In this tutorial
My notes from this video
I start with a melody like this. Notice that we have a few octaves, high, mid and low notes, some gliding notes and velocity changes. You can tweak this later, but setting up the melody like this really helps getting the acid sound there.
For the preset I open with a saw wave and take down the phase randomization, so it's consistent every time we hit a note. Enable mono and increase the portamento. Then the MG Low 12 with resonance, and envelope 2 on the cutoff, unipolar. For a more classic sound I make a long decay, with a range of around nine percent.
Here's the thing a lot of people don't know about Serum 2. Every filter has a different characteristic, so a different filter in your acid sound gives you different outputs. A band pass with the mix taken down, so it's more of a peak, can really help. French LP, German LP and Add Bass are great, and MG Ladder, Acid Ladder, EMS Ladder and MG Dirty also have very interesting characteristics.
The one I like most for clean acid is the Add Bass. Add resonance and find the lowest point where it still sounds good. Then assign a macro to the cutoff and find the highest point. Open it all the way and it loses that characteristic, so pick your end point, and in the matrix I shape it so it moves through the cutoff a little less fast.
Let's improve the rhythm and the reactivity of the preset. The velocity responds to the velocity changes in the melody, so use it on your cutoff range. You can even shape that mapping however you want, based on how you want the velocity to affect the cutoff, and have certain points go up more. It really helps dialing a velocity response based on the melody.
Something a lot of people don't do, but you should, is use the velocity on the attack of the cutoff too. Now the high velocity notes also get an attack that's like wow instead of pow.
So far we have only used the hard clipper, but see what happens when we add a diode (Diode 2) in front. Then one more, a distortion on X-Shaper (Asym), the asymmetrical wave shaper. A means zero percent drive, B means 100 percent drive. Put a point right in the middle, then the right side shapes the positive side and the left side shapes the negative side.
If you only shape one side of an asymmetrical distortion you can really add a lot of crunch. Play around with the point and the curves and you find a lot of different sounds. The position is different too, first the diode and then the shaper. If it's a bit much, take down the mix.
The final step is adding EQs and filters in between these stages. For example a filter in front of the diode, after the shaper. I pick a phaser, the Phs 24+ filter, and take down the mix. This one doesn't react to the velocity or the cutoff. It's static, it just cuts frequencies for you in front of the distortion. You can do the same with an EQ, and take down the bass a bit to make the mids more prominent.
Something you see a lot in analog acid synthesizers is a chorus. I add it in front of the hard clipper, with either the low pass or the high pass filter, and take down the depth a little. The high pass focuses on the highs of your acid, good for modern sounds. The low pass is great at beefing up the low end.
Serum 2·FL Studio
Free Serum 2 Acid Techno
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