Xfer Serum Synthesiser - Part 2: Wavetable Editor | Tomas George | Skillshare
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Xfer Serum Synthesiser - Part 2: Wavetable Editor

teacher avatar Tomas George, Music + Audio Production Instructor

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Welcome to this Class

      0:33

    • 2.

      Wavetable Editor

      10:35

    • 3.

      FFT Editor

      4:46

    • 4.

      Importing Audio into the Wavetable

      10:04

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About This Class

In this Part 3 Xfer Serum Synthesiser class, we look at the Wavetable Editor, the FFT Editor Section and also importing audio into the Wavetable to create your own custom Wavetables in Serum.

I recommend taking the part 1 first, however, it's not essential.

This class is great for anyone that has Serum and wants to make some interesting sounds with the Wavetable Editor, FFT Section and also create their own custom Wavetables.

So, if you want to learn how to use this amazing synth and create your own uniques sounds then I recommend taking this class.

I'll see you in the first video!

Cheers,

Tomas.

Meet Your Teacher

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Tomas George

Music + Audio Production Instructor

Teacher

Hi, Tomas here. I'm a UK Music Producer, Audio Engineer, and Composer. I've been producing and writing music for over fifteen years.

I have an MMus Masters Degree in Music Production and a BA(Hons) in Music Composition.

I really enjoy creating and editing all types of music, but I especially love teaching it online.

