How to Shape a Schranz Lead, Stab and Pad in Serum 2

Now, before we get into the breakdown and go over all the synths, I just want to do like a quick music theory checkpoint. I'm not going to deviate and do like a full music theory breakdown because I am probably not the best person to explain this because it's something that I know and I've learned from such a young age, but I'm not. I'm definitely not a master by any means of music theory. But luckily I know how to set up Ableton to make writing melodies a little bit easier for me.

So that's what I'm going to focus on right now is sort of just like guiding you throughout what's going to be the next lesson, which is going to be about the breakdown synths. So let's just take a quick look at one of these MIDI clips, this lead party Crasher, because before this drop 1.3, we didn't really have a key established. There was no melodic nature of the song. So at drop 1.3, this is the first time we have like a really strong melodic element. So if we double click, we can

see that we have two notes and they're both playing at B. And this is what I would call the root because it is like home base. There's other notes that you can hit. And inside of a scale, there are seven different notes. The eighth note would be the octave. So we know that there are seven other notes that we can hit in this scale. But home base, the root note, the strongest note is B. So in this case, our track is in B. So we know our track is in B.

Now, the other thing we need to figure out is whether it's major or minor. And there's other scales, too. But I like to think of it as major or minor because those are like the main two. And because it's techno, it's like 99 percent in minor. So we can go up to here to this scale thing right here. And this is going to allow us to select our scale. So we're going to go down to B and you'll see that some of these notes down here in the piano roll have

changed. And we can see the scale is updated here to B and major. And so now we want to hit the dropdown and you can see we don't only have B major or minor. We have so many other scales down here. But just for this lesson, I just want us to think as major or minor. So we're going to select minor and you can see that the notes have changed again. So now that we know we're writing in minor and we have our like global scale set to B minor and

we can go into our clip and we could see that the scale does in fact say B minor. Sometimes it changes. Like if you click on another clip that had a different scale, it might change. But we're a B minor and you can see that there's these purple notes here. These are going to be the notes that are safe to play in the B minor scale. So we have. So we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and then eight. Eight is the octave. The purple keys are going to

tell you what's in key. But we can simplify this even more if we hit the scale button up here at the top. It is only going to show us notes that are in the scale. I think I mentioned this earlier in one of the earlier videos, but still a really good thing to think about when we're going over these melodies, because if you know you're in B minor, you have your MIDI clip set to B minor and then you toggle this scale button, you cannot hit a wrong note. You can

hit some not ideal notes, but you can't hit a note that's out of scale. So again, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and then eight are octave. So that is our root note. And so now what we want to take a look at is some of the other synths that we're adding here in the breakdown. And we're going to go over those a bit more, but let's double click into this ARP. You can see here that this, when I click into this MIDI clip, the scale has reverted back here

and it's also reverted back here. So we want to go up here, hit B and then minor. And let's toggle off the scale. But now if we look, we can see that there is one note here, this C that is not on this purple, which would technically mean it is out of key. That is because in a minor scale, we do not play a semitone up from the root. This is actually called a Phrygian scale. You could see that this note, which is in a minor key, there are no notes

across the entire MIDI clip in that note. And now the purple note has moved down from C sharp to C. And so if we hit scale, now we can see that all of our notes are in the right key. And the difference between a Phrygian scale and a minor scale is this. So this is our, this is our party crasher lead and it's playing the root note. If we were to hit the first minor interval, it would be this. But a Phrygian scale gives you this sound, which is like very

like evil and dark and ominous. And that's exactly why I chose it for this pattern. So if we listen to this ARP synth that is playing over top of our party crasher synth, I'm going to turn off the auto filters for now. It sounds like this. So that verse, let's listen to what this would sound like if we took these C notes and bumped them up to C sharp. Still sounds good. It's just a different scale. So I think that sounds really good. But in the Phrygian scale, it just sounds

a little bit more like evil and dark. So I just wanted to do a quick little breakdown on that. You can really use either minor or Phrygian while you're writing, but I just wanted to explain the difference between Phrygian and minor. So you didn't get tripped up by this interval right here.

