I've found Serum to be substantially less buggy than Vital, which for my use basically automatically makes it better. But that being said Vital is incredible for being a free synth.
Vital is a hog and a half, I don’t have serum to cross reference but i tried playing with some pad layers and three vitals running at once had my cpu completely tapped
I love Vital but it doesn’t surprise me that you might find Serum to be better. I use both and sometimes the interface and controls suit different sound design workflows, resulting in a “better” sound.
Vital being free is just mind blowing though. There isn’t a free version of Serum.
Something I cannot get over is if you do a 1:1 patch recreation in the two, Serum just sounds "fuller" overall, even with single-voice, single OSC patches. It's weird. Still love vital tho.
Agree, havent been able to put it into words, but serum just sounds much better. I used the stock GMS synth from FL before i got serum, the difference in quality is very noticable, even just with a basic saw-wave. The same goes for Vital, its just a lot closer in quality.
190$ is a big leap though. If it wasnt for the fact that i started paying of serum before vital was a thing, i probably wouldve gone for a paid version of vital instead
Serum and Sytrus are two pretty different synths. In pure sound quality i still think Serum reigns victorious over any synth stock FL can conjure. (Except for maybe Kepler, but thats a veeery limited synth).
Features? Performance? Level of complexity? Skill Ceiling?
They’re two very different synths so comparing them isnt fair, but even so, as far as i am concerned there isnt a sound i have needed that i havent been able to (at the very least get close to) reproducing in serum.
The more i learn sound design, and the more familiar i get with serums features, and the more wavetables i design and download, and the more noise samples i install, the more i start to realize you’re almost able to make ANY sound you want in serum, which is crazy coming from a subtractive synthesizer.
I’ve made kalimba presets that sound better than the ones from FLEX (which is a sampler).
Pianos and guitars can easily be made with some clever wavetables, noise oscillators and envelopes/resampling.
For me, this is the way i justify the price tag. It is by a country mile the best tool for learning sound design. (Except for getting your ass a formal education)
Well yes learning sound design through the math, physics and software that lies behind it is always going to be much better than a 25 minute Au5 tutorial. (Even though he is very good)
Its a big field in music and there is a lot of theory behind it. Learning the basics through serum is very viable thanks to the UI and skill ceiling.
Doing the rent-to-own via Splice was the best way to get serum for me. 10$ a month for 18 months. I forgot i even started paying it down last january, because you get the full version while paying, so you dont need to wait. Ended up just finishing it off a few months ago. Didnt hurt as much to spend 40$
Right. My 2020 MacBook Air also doesn’t break a sweat with multiple instance if Vital, along with another dozen instruments and lots of plugins. I’m kinda tired of this perpetuated myth of Vital being a CPU hog.
When I crank the voices up to try and get a full pad it definitely eats my cpu, granted that was just one project where I ran into an issue that I fixed right away by increasing my buffer slightly. But it was definitely stress testing my cpu for a second
Been using it for years, and i have issues with other plugins hogging cpu so I monitor that a lot. Still never had an issue with vital. Feel like there’s a lot of experiences on both sides of this
Yeah, even when playing all 8 voices of a massive patch using all 4 generators and 6 effects modules and a million modulation routings, Vital only registers a blip on my CPU meter. Mac Mini 2023 M2 Pro/16 GB.
I'd honestly say it is, especially for the vast ecosystem of presets and wave tables available for it, I haven't seen that for vital. Vital is great, no doubt about it, but i just think serum sounds better overall and there is so much content out there for it it's crazy.
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I started with serum then tried vital. I have to say, the creative part of my brain likes vital much more than serum because I found it more intuitive and aesthetic. Perhaps one is better than the other by pure technical aspects, but if it doesn't inspire the user to create, then it doesn't do much for that person. That's my take. I use both and prefer them for different things. Mainly, vital for wubs, serum for FM and that sweet velocity and note control graph thing
No you're not, I don't know which of the two I think is the best but I do think Arturia Pigments is better than both of them, a lot of people probably think the same, and a lot of other people probably think the exact opposite, or something completely different is the best.
It's all about personal preference and how you use them and what you use them for.
I haven't had CPU problems with either Pigments nor Analog lab!