See full profile

Level: All Levels

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Transcripts

1. Welcome to this Class: Hi there, and welcome to this class with myself. Thomas George for this class is all about the serum synthesizer. This is a part to class where we're going to be looking at the Wave Table Editor. We're also going to be looking at the FFT editor and also how to import your own audio into the wave table. This class is for anyone who has this serum synthesizer and also recommend checking out part one before you move on to part two. However, you can always watch this. If you just want to learn all about the wave table litter to join me in the first lesson, we're going to be looking at this wave table editor. 2. Wavetable Editor: Hello and welcome to this lecture where we're going to be looking at the Wave Table editor . So if you go over to the wave table here and hit the edit bottom, we will get this wave table editor appear. Right now, we're actually using a wave table called basic shapes. If we look at this, it has seven different frames or snapshots. However, we can have up to 256 different frames in serum. So just click on the drop down menu here. I'm just going to choose more complex one. Let's have a look at gritty. And now, when we have a look at the editor, you can see here actually says 256 on on this arrow button here, you can go through. We can scroll through the different frames. Let's just try. Never won. Let's try Monster One wait can also gave through the different frames with this wave table position dollars. Well, so let's open up the editor. And here we can see 256 different frames as well. Just scrolling through different shapes here can actually click dragon, move these different frames around if you want. I also noticed it says 256 was much less than 256 frames down here. This is because it is actually morphing between these different shapes. Think gradually moving between these different shapes. Down here, we're looking more for a bit later on. That's why there's so many frames is moving between these different shapes and that creates separate frames in serum. We also copy and paste different frames, and we can hit the plus button or negative button to dilate. We'll add new frames, and there's also undo and redo here as well. So the undue redus actually separate from your digital audio workstation. This is just exclusively inside this wave table. Answer. Okay, if we go up to add remove here, we can go to in. It's all witches defaults, and here it just give us one sort to frame. So let's actually Juvic eight this night with this plus button. And now we have two different sort two frames off Steve that both the same so we can actually do is just click on these lines and change the shape, which is quite interesting. We have different tools aside here Now you can hear change the sound already So the moment the lines actually follows the grid, which is why we can change the grid. Um are on the side here so you can get more precise. So we commit the lines in their frames a bit more precise. If you want to, can also dio horizontal a swell as vertical. Let's just change this to eight. You can also scroll along through this great with these arrows. Let's look at these controls on the side here. So the 1st 1 is just a straight line which we were using before then We have slope up. Of course we have slowed down. Then we have some curves sine wave shapes here waken easily create some custom shapes A few more curves shapes here So this one is curve up and of course, curve down. And this one here is actually called on Inter Pilate linear. So that means it will basically connect points across the grid section light site. Then we have this of one here it's the same but creates a curved line between the two great points. That's just change this again, Going down, we have the drawers shape selector. So this allows you to move a portion off the shape. So you contract this opal dime, then we have this one here. So this actually adds noise. You want to add a bit of noise into your shape? The noise can sometimes be quite hard to hear on a fine grid. Okay, then going down. We have this left and right arrow. So this is a mirror editor. You can use this in combination with any of the other tools. So it looks like this one, for example. You can see it's mirroring what I'm doing. Okay, Now let's talk about more so we can actually make serum creator more between these two different frames. So if we click on more foot here, you can see we have a few different options. The 1st 1 is cross fade. This is generally the most common one in the standard one for wave table synthesis. Now, if we click on this, you can see the second frame. It's narrow, labeled 256. If we click and scroll between these two, you can see it gradually changes into the second wave. Serums actually created all the different frames in between. This morph so gradually moved in the one frame to never. So instead of two frames, there's now 256. So that's the cross fade morph. Let's have a look at of one, which is spectral moth. So if you click on this on, we just direct through the different frames you can see it doesn't gradually move into the of a moth shape does move a little differently. This is quite common in additive synthesis, and it does create a slight difference. Okay, the next one is actually more spectral zero fund phase. So this is the same a spectral more except the phase content of the fundamental zeroed. So the fundamental frequency is a bit more consistent for at the table. The next one is spectral zero or phases, so this basically discards any phase information. So let's just click on this. You can actually see the last frame has changed. However, the most common one is cross fade, but I do recommend exploring these different wolf types. You can also remove more of tables here. Now we just have the two different frames that we can always undo to go back to the previous frame and I'm just going to change this back to cross fade. We also have a few more options up here as well. Single process. We also have a few more options as well up here. So under the single drop down box, we have a few different options here. So if we have a look X fade edges, this will basically edit the waves on. Put in some fades starting end, as you can see here. But remember, this will do this on the individual frames, we have some of options as well, like normalized. So this will change the way to the target level or the normal level. Okay, we have a few more options in single and also process, so process will actually apply to all of the waves in the table, and single will just apply for the single waves and then going along, we have Adam remove waken, insert or remove individual frames. Okay, going along, we have sort. So this basically gives you different ways off sorting the waves or rearranging the waves around. But right now we only have two different waves. Let's go back I to this editor on bring up presets. Try gritty. And if we click here, we can have a look in the Freedy editor and see the different waves here. So here we can see it really has four different waves. It's more thing between these four different waves, so we can sort the ways by spectrum the recommend testing this outs on a wave table that has quite a few different ways. If you want to sort them, because when there's only four, you can literally just track them around if you want. But there are a few different ways you consort these waves, but it really depends on the wave table you're working on and how many different ways you have. So if you just find another preset, let's try Monster nine. You can see we have a few more waves we're dealing with in this wave table, but it's still ready, morphing between the different shapes going along. We have imports, and we have a few different import options, so this basically allows us to importer own audio into the wave table. But we're gonna look at this later on because then we have exports, so this allows us to export our wave table as no dear file. So this you can share your different waves or use them in different wave table synthesizes can also select up here oscillator A or B and up here we can also change the zoom on. That's for this fft editor which we're going to look at in the next lecture. So thank you for watching this lecture. I hope you understand this way of table editor a bit more. I'll see you in the next lecture. We're going to continue looking at this editor, but up here in this FFT section 3. FFT Editor: Okay. Now let's have a look at this FFT area up here, so this allows us to generate and change the shape of our way form. And we can do this by drawing in harmonics on their relative phases. Toe one another, so basically allows you to build away form using the harmonic Siri's up here, you'll notice it goes to 48 Ben's. But if we change the zoom, we can actually add up to 512 bends. For this example, we're not going to use that money bends. So