Alright, so since we've talked about music theory and we're getting into the breakdown, I just want to show you some of the sounds and how they are made. So you can take a look and listen to some of the presets that we're using in the breakdown. So right here at breakdown 2.1, you can see that we have three sounds stacked on top of each other. We have this ARP Ravager, this Party Crasher lead and this Pad Angel. So I'm going to go over the ARP Ravager first and I am going

to turn off this breakdown automation that we had because I just want you to be able to listen to the preset and what we're doing. So this is what it sounds like. So we went over the MIDI in the last lesson when we talked about the music theory. So I'm not going to get into that. I'm just going to get into the sound design and how we made the sound. So whenever I'm writing tracks, I'm not typically in sound design mode. I am reaching for presets that I made previously or

that have been made previously in some of our packs because I just want to get to writing the song. If you want to sound design in the songwriting process, that's up to you. But to me, it kind of feels like, okay, I'm cooking a meal and I'm constantly running back and forth to the grocery store to get each individual ingredient. So I look at it as I go to the grocery store, I get all my ingredients lined up. And then when it's time to cook the meal or write the track,

I have everything ready for me and I just start writing and arranging. And that's what I did here. And that's why I use presets. So let's open up the Serum 2 preset and let's start by looking at the wave tables. So right off the bat, we have a saw that is two octaves down and then another saw that is one octave down. And on oscillator A, we have a detune of two. So if we turn off oscillator B, that is like the main sound of what we're hearing. If we turn

on oscillator B, I think that there's probably this macro right here, this layer macro. If we turn this up, then we'd start to hear it. So it's really cool how these presets are set up. Like that is such an awesome additional layer that you can control with a single knob. So since we had it down by default, I'm not even going to worry about oscillator B. So I could pretty much just turn this off so we don't get confused. So we have one oscillator with two voices. And if we were

to take this unison down to one, if you're wearing headphones, you could hear that the stereo width has sort of like collapsed to mono. So I like having the unison up a bit. So the two voices are sort of like panning back and forth. And because there's a little bit of detune, they're sort of like phasing in and out of each other. And if we turn the detune up a bit, you can really hear how that detune is a fact. So we can see how it's acting both of those voices.

We just have our default saw at two octaves down. Now we can take a look at the filtering. So all we have on filter one is this diffuser filter, and let's turn that off and see if it makes a difference. So it definitely it has this characteristic that's hard to explain, but the diffuser is basically just adding this like, I don't know, it's like this disperser like kind of like dubstep effect almost. And it's giving a lot of weight in the low end and making the sound a little bit more

warm without affecting its overall quality. So if we turn it off, it just sounds a little thin and nasally. And when we turn it on, sounds a little bit heavier in the low end. So that's really it. There's not a lot going on here. We do have some modulations, but let's go into the matrix and see what LFO 1 is doing. It's just adjusting this warp. So we have bend plus. And you can see that this modulation, it's really cool how this was done, but it's just modulating this bend plus

knob. So just giving it a little bit more of like a unstable result, which is characteristic of, like, analog synths. It's just not perfect every single time. So that is it for the oscillator page.

Let's go into the effects and see what we got. So we have a distortion and OTT compressor. Then we have an EQ, which I don't think is really doing anything right now. I think there might be, yeah. So there's a macro right here, this air macro, and it is boosting the high end of this EQ. And then we have a reverb, which there's a little bit of the macro added to the reverb. And then we have our delay, which has its own macro as well. And if you're not familiar what

macros are, basically they're just assignable knobs that you can drag to different parameters. So you can control the parameter from this macro section. So it's like a way to get really like fine-tuned controls in a serum preset. And we put macros on all of our serum presets just so it makes like the songwriting and sound designing process a little bit easier having these predefined ranges. And also you can see that some of these have multiple parameters mapped to them. Like this harder knob, we right click, this is mapped to the

distortion drive and the distortion wet. So if we go back up to the distortion, we can see if we click on this knob right here, it shows us the range of the drive and the range of the mix. So if we turn this up, we're basically turning up both of these parameters at the same time, but we don't have any of that added. So let's just go ahead and we're gonna turn off each effect and add them back one by one. So you can hear exactly what the effect is adding.

