THE SERUM 2 FIELD MANUAL / HOUSE + TECHNO
Make the
sound.
From “which knob?” to “I know how.”
48 sound recipes + 8 rumble studies.
A practice that becomes your own technique.
A sound is a few good decisions.
Learn to hear which one comes next.
01 / THE SOUND LIBRARY
What does your track need?
Choose a role. Build the dry sound.
Then give it a personality.
02 / YOUR FIRST SESSION
You only need a few controls.
Keep Serum 2 open beside this guide.
Build, listen, then read the next step.
BEFORE TOUCHING A KNOB / 3 MINUTES
Get one plain note working.
- In your DAW (the music program, such as Ableton Live), create a MIDI track and load the Serum 2 instrument. A MIDI note tells the instrument what to play; it contains no recorded sound.
- Click Serum’s MENU → Init Preset. “Init” means a plain starting patch. Save an existing sound first if you want to keep it. Begin every recipe from Init so old modulation does not change the result.
- Turn the Serum master output down to a comfortable level. Play the keyboard at the bottom of Serum. Then draw one MIDI note in the DAW and play the clip. If the keyboard works but the clip does not, check that the clip is on the Serum track and the track is audible.
- For these recipes keep OSC A on, OSC B/C, SUB and NOISE off until told otherwise. Keep Filter 2, FX, bus sends, ARP and CLIP playback off. Leave oscillator OCT and SEM at 0 unless a recipe specifies a transpose. Keep normal pitch tracking on.
- Double-click a knob to type its value. Use Shift while dragging for fine adjustments. Watch the readout and units: 100 ms is 0.1 seconds, and 1 kHz is 1000 Hz. Exact units matter more than the angle of a knob. Control reference ↗
THE MAP / CLICK EACH STAGE
Sound flows. Modulation moves controls.
This is a simplified learning map, not a screenshot of Serum. “Routing” means choosing where audio goes next.
The small routing button matters
Near the top-right of an oscillator, open its routing button. Choose Filter and turn the balance fully toward Filter 1. Enable Filter 1, set its MIX to 100%, and route the filter to Main. Repeat for every audible source the recipe says to filter. New oscillators can route differently; switching on B does not guarantee B passes through A’s filter.
Main goes through the effects section. Direct bypasses filters and effects. None removes the audible output path, useful for a modulation-only source. Leave the normal ENV 1 amplitude control enabled in the Mixer. Xfer routing reference ↗
YOUR FIRST BUILD / 10 MINUTES
Turn the Init buzz into a rolling bass.
- Give it a low note. Init, then choose the saw in Basic Shapes. A LEVEL 60%, UNISON 1, OCT 0. In the DAW draw MIDI note 33 (A at 55 Hz) with a length of one eighth note. Set tempo to 128 BPM. Note names can differ by an octave between DAWs; MIDI numbers are unambiguous.
- Make it stop. ENV 1: ATK 2 ms, HOLD 0 ms, DEC 175 ms, SUS at the very bottom, REL 35 ms. Hold the key: the sound should fade even while you hold it. The bottom sustain value may display −∞ dB; that means silence, not “0 dB”.
- Make it dark. Route A to Filter 1, enable the filter and choose MG Low 24. Set cutoff 180 Hz, RES 15%, MIX 100%, DRIVE 0 initially. Play the note. It should become a quiet, dark buzz.
- Give the front a bite. ENV 2: ATK 0 ms, HOLD 0, DEC 110 ms, SUS minimum, REL 35 ms. Drag the small ENV 2 source handle onto Filter 1 Cutoff. Set the modulation to unipolar, positive: cutoff rests at 180 Hz and briefly opens to roughly 1400 Hz. Adjust the coloured modulation arc, not the base knob. The Matrix shows source, destination, amount and polarity if you need to check the connection.
- Listen before adding anything. It should say “dug”: bright front, dark body, silence. Remove the ENV 2 assignment temporarily: only the dark body remains. Restore it. That comparison teaches you what the envelope contributes.
- Put it in a groove. Open the Rolling techno bass recipe and download its test MIDI. Drag it onto the Serum track in your DAW. Keep the internal arp off. A few gaps will help more than a new effect.
ENVELOPES / ONE NOTE’S JOURNEY
Volume shape comes first.
ENV 1 normally controls how loud the sound is over time. Other envelopes move the controls you assign them to.
- ATK / Attack: how long it takes to rise. 2 ms is nearly instant; 700 ms fades in.
- HOLD: time spent at the peak before decay. Use 0 for these basic patches.
- DEC / Decay: time to fall from peak to sustain while the note is held.
- SUS / Sustain: a level, not a time. Minimum = silence. Maximum = full held level.
- REL / Release: fade time after note-off, from whatever level the envelope has reached.