I'm just going to change the zoom to eight times so you can basically just click and drag. The first been to create a sign wife, and we can add more odd. Now we can add more odd or even harmonics to build a sound. Ah, you can also click and drag on a load of them. You can also click and drag down on the bends to get rid of them as well. And even also right click Haven't go on clear all so the lower half here. This allows you to adjust the phase offset for each frequency, Ben, so you can change the shape by adjusting the phase of the different Benz there a few more right click options as well. You can also clear from a specific Ben so you can clear high frequency. So from been 13 to the end, we can also right click on Go unclear low frequencies. So from start to been 15 of the sea, we're just hearing the higher frequencies there. That's just drawing some lower frequencies so it can sound a little strange without fundamental frequency. So most of the time we will want this first, Ben the fundamental frequency. We also have some randomized options by right clicking and going on to these randomize options. Here we could randomize the low 16 bends if you wish. Like a cell, it can sound a little strange about this first bed. You can also repeat the action. This will continue random izing. There are few more randomized options here. A recommend going in and test the map for yourself can also shift, not give up a noticeable shift. The bends over we can shift knocked it down. Consider shift that bends over again. You generally want the lower bends to be higher than the high bends, but it really depends on what kind of sound you're after. We can also set a progressive fade so it may sound a little bit more usable. Make this a bit more random. So if you right click on here Weaken, go onto progressive fade. So it could also do a randomised all and then go onto a progressive fed as well. We also have draw even harm on its only and draw odd harmonics only We also have this button here. So the FFT editor will take in the harmonic content off what's drawn in this wave table. So you confirm the edit The shape in here really go through and customized this wave table so you can see in real time updates when you move these Benz. Okay, so that's the FFT editor. Thank you for watching. And I'll see you in the next lecture. 4. Importing Audio into the Wavetable: Hello. Welcome to this lecture where we're going to be looking at importing our own audio into the wave table. So there are a few different ways we can do this. We can literally grab the audio and then drag it into the wave table in the main house. Later Window is the same for all states A and B. You have these different options appear, or we can actually go into the wave table editor and dragged in here. What? We can go over to imports, and we have a few import options here as well. However, the easiest way is to literally just drag it into this main interface. You'll notice we have a few different options here. Normal dynamic pitch zero snap, normal dynamic pitch follow, constant frame size, pitch average and then a few different FFT sizes. However, one thing to notice, I have realized that it doesn't really work that well with a i f. F files. It does work a lot better with wild files, So if you have any problem, have a look at the file format of the audio you're trying to drag into serum our recommend using webs. I've got this one here, which is a baseballs. Let's just talk about these different options here. The 1st 1 is normal, dynamic pitch zero snap. So this is most suited for simple sounds. What it basically does is it creates a pitch map from the sound, and they will also make zero crossings on the way forms so you don't get any clicks or pops . The reason why it's most suited for simple sounds is because four more complex or hard sounds sometimes serum, can struggle, finding the right zero crossings on these more complex outs. Let's just use the 1st 1 may take a moment to load on for this. I'm just going to Dragon LFO onto the wave table position so it's going to scroll through the different ways you can hear. It's going really fast, just going to slow this telephone, so it's quite called Let's have a look in the wave table editor. You can see we have quite a few black ones here, so I'm just going to delete the black ones so we can either just like this minus button or we can select multiple ones by holding them shift, or we can go over to add remove up here on. We have a few options here for deleting the waves as well. I'm going to choose this one here. Remove Selected to the end to this will remove the ones that you have selected all the way to the last wave. And also what we can do is we can normalize this because it is quite quiet. So if you go to process and then go to normalize each No, just now, these waves a lot bigger. I would say this is quite a complex sounds. I'm just going to try the second option, which is important. Normal dynamic pitch follow. The main difference between this mode on the first mode is the second mode. This dynamic pitch follow. It's not going to try and find zero crossings notice here. There is a lot of gaps, and we will need to normalize this against Let's go to process on normalize on him, just going to get rid of some of these blank ones so selected to end. I'm just going to get rid off a few of these noisy ones by clicking on the waves. I want to get rid off and just hit in this minus bottom, and I'm also going to create a morphs if we're going to more on hit cross fade. Now we have 256 different waves just to make it a little longer. Now, if we have a look at the Freedy editor, he considered a lot of different ways going on here. Very complex sound. I always go back into the editor and just delete some of these as well, so I'm going to go from here. I remain from selected to the end. Now we only have 11 different waves, so I made this wave table a lot less complex. We can also Adam off more and cross fade. Now we have 256. It's a lot more gradual now, a bit more usable. That's important of audio. Now let's have a look at the other modes. So here we have import constant frame rates pitch average, so this one works best for one shots and also basic sounds. So what this will do is it will find the average pitch on. There will be no dynamic pitch analysis. So if you'll sound has movement like the previous one in pitch then this may not be the best mode to select. I'm going to go back into here on normalize again. It's a very complex sound. Let's just select here. I'd remove from number seven, beginning to selected and then just to hear as well I'd remove. So from selected to the end, now begins, the more cross fade that's a bit more usable. So we really just morphing between these different waves rather than having the crazy thing we had before three. Okay, we have a few of the modes as well. We have FFT 256 fft 512 FFT 1024 FFT 2048. You noticed that each time they are multiplying by two. So in this FFT mode, the wave shape is being, Reese emphasized. So if the different numbers were choosing, how many sample cycles is going to contain? So a to 56 we will see a smaller portion off the audio. 512 will double on day 1024 double and then 2048 will double. Let's just have a look at the 1st 1 I think just using this portion on the next one, so the sound will be different in these different cycle modes. So when there's less information, so for 256 the sand will be deeper. Another stay. The high ones that sound will be higher. 2 to 56 might be useful for making bass sounds. We still need to go in the editor, though, on Just tweak with this a little bit. So I'm just going to normalize. Still very noisy. I'm just going to use cup of these waifs so you let shoes seven Add remove So beginning to selected and then to eight I don't move. Selected to end Theo way. Let's just bypass this LFO by right clicking. Uh, on if you choose. Say this example. 1000 and 24. I'm just going to the editor on just from 7 to 11 this time. So from seven, add Remove, beginning to selected and then and let's go from them before and go on. Add remove selected to end and create a more cross fade. Now let's have a listen to this. Obviously, it's a lot higher. If we right click this and on bypass telephone. Theo case. It really depends on What kind of sand your after the lower sands will be more like a sine wave. It might be a bit better for creating a bass sound. You can always go in and edit this way. Formas. Well, if you wish, cram off again. We can always import an audio, then editor. And if we wish we can save as well as a preset by clicking on the save button here, there can save it as our own precept. Okay, so that's importing our audio into the wave table. Remember, we can just drag it in here. What? We can go to the editor, and we have some import options here which are basically the same as dragging them in, but in a list format. So I hope you found this lecture useful, and I'll see you in the next one.