So this is with all the effects off. It's a little bit warmer, it's not as bright and it's definitely more dry. So let's start by adding the distortion back. Just as creating like a subtle crunch to it. Now let's add the OTT compressor. Again, just a subtle like, I don't know, it's just sort of squeezing the signal together and making it a little bit fatter and more compressed. Then we have the equalizer, which is controlled by this air macro right here. So this is with it off. And this is with

it on. Definitely adding a lot of brightness and presence. And then we have our reverb. It's just adding that like splashiness behind it, which is giving it a bit of depth and like a space for it to sit in. Then we have our delay. Not a ton you can hear there. And then we have this utility, which isn't doing anything. But what it is doing is I can see by this little like almost headphone looking icon here, one of these macros is mapped to this. So let's see, it's mapped to

macro four. So macro four is a filter macro. And you can see as I turn this up, it's filtering it down. So that is it for our Serum 2 preset. It's very basic, but honestly in techno, like less is more. Then we have on the channel strip, we have these two filters, which is for our breakdown automation. I'm gonna get into that when we go over the breakdown. And then after that, we have an EQ, which is just cutting out the lows. I don't want the low end of this sound

because that is what my kick and my rumble are for. My kick and the rumble are gonna fill up this space. So I don't need the low end in this sound to be conflicting with my kick and the rumble. It's gonna cause a lot of phasing and it's gonna sound really sloppy on a large system. And then the last thing we have is this saturator. And it's not making a noticeable difference, but if we hit tab here, we can see that it's probably applying some clipping. So if we turn this

saturator off, let's click this so we can see what the peak signal is. So it looks like it's peaking at negative 1.1. Now let's turn on the saturator and see what our new peak readout is. Now our new peak readout is negative 5.3. So we're basically shaving off like four decibels of these like errant peaks that are just like poking out. That's gonna put a lot of stress on your compressors or your limiter in the final stage. And if there's like these errant peaks that are like just jumping out at

random times and triggering your limiter, it's gonna cause the entire track to pump with that peak. So we don't really need the peaks there because it's not making it sound any different. So that's why we put this saturator on the end just to control those peaks. And so that is really it for this ARP ravager sound. Oh, there is one more thing I forgot to mention and it's the actual ARP part. This is something that I'm like still not too used to with Serum 2, but you can see in our

MIDI that the pattern is just these held notes. But when we listen to it, it's playing this crazy arpeggiating pattern and that is being controlled in this ARP section. So if we turn it off. That's what it sounds like without the arpeggiator. And then when we turn it back on. It's making this pattern and you can see it here. I'm not exactly sure. Like I feel like I've played with this arpeggiator section a bunch and it's not something that I'm like fully comfortable with, but that is what's creating those notes.

So if you wanna jump into the ARP and figure it out, go for it. Just know that the ARP is what is creating that like arpeggiated MIDI pattern. So that is it for this sound. Other than the ARP, it's a really, really simple sound. I know the ARP is doing like a lot of the heavy lifting, but as far as the sound goes, we don't have like a ton of crazy processing going on. And that's just like crazy processing's not really my style because I just feel like it ends up

like watering down the sound and making it sound a little like cheap and corny. I just like really sounds that just cut right through and that's what we have here. So that is it for this preset.