Releasing the MIDI note early starts release early. A 500 ms decay does not guarantee a 500 ms sound when the note lasts only 80 ms.
MODULATION / A HAND THAT MOVES A KNOB
Source → destination → amount.
- Source: the thing doing the moving, such as ENV 2 or LFO 1.
- Destination: the knob being moved, such as cutoff.
- Amount: how far the movement goes. The coloured ring shows the travel around the base setting.
- Polarity: unipolar moves one way from the base; bipolar moves above and below it. Use the Matrix polarity control to check it.
A positive envelope on a low cutoff gives a bright attack that falls darker. A negative envelope on a high cutoff can start dark and open as the envelope falls.
An LFO is a repeating drawn movement. RETRIG restarts with each note; FREE continues; ENVELOPE runs the shape once. BPM sync expresses rate as note divisions. A rate of 1/4 means one cycle per quarter note, not one cycle per bar.
A macro is a knob you perform with. Drag Macro 1 to a target, set a useful range and name it Tone, Bite or Space. Start with one destination. Try both extremes before saving.
THE FINISH / 5 MINUTES
Turn a successful experiment into a usable patch.
- Test register and articulation. Play low, middle and high notes; short and long gates; quiet and hard velocities. A patch can be excellent in one range without working everywhere.
- Match loudness when comparing. Lower the output of the brighter or distorted version so “better” is not simply “louder”. Keep individual tracks below clipping; there is no universal preset peak target.
- Check with a kick, then in mono. MONO voicing means one note at a time. It does not guarantee mono audio. Stereo widening and detuned sources still need a mono listening check.
- Make four useful controls. Tone = brightness; Bite = envelope or warp; Length = decay/release; Space = wet mix. Set modest ranges and check all four at maximum together. A macro moving cutoff can stack with ENV 2 and overshoot your intended peak.
- Save in Serum. Click the disk icon by the preset name. Use a name such as BS_Roll_Dark_v01. In DESC, write the register, key movement and macro meanings. Save a new version before a major change. Saving reference ↗
- Keep your source material. For your own imported audio, use the sample/wavetable name menu’s Embed in Preset option before moving the patch; factory content is not embeddable this way. Keep a source WAV backup too. Embedding reference ↗
The guide’s notebook is separate: it remembers your learning notes. It does not read, control or save the Serum plug-in. MIDI downloads contain notes, not Serum presets.
03 / EAR BEFORE EYE
Hear what the controls do.
Predict the change. Move one control.
Compare at a comfortable level.
One saw. Five decisions.
This little browser synth demonstrates amplitude and filter envelopes. Its sound is an approximation; it does not run Serum or copy its filter models.
Controls apply on the next note. A stores all six settings. Set an obvious contrast, then compare using the same note and output level; perceived loudness may still differ.
AMPLITUDE / SCHEMATIC, NOT TO TIME SCALE
The note stays held for two seconds. Release begins at note-off, wherever the envelope has reached.
01 / Pluck becomes pad
Start with sustain 0%. Raise decay: does it keep sounding forever? Now set sustain to 70%, attack to 650 ms and release to 1200 ms. You have changed the role of the sound without changing the oscillator.
02 / Dark is not the same as short
Hold the volume settings still. Lower cutoff, then raise Filter opening. The tail stays dark while the attack brightens. Compare with raising cutoff alone: that also brightens the tail.
03 / Recall the cause
Store A as a short pluck. Change only release to 1500 ms and play again. With sustain at zero and decay complete before note-off, the long release adds almost nothing. Raise sustain and repeat: now release matters.
A simple way to decode a reference sound
- Hum the body. Is there a stable note, a chord, or mostly noise?
- Tap its shape. Instant hit, pluck, sustained tone or slow swell?
- Listen to brightness over time. Does it close, open, wobble or stay still?
- Find the extra character. Beating saws, a metallic FM strike, distortion, or a recorded texture?
- Separate the room. Imagine the dry sound with echoes removed. Build that first.
Choose the smallest useful starting point
Round + low → sine or triangle.
Bright + buzzy → saw or square through a filter.
Bell / wood / metal → sine with FM.
Air / hiss / clap → noise through a filter.
Piano / choir → multisample.
A recognizable syllable → sample.
An evolving cloud → granular or spectral.
These are starting hypotheses. Test one, listen, and change your hypothesis if the sound asks for it.
04 / LISTEN → DIAGNOSE → CHANGE
Fix the cause.
Change the first likely cause, then listen again.
Adding an effect is not always the next step.
Tempo is part of sound design.
At 128 BPM, a beat lasts about 469 ms; an eighth note 234 ms; a sixteenth 117 ms; a dotted eighth 352 ms. The figures describe timing, not mandatory envelope settings. Release, note spacing and the actual envelope level at note-off decide how much notes overlap.
