A good House tune is nothing without a solid synth pad. Well, I got you covered.
In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a lush and characterful House synth pad in Xfer Serum.
Watch the video tutorial
Why use synth pads in the first place?
There are many benefits of using those lush or deep synth pads in your House music tracks. I have listed some of the benefits I think they have:
- Adds depth and warmth to your tracks, creating a fuller and more immersive sound
- Helps to establish a consistent mood or atmosphere throughout the song
- Can be used to create tension and build anticipation leading up to drops or breakdowns
- Can be automated to create dynamic and evolving soundscapes throughout the song
- Can be used to create interesting and unique textures that set your tracks apart from others in the genre
Now we have the benefits in place, let’s start creating our own unique House synth pad in Serum.
Let’s go!
Xfer Serum is great for producing moving synth pads
1. Setting the oscillators for the synth pad
For the majority of House synth pad tutorials, the generic Saw waveform is the go-to. However, I want to have the synth pad sound a bit different.
Select DirtySaw for OSC A. Set it to -1 octave.
Set the unison to 7 and detune to 0.06.
This will give the synth pad sound some awesome stereo texture.
Next up: Select Electric Guitar [SL] for OSC B.
Set the unison to 5 and detune to 0.11.
Navigate to the SUB OSC and select the Square waveform. BUT, we don’t want the sub-oscillator to add weight to the low end of the House synth pad. No, I want it to play around in the upper range of the frequency spectrum.
Set the octave to 2 and bring the level down to around 25%.
The last oscillator we need is the NOISE OSC:
Select BrightWhite for the NOISE OSC so we can get some tasty high-end stuff.
Put the OSC to oneshot mode.
Turn up the oscillator pitch to 76%.
Lastly, turn down the volume level to 23%.
Good job! We now have the fundamental of the House synth pad in Serum.
Choosing special oscillators can create interesting synth pad results
Next up is the filter.
2. Adding the magical low pass filter
The filter plays a huge role in giving your House synth pad the right vibe and sound.
Navigate to the filter section in Serum and choose MG Low 24.
Set it to 46 Hz and put up the resonance a tiny bit.
Then enable all oscillators so they are routed to go through the low pass filter.
Add a low pass filter
Nice! Now we are ready to set up some cool envelopes.
3. Sculting the synth pad with envelopes
Synth pads are known for sometimes having fairly long releases and slow attacks.
Let's start by adjusting ENV 1.
Set the attack to 425 ms and make the envelope curved at the start.
Increase the decay to 2.00 sec.
Lastly set the release to 572 ms so we get a small tail of the synth pad when we let go of the keys on the keyboard.
Create a shape for envelope 1
Good. Now we are ready to jump to ENV 2.
ENV 2 is gonna modulate the low pass filter cutoff to make a kinda “swelling” sound to the synth pad.
Here, we want a different envelope shape.
Start by setting the attack to 731 ms and make it a bit curved as we did with ENV 1.
Make the decay short and set it to 217 ms.
Set the sustain to 87%.
Lastly, set the release to 520 ms.
Now assign ENV 2 to the cutoff of the filter.
Set the modulation amount to 47.
Envelope 2 is used for modulating the filter cutoff
Awesome! By now you should have a pretty sweet House synth pad ready for your tracks.
However, we can utilize the LFOs in Serum to add some movement to the synth pad.
4. Adding movement to the synth pad with LFOs
If you want your House tracks to move the dancefloor (haha). You need to make your synth pads feel a bit “alive” in Serum.
Most producers crave that warm, evolving and almost “organic” sound synth pad - and to get that is usually to get down to business with the LFOs in Serum.
LFO 1
Go to LFO 1 and set the rate to unsynced and select the value: 2.2 Hz.
Now we want LFO 1 to modulate the Wavetable position of OSC B.
Set the Wavetable position to 81.
Then assign LFO 1 to it and set the amount to 16.
The settings for LFO 1
LFO 2
Set this LFO to Envelope mode.
Make the LFO shape look like an envelope with no attack and a long decay.
We then want LFO 2 to modulate the level of both the SUB OSC and the NOISE OSC.
Assing the LFO to both knobs.
Set the amount to 44 for the SUB OSC.
Set the amount to 42 for the NOISE OSC.
This makes the two oscillators louder when hitting the keys and then slowly fades down in volume over time.
The settings for LFO 2
LFO 3
For LFO 3 we set the rate to 1/2.
Then we draw some random shapes for an LFO pattern.
The reason why we need random shapes is that LFO 3 is gonna modulate the panning of the SUB OSC and NOISE OSC. It gives a bit more of a “random” factor to the synth pad sound.
Assign the LFO to the PAN knob of both oscillators.
Set the amount to 47 for the SUB OSC.
Set the amount to 42 for the NOISE OSC.
Listen to the way the oscillators shift around from left to right. Amazing!
The settings for LFO 3
LFO 4
The last LFO is gonna modulate the Wavetable position of OSC A.
Set the rate of LFO 4 to unsynced and select the value: 0.3 Hz.
Assign it to the Wavetable position of OSC A and set the modulation amount to 11.
The settings for LFO 4
We are finally done with all those LFOs.
Next: The FX section.
5. Applying Serum FXs to the synth pad
The beautiful thing about Xfer Serum is its built-in high-quality FXs. They come in very handy now when we are gonna apply some processing to the House synth pad.
LoFi bit reduction with the Distortion
I admit it. I love LoFi sounds and bit reduction. So I cannot help myself adding a bit to this synth pad.
Select Downsample and set the drive to 14%.
Set the mix level to 32%.
This gives the synth pad some great LoFi vibes that make it stand out. (At least in my opinion)
More stereo-width with Chorus
I want a tad bit amount of stereo effect to the synth pad.
Pull up the chorus and use the default settings.
Set the mix level to 29%.
Nice!
Adding FXs in Serum
Ambience with a Plate Reverb
A bit of reverb hasn't hurt anyone - especially not synth pads.
Set the size to 68%.
Set the pre-delay to 24 ms.
Set the low cut to 48%.
Set the high cut to 34%.
Adjust the width and set it to 57%.
Lastly, put the mix level at 24%.
Slight compression to the synth pad
Pull up the Compressor and use the default settings.
Adjust the threshold to -17.8 dB.
Set the mix level to 79%.
Removing the super-highs with a filter
I want to remove a bit of the unnecessary high-end.
Pull up an MG Low 6 filter and set the cutoff to 7412 Hz.
I want also want to “beef up” the sound a bit with some drive.
Set the drive to 8% and FAT to 14%.
Adding more FXs in Serum
Now, we are actually finished programming the House synth pad in Serum.
However, I have an optional step you can follow to add a bit more details to the synth pad.
[Optional] Adjust the stereo field with an Imager plugin
Okay, this step is something I always do when working with synth pads: adjusting the stereo field with an Imager plugin.
Here, I use the Ozone 9 Imager plugin from iZotope to control the stereo width of the synth pad. I don’t want it to be too wide and lose punch when played in mono.
I start by splitting the frequency band up into three sections.
The first is from 0 - 175 Hz. This area is made completely mono by setting the bandwidth to -100%.
The middle band is from 175 - 872 Hz. Here, I reduce the bandwidth by -13,9%.
Adding a Imager plugin
The top band is not being treated as the stereo information it is fine to me.
This is a great way to control the stereo width of your House synth pad.
Wrapping up
That’s it for this Serum tutorial.
I hope you will be able to create your own House synth pads using some of the techniques in this blog post.
If you want to start with some Serum presets, you can download my FREE Serum preset pack here.
Happy producing!