Alright, so for our next sound, we have this lead party crasher, and let's open up Serum 2 and look at our preset. So this is what our preset looks like. This one definitely is a little bit more complex. We have some complex wave tables going on, a noise oscillator, a third oscillator, but let's just take a listen real quick so we can see what it sounds like. And I'm going to turn off this auto filter and any of the build automations. So we have... And we talked about this MIDI pattern

and this sound a little bit before, but I really wanted to dive into the sound design part of it. So this is our preset. We have oscillator A at negative three octaves, oscillator B at negative three octaves, oscillator C at negative three octaves, and then we have our noise oscillate. So let's turn these on and off one by one so we could hear what it's doing. I'm going to turn off everything but oscillator A. So that is our first wave table, and you could hear that sounds nothing like our final

sound. Now let's turn on our oscillator B. Still doesn't sound anything like our final sound. Now let's turn on oscillator C and this is where it's going to start to sound different. And this is sounding different because it's basically controlled by this warp mode right here. This is phase distortion C. This is like Serum 1's version of FM or frequency modulation. So if we turn this all the way down, it sounds like that. And if we turn it up, it has like a higher pitched sound to it. And it sounds

really nice and rich. These wave tables are like spectral wave tables. So they have like a lot of harmonics built in, which is why when you phase distort it with this saw wave and oscillator C, it has a very like bright, rich, noisy sound. Then when we add the noise oscillator, you can hear that there's an actual layer of noise on top. So it's filling in a lot of those gaps that's left by these three oscillators. I feel like with the noise oscillator off, it sounds very like digital synthesizer. And

then with the noise oscillator on, that bright white noise is just filling in the frequency spectrum and making it sound more interesting. So that is it for this front page. And so let's take a look at this modulation real quick, because all we have is LFO 1, which is doing this interesting like XY modulation pattern. We have the X pattern. So as it's going back and forth, the X pattern is modulating both the warp knob of oscillator B and the warp knob of oscillator C. This is going to make a

minimal difference. Like if we turn this off, that's with it off. If we turn it on, you can see this wave table just modulating a bit. It's not a huge noticeable difference, but I did want to mention it. So we have nothing going on for the ARP, nothing going on for the clip. Now let's get into the effects. We have distortion, delay, reverb, a OTT compressor, an equalizer that is giving a bit of a boost to the high end. And then we have our utility, which is mapped just like the

last sound with macro for being a filter. So that's pretty cool. Let's turn off all the processing and turn it on one by one again. So every this is what it sounds like with everything off. It's very quiet and just bland. Now let's turn on this distortion, which is a diode one shape. And you can hear it definitely gets a little bit crunchier and just more present. Now we have our delay and it is very minimal because we have this macro eight that's controlling the delay. So it's only turned up

a tiny bit. Now let's go to the reverb. And we actually have a reverb on our signal chain out here. So let's turn that off. And you can hear that subtle bit of reverb that's coming from Serum. Like without it, it is so dry. And then when we turn it back on, a little bit of space going on. So then we have our compressor. And that is adding a ton of compression. And it's basically just like squeezing the signal together and making it's really bringing out the reverb and the delay

and a lot of the high frequencies in this sound. Then we have our equalizer, which is adding some more high frequencies. And then we have our utility. And so that is what's going on inside of Serum 2. And if I turn off this EQ8, this is what it's going to sound like. There's a lot of low frequencies there that I just did not want because I didn't want it conflicting with our ARP Ravager and our kick and drives because the kick and drives are still the main element. So I wanted

to filter out some of those lows. Then before that, we have this utility, which is just applying some pan automation to each sound. So you can see for this first note, I've panned at 16L, which is to the left. Then the second note, 20R to the right. I just probably was dragging around, didn't even care if it was the same. So with it off, it's just hitting straight down the middle both times. Then when we turn it back on, it's giving a nice like left right panning. Then we had that

reverb that I was talking about, which is just adding a little extra reverb. Maybe I didn't need it. I could have done it in the Serum 2 preset, but it does not matter. Then we have our automation. And this is what's happening in the breakdown, but it's also happening in the drop 1.3 and drop 1.4, which is our drop outro. So if we turn that back on, So we have this EQ, which is filtering out the lows and this auto filter, which is filtering out the highs. And that's creating this

really like narrow bandpass type effect. And that's just how I thought it sounded best. And then at the end, we have this EQ8, which is just cutting those extreme lows, like any sub frequencies that might be left over are getting cut out again. Because again, I don't want them conflicting with our drums, like our kick and our rumble. So that is it for the Party Crasher synth. This one was a little bit more complex than the ARP Ravager when it comes to wave tables and using the noise oscillator. But again,

nothing too, too crazy here. We can hear how it started from just a very simple dry sound and then evolved into this very compressed, rich sound at the end. So that is it for this sound.