Formula: quarter note = 60,000 ÷ BPM milliseconds. Eighth = half; sixteenth = quarter; dotted eighth = three quarters; eighth triplet = one third of the quarter-note duration.
REFERENCE / WHAT THIS GUIDE IS
Original recipes. Documented controls.
How to use the numbers
These are original educational starting points for Serum 2, authored for this guide. They are not factory presets, artist transcriptions, verified recreations of records or a promise of a particular professional result. Recipe settings have been reviewed against the documentation where accessible, but the 48 patches have not been built and auditioned inside the Serum plug-in as part of this release. Refine the ranges using each recipe’s listening checkpoint.
Browser previews are simplified Web Audio sketches. They demonstrate rhythm, envelope and broad source character. They do not reproduce Serum’s wavetables, filter models, unison, exact FM response, sample engines or full FX chains. Sample, multisample, granular and spectral recipes intentionally have no synthetic stand-in preview. The actual sound depends on the audio you load.
The handbook works offline. Online links below are optional references. No plug-in connection, account or network request is required to use the guide. Progress is local to your browser; notebook exports preserve it. Printing prints the currently selected recipe. Download the full Markdown handbook for all recipes and supporting text.
Primary references checked 13 September 2026
- Xfer: Serum 2 product overview — available oscillator engines and the broad sound-design capabilities.
- Xfer: Serum 2 User Guide — oscillator warp modes (FM (B), pp. 49–55), granular mode (p. 85 onward), spectral SCAN (p. 116), filters (p. 139), envelopes (p. 186), modulation (p. 200), and Init Preset (p. 324). Page numbers refer to the indexed 2025 manual and may change in later editions. In Serum use MENU → Read the manual for your installed version.
- Xfer: Using Knobs and Sliders — precise input and context menus.
- Xfer: Routing an Oscillator or Filter — Filter, Main, Direct and None routes.
- Xfer: Saving Changes and Embedding Content — native preset saving and custom sample portability.
Factory categories Tables/Analog/Basic Shapes and Multisamples/Factory/Keys and Choir were checked against the content installed in this workspace’s environment. Exact sample names and the controls exposed by each engine can vary by version. The guide tells you what to audition instead of inventing a universal factory filename.
07 / THE TECHNO LOW END
A kick. A tail. A feeling.
Eight ways to make the floor move.
Serum supplies a source; the groove comes from the whole chain.
FIRST, SEPARATE THE TWO JOBS
The kick hits. The rumble moves between hits.
A “rumble kick” often means a dry kick layered with a dark, processed tail. That tail may come from reverb, delayed hits, distorted audio or a deliberately played low synth. You can build it with a kick sample, a drum synth or Serum 2. You do not need Serum to make the effect.
The feelings below are creative directions, not fixed genre rules. When the tail arrives, how long it hangs around and how much grit it contains usually matter more than a preset name.
The processed branch adds the tail, not a second dry kick.
THE FIRST WORKING CHAIN / ABLETON LIVE EXAMPLE
Build this once. Then choose its character.
Use ordinary Reverb, Saturator, an EQ with low/high cuts, Utility and a sidechain-capable Compressor. Device availability varies by Live edition; equivalent effects in another DAW do the same jobs. These are original starting settings, not a supplied effect rack or an auditioned preset.
- Make a clean kick lane. Name the track KICK, route it to Main, and put a kick on beats 1, 2, 3 and 4. Begin at 135 BPM with a compact 150–250 ms kick body. Use the Short synth kick recipe or a sample you already like. Listen for an attack and a settled low body; a long distorted kick can already occupy the space you want to fill.
- Make a separate tail lane. Create an audio track named RUMBLE. Show its I/O controls. Set Audio From to KICK, choose Post FX, and set Monitor to In. Its output goes to Main. Pull the RUMBLE fader right down while assembling the effects. This is a live copy of the kick’s audio; keep KICK audible. Leave the rumble track’s sends at zero. Live routing reference ↗
- Make the copied kick into a tail. On RUMBLE, add Reverb → Saturator → EQ → Utility → Compressor, in that order. Reverb Dry/Wet 100%, Decay 1.2 s, Predelay 10 ms; leave Freeze off. If its input low-cut is removing the kick’s low body, disable that low-cut initially. Leave modulation subtle. You should hear a room tail when you slowly raise the RUMBLE fader, not a second dry attack.
- Darken and centre it. Start Saturator Drive at +3 dB; lower its Output to roughly match bypass loudness (−3 dB is a first approximation). On EQ, enable a high-pass at 30 Hz and a low-pass at 180 Hz, both at 12 dB/octave, with no resonant boost. High-pass removes frequencies below its setting; low-pass removes those above. Set Utility Mono on. These are starting boundaries, not a rule to cut every track at 30/180 Hz. Adapt them to the kick and the result.
