SERUM HUGE Lead Sound in the Style of ODESZA

In this sound design tutorial, PML tutor Matt Lar is making a huge Lead Sound in the style of Odesza – The Last Goodbye using Serum and a bit of processing with Ableton Live Stock Effects. You can download the resulting Serum Preset for free here:

>> Free Download – Serum Preset from Video

If you’re interested in more Serum Presets like this one, feel free to check out our preset packs via the menu under “sounds”.

Let’s get started!

We’re going to start off by listening to the synth sound itself. It’s a big supersaw-type patch with a lot of LFO movement. We’ll take a look at the chords themselves, which are written in B Minor. You’ll notice that the MIDI notes are layered between multiple octaves for additional power.

Then we’ll open up the Serum synthesizer and design the patch from scratch.

We’re going to use the Noise oscillator with the BrightWhite setting for additional bright frequencies in our sound, so let’s enable it.

(Oscillator A shape can stay as it is – we’re going to use the default saw wave)

Let’s move onto the LFO section, which is the main part of this patch.

We’re going to assign our saw-shaped LFO 1 to the filter cutoff (as well as the noise level).

The main effect here comes from adjusting the rate. We can do it in two ways:

• manually, by assigning a macro control to the rate of the LFO
• automatically, by just assigning an envelope to the rate of the LFO

In this case we can even use Envelope 1 which also controls the synth’s overall gain.

Getting the sound right requires a bit of tweaking when it comes to the envelope parameters as well as the LFO’s actual shape.

Here’s what our envelope and LFO looks like finally:

Then to finish it off, let’s add some effects.

Let’s throw in some tube distortion, delay and hall reverb:

The final effects here are the Ableton OTT (preset from Multiband Compressor) with about 40% of the wet signal dialed in.

Finally, we’re sending the signal to a return track for additional reverb (2.8s decay) with a simple EQ cutting the low frequencies.

Our tutor Matt also shows the patch in Diva – designed with the same logic – LFO assigned to the filter cutoff of the saw wave and noise:

For more presets in this style presets check out the Organica Sound Pack:

Kick off your next Organic House production! Make your tracks sound more alive and natural with over 370 Samples, 170 handcrafted loops and 30 professionally made Diva Presets. Organica Template Edition includes 4 fully produced Ableton Project Files.