So for the third sound that we have in the breakdown and what will eventually be the second drop, we have this pad angel. So if we double click on the MIDI, we didn't actually talk about this in the previous one, but I will go over it. Let's solo this so we can hear what's going on. And I'm going to turn off this utility and this auto filter so we can hear what it sounds like without the breakdown automation. So we just have this one B note being held, but then after

the first eight bars, I start to bring in some other notes. So that is our pad section and I'm going to go up here real quick and just make sure our scale is set to be minor because sometimes it just changes back to C major for whatever reason. And you can see that all of our MIDI notes are actually on top of these purple notes here in the piano roll. So if I hit scale, it'll collapse and you can see that all of these notes are in key, which means we

are in the right place. Now that we have the MIDI taken care of, let's go over the actual preset itself. So this preset is definitely the most complex out of the other ones. And it's funny because it's like also the most background element, but making pads is not exactly like an easy thing to do. So let's go through this one by one. And this time I'm actually going to turn off these two EQs in the processing chain after serum so we can listen to it. So this is our sound. So

we have our noise oscillator, oscillator C, B and A. Let's turn them all off except for oscillator A. So we could see this is at plus one octave while the other ones are at zero and minus one. So this is giving us like a really high sound and we have the unison set to 16. So let's take this all the way down to one and you can hear we have this like really high sound, but it doesn't sound very natural. And so by adding some unison and detune, it almost sounds

more like a high choir vocal. And that's what I was going for with this sound. Then we have oscillator B. I'm going to isolate that. This is sort of the same thing. We have the unison up to 16 and the detune around the same. And this is like if we had an additional person singing a choir, an octave lower. So the two of those together, it creates like a really nice rich vocal sound. Then we have oscillator C, which is an octave lower and a more complex wavetable. This DMF mod

01. You can see this is just a lot more complex of a shape than oscillator B, which is a triangle and oscillator A, which is a square, which are both classic shapes. So let's listen to oscillator C. And this is almost sounds like a lower string sound, you know? So with all three of these sounds together, it creates like one rich stack. Then we have our noise oscillator. And that's not very noticeable because we have filter one, which is filtering out the highs of all of these sounds. So if we

turned off filter one, that doesn't sound natural at all. That sounds very like digital synthesis. And I wanted this to feel like a natural like choir string stack. So by filtering out some of the highs, you can create like a more natural roll off. And that can be adjusted here with macro one for the cutoff. Then we have our LFO one, which is again, this like complex sort of random shape. And we have it modulating the bend minus warp of all three oscillators as well as the cutoff. And what this

is doing is this is just providing like a bit more like of a natural unstable sound that would be sort of comparable to how somebody would be singing. They wouldn't be holding the exact same timbre the entire time. Same with a low string. There'd be a little bit of a brado, there'd be a little bit of instability. And it's also modulating this cutoff for filter one, sort of achieving the same exact sound. So that is what this LFO one is doing. And so that is it for the oscillator page. Let's

move on to the effects. For the effects, these are actually like way more simple than the effects on the other two leads because it's a more natural sound. So let's turn them all off. The first one we have is a hyper dimension. And this isn't really too noticeable, but it's just adding some like detuned and panned voices in the stereo field. So if you like this sound, you can keep it if you don't, you don't have to. I liked it, so I kept it. Then we have our compressor. But a

keynote is this is a single band. This is not a multi-band OTT style compressor. And you can see this is just catching a little bit of the peaks when these voices are like detuning and phasing over top of each other. Sometimes they phase together in a way where they're perfectly in sync and that can cause like spikes in your levels. So by having the compressor there, you can just catch a little bit of those peaks. It's barely doing anything. It's very subtle. Then we have our reverb. And this is actually

washing it out, but we have this setting on here, silence note and effects tails when host transport stops. I'm going to turn that off so you can hear it. That is what our reverb and our release are doing. And then we have our delay. And that's adding a bit of delay. And I just want to touch on one thing as well. This envelope, this is what's really giving it that pad sound because we have a slow attack and a long release. So by default, it would maybe look something like this.

