Quick tip

How to Make Dissonant Hard Techno Leads in Serum

How I make dissonant car alarm leads for techno in Serum.

My notes from this Short

01

Three oscillators a few semitones apart

I use three oscillators to create a lot of dissonance. The sub is a saw wave, one octave up, and it's the root.

Oscillator A goes one octave up and semitone plus two. Oscillator B goes one octave up and semitone plus three.

02

A chorus in front of the distortion

I add distortion on Zero Square to really squash it, a compressor to glue it together and an EQ to cut the bass.

Then I add a chorus in front of the distortion to add some wideness, and take down the depth.

Serum FX rack for a dissonant hard techno lead: Zero-Square distortion, a compressor and an EQ low cut at 531 Hz
Zero-Square distortion, a compressor, then an EQ that cuts the bass.
03

New wavetables and semitones

Go back and change any wavetable to create interesting variations. You can also change the semitones and create a different dissonance.

Play around with it, because it fits hard techno perfectly.

What I use in this video

Serum

Access hundreds of techno sounds, presets & project files

Want some free packs? Unlock our freebie vault.

We only send you techno content. Unsubscribe anytime.