Loop point) The grey letter
L will appear over the node to indicate that it is a looping point.

(Serum Tips #12) Lock LFO Points To Grid

When moving curve points/ hold Alt while dragging a point and it will snap to the grid.

(Serum Tips #13) Turning LFOs Into Steppers

Hold Shift to turn your LFO drawing tool into a stepper.

 (Serum Tips #14) LFO Anchor Button

The Anchor button in the LFO section is useful for keeping your LFOs perfectly in sync with
your song, however, may cause skipping if a change is made mid switch. However, this can
avoided by turning anchor off, which may put things out of perfect sync.

 (Serum Tips #15) Quickly Add Modulators

Quickly add mod sources by right-clicking and clicking Mod Source.

(Serum Tips #16) Uni/bi Directional Modulators

Decide whether a modulation is going unidirectional or bidirectional with the direction arrow in the
mod matrix. This is saying whether it is starting from the beginning or in the middle.

You can change the Type between Uni/Bi without visiting the Mod Matrix window, by holding
Shift+Altwhile clicking on the knob with a visible (blue/yellow) modulation assignment.

(Serum Tips #17) Envelope Magnifying Glass

Use the magnifying glass to view longer envelope times or use the lock symbol to lock it to that
screen.

 (Serum Tips #18) Change All LFO Points At Once

Click and drag to select multiple LFO points to change all at once.

 (Serum Tips #19) Single Oscillator Chords

Try making the range 7 semitones for example create single oscillator chords with the unison
pitch and width control knobs.

Switch to the Global tab and copy these Osc1s unison settings.

(Serum Tips #20)Reset Any Parameter

Press Command/Ctrl+Click on any parameter to reset it to its default value.

(Serum Tips #21) Change Mix To Level

Click Mix on the filter section to transform it into Level which essentially makes it a gain knob.

 (Serum Tips #22) Quickly Scroll Through LFOs

Alt+Click on the LFO Folder to easily cycle through LFO shapes.

 (Serum Tips #23) Filter To Phase

Click on the filter display window to see its phases.

 (Serum Tips #24) Fine Tune Your Noise

Fine tune the noise under the Global tab to tune your tonal sounds that are out of tune

 (Serum Tips #25) Turn Pictures Into Wavetables

Drag + Drop a PNG picture file into serums waveform display window to use it as a wavetable.