And this is what it would sound like. It has like a really like punchy start and not like a long decay. So I wanted to turn this up so it swells into the sound a bit more naturally. And then I wanted to turn this release up so it decays a bit more naturally. So it just has this nice like swell sort of sound. And so that is it for the preset. And then what I did here was I added an EQ that has a low cut. And you can see it's

not really cutting a whole lot, but I just had it there just to make sure that there's no like weird sub frequencies or low frequencies that I don't want that aren't in it. And then we have this EQ at the end, which is doing a low cut, cutting everything below 100 Hertz. I probably just copied it straight from this other track. Really not doing that much. And then we have our two like build automations. And I'm going to talk about that in our breakdown. And then we have our two breakdown

automation effects. And this is an auto filter. You can see we're slowly filtering this up over time. I'm going to talk about that when we get into the breakdown. And we have the same thing here for this utility, except I'm just cutting it off right at where the pre drop is, because I didn't want that tail to be ringing out. So that is it for the breakdown of all of our sounds and all of our presets that we're going to be using in the breakdown and the build up and the

second drop. Now let's actually get into how I made the breakdown, how I stack these sounds, how I automated them to introduce them slowly over time.

Now that we have our drums and our vocal chops situated for drop two, now let's take a look at these synths. I already went over how the synths were made, but now I want you to listen to them in context with drop two because we do some automation and then we're also introducing this pad in the back half of the drop. And this pad is actually doing a lot of work. We're creating like a tonal ambience and just lifting the energy of the drop and making it like a little bit

more like angelic and epic. So let's listen back through the drop and then we're gonna take a look at these synths. Turn up the bass, turn up the bass Turn up the bass, turn up the bass So for drop 2.1 and 2.2, we basically have these leads stacked on top of each other. And I'm gonna turn off the side chain for now. We're gonna get into side chaining on a deeper level when I talk about like mixing. But for now, I'm just gonna turn this off so we can solo these

two sounds on top of each other. So you can see that it's basically this ARP Ravager pattern that we have duplicated over here. And again, it's pretty simple here. But now for drop 2.3, where the drop outro would have been, we're adding this pad on top of the vocal chop from drop one and the added ride loop that we added. And so by adding this pad here, this pad is the exact same pattern as the pad in the breakdown. So we're adding that sound to create, again, like a familiar callback.

But adding this pad on top of the drop just really fills in and creates like this max energy moment. And so drop 2.3 and 2.4 is our max energy moment in the track. So let's listen to all three of these sounds together. So drop 2.3, 2.4 max energy moment. And now you can hear that we're actually filtering down that for this last bar of drop 2.4, we're starting to filter that down. And at the same time, we're also filtering down the pad so that ambience behind it is also sort of

like depleting over time. And so automation is everything when it comes to synths because we want to gradually be adjusting the energy throughout the track so the song doesn't feel like too static. Like it's just a bunch of like loops that are just coming and going, like very abruptly. So that's it for the leads for drop 2. Now let's listen to everything together. We're gonna go from buildup 2 all the way to the end of drop 2. So you can see how these elements come and go. And now that you

understand the automation that's happening, we can leave it up and visualize it. And we'll just listen through and see how the energy moves over time. All right, so that is our second drop. I love the way this came out. And honestly, when I was writing this track for the masterclass, I was like half considering keeping it for myself because I really do like how this came out. I love how these sounds sort of get re-brought in in the second drop, especially this pad. I don't know why, but this pad and

that second ride and the vocal chop, like I was really proud of how that came out because I think we just have a song that progresses so well and goes to different places. And yeah, I don't know. It's just a song that I really like. So yeah, that's it for drop 2 arrangement. We covered the drums, the vocals and the synths. Now it's time to get into the outro.