- Let the kick make a gap. In the final Compressor, open the Sidechain panel, enable its external input and choose KICK → Post FX. Start Ratio 4:1, Attack 2 ms, Release 140 ms, Auto Release off, automatic makeup off, Dry/Wet 100%. Lower Threshold until the gain-reduction meter dips about 6–10 dB with each kick. Threshold depends on source level: copying a fixed threshold from someone else rarely gives the same duck. Raise it again if the rumble never recovers.
- Blend in context. Bring RUMBLE up from silence with KICK playing. Stop when you hear useful movement between hits. Then pull it down slightly and compare. If the kick feels smaller, first lower the rumble, then adjust its return timing or shorten its tail. Keep their group below clipping. A limiter cannot reliably repair an overcrowded envelope.
What the compressor does to the feeling
Attack sets how quickly it pushes the tail down. Release sets how quickly it lets the tail recover after the detector falls below threshold. A fast recovery can chatter or crowd the kick; a slow one can create a broad inhale or keep the rumble down for the entire beat. Release is not an exact delay or a hold time: the kick length, threshold, ratio and detector also determine the gap. If you need a precisely timed hole, render the tail and draw a volume envelope. A repeating envelope will not follow missing or displaced kicks automatically.
Use a separate bassline deliberately
A full rumble often performs the bass role. First test kick + rumble alone. If a melodic bass must join, shorten the rumble, move some of its energy above the bass’s fundamental, or alternate their notes. Avoid stacking three sustained low parts and hoping sidechain will separate them. Check in mono after changing filters: filtering can change phase as well as tone.
The device behavior is documented in Live’s audio-effect reference; the processing choices and listening targets here are original exercises. Ableton’s sidechain examples explain how ducking can separate drums from sustained or reverberant parts.
CHOOSE THE MOVEMENT
What kind of weight?
All eight are below. Select one to open its build.
MAKE THE GAP MUSICAL
See where the tail comes back.
This diagram is a drawn volume-envelope plan, not a simulation of a compressor. Start the tail’s fade-in after the kick’s strongest body, then recover before the next hit. Change these two timings to understand the pump.
For a rendered tail: automate a gain/volume device so the level is nearly silent in the gap, rises along a smooth curve, then falls briefly before the next kick. Smooth both edges over about 3–10 ms to avoid clicks. Listen before making the gap deeper.
COMMIT THE SOUND / KEEP ITS GROOVE
Render it, move it, make it yours.
- Record the wet lane alone. Create another audio track, Audio From RUMBLE → Post FX, Monitor Off, arm and record. For a four-bar loop, let the reverb run for at least four bars first, then record several more. Starting from silence gives a different first beat than a settled loop.
- Pick one ducking method to print. For audio locked to this kick pattern, record the final ducked chain. For a portable texture, bypass the final sidechain compressor before recording, then duck the playback track with the actual kick in its destination project. This avoids baking in one rhythm and unknowingly ducking it a second time.
- Make the edit clean. Select a stable one-, two- or four-bar region; check the beginning and end at the chosen tempo. Add short edge fades and, if necessary, crossfade a join. Bypass time-stretching initially for a one-shot. For a loop moved to a new tempo, verify the source tempo and use your DAW’s warp controls, then listen for changed low-end texture.
- Optional: play it through Serum 2. Use the existing Resampled techno rumble recipe: Sample mode, your WAV, UNISON 1, no added reverb, a short amplitude attack and release. Preserve the source at its untransposed root for the first test. A loop has baked-in rhythm: do not retrigger a whole two-bar recording on every quarter note. Use one long MIDI trigger or load a short isolated tail for repeated notes. A single root label does not make a diffuse rumble perfectly tuned.
- Save three variants. Keep one short/dry, one deep/long and one gritty version from the same kick. Match perceived level before comparing, then use each under the same drum loop. Write whether the track feels more agile, spacious or tense, and name the specific timing or tone change responsible.
No new rumble audio previews are presented: these chains depend on your kick, reverb and DAW. The diagram teaches timing; build and audition the chain to judge its actual sound.
06 / NO UNEXPLAINED WORDS
Say it in plain English.
What it means. Where you find it.
What happens when you change it.
05 / BUILD THE SKILL
Eight weeks. Your own sounds.
25 minutes a day, five days a week.
Move on when you can demonstrate the skill.
Copy → change → recall → use.
Build once with the recipe open. Change one thing and predict the result. Next day, rebuild from Init with the recipe closed. Finish the week by using the sound in an eight-bar loop. Progress depends on deliberate listening, not just time spent.
Check a session only after doing its listening task. Recipe “recalled” marks are separate from these sessions.
TAKE YOUR WORK WITH YOU
Your sound-design notebook
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