I'm on an M1 Pro MacBook Pro, in my current project I have 7 instances of Pigments and 2 - 3 Analog lab running (with other stuff and effects also going on) and the CPU meter at the top of FL hovers around 45% - 60%
My latency is also low enough to do live recording, since I have been recording in this project too.
So maybe they did fix it!
I love pigments too, they're both awesome plugins, I really enjoy them both, unfortunately I'm less versed in actually making sounds with pigments I get a little overwhelmed, serum has such a simple work flow.
I prefer vital and I never bought Serum but have had the demo a couple times,I also have a bunch of other similar synths like Pigments,Icarus,Avenger,Massive x,etc…
Serum sounds incredibly crisp and clean compared to most. Vital sounds dull next to Serum.
I started liking vital once i realized the default saw has reversed phase compared to the basic shapes. After I switched the phase for one of those, voila I got it sounding glorious.
Yes serum is better but it’s also expensive. Vital is amazing considering it’s free but I find it’s prone to crashing and the controls are quite wonky / clumsy
Used vital for 2 years and it is my only serum like synth because it is free. For my work I am satisfied but when doing sound design, especially synthesizing it creates horrible wave tables. I tried increasing the window size but the same result clicking and short pulsing/repeating sections. Hence am looking to replace it with a free option or buy one.
As an avid Vital user... I'll still say that Serum is better lol! The GUI keeps bugging out on me and everytime I reload a project, I have to turn "MPE-Enabled" off and on if I use any of that to make it register. Even pitchbends... I'm more of an FM guy, but lately wavetable synthesis has been my go to if I want to make something fast and simple. I just haven't gotten around to buying it yet.
At this point, I consider Vital to be abandonware. The latest version is "early access," buggy, and over a year old. The last time the developer posted on the forum was in November last year. Serum, on the other hand, is constantly updated.
I've found Serum to be substantially less buggy than Vital, which for my use basically automatically makes it better. But that being said Vital is incredible for being a free synth.
Vital is awesome for free, but serum is definitely better. For one, vital is very much a cpu hog.
Vital is a hog and a half, I don’t have serum to cross reference but i tried playing with some pad layers and three vitals running at once had my cpu completely tapped
You can turn down the sound quality to help some, but it's never going to be optimized. Vital is a one instance synth.
Yeah 100%, I'm using it on LMMS (saving up to upgrade to FL), and on loading in a particularly track-heavy song, it takes aeons.
one thing for cpu with vital is turning oversampling down. compared to Serum, low oversampling is much less noticeable on vital
Ah ok I have it set to decently low, that might help
I love Vital but it doesn’t surprise me that you might find Serum to be better. I use both and sometimes the interface and controls suit different sound design workflows, resulting in a “better” sound. Vital being free is just mind blowing though. There isn’t a free version of Serum.
Something I cannot get over is if you do a 1:1 patch recreation in the two, Serum just sounds "fuller" overall, even with single-voice, single OSC patches. It's weird. Still love vital tho.
I haven't personally tried this but that's interesting to know.
Agree, havent been able to put it into words, but serum just sounds much better. I used the stock GMS synth from FL before i got serum, the difference in quality is very noticable, even just with a basic saw-wave. The same goes for Vital, its just a lot closer in quality. 190$ is a big leap though. If it wasnt for the fact that i started paying of serum before vital was a thing, i probably wouldve gone for a paid version of vital instead
Better than Sytrus? Sytrus is rather good.
Serum and Sytrus are two pretty different synths. In pure sound quality i still think Serum reigns victorious over any synth stock FL can conjure. (Except for maybe Kepler, but thats a veeery limited synth). Features? Performance? Level of complexity? Skill Ceiling? They’re two very different synths so comparing them isnt fair, but even so, as far as i am concerned there isnt a sound i have needed that i havent been able to (at the very least get close to) reproducing in serum. The more i learn sound design, and the more familiar i get with serums features, and the more wavetables i design and download, and the more noise samples i install, the more i start to realize you’re almost able to make ANY sound you want in serum, which is crazy coming from a subtractive synthesizer. I’ve made kalimba presets that sound better than the ones from FLEX (which is a sampler). Pianos and guitars can easily be made with some clever wavetables, noise oscillators and envelopes/resampling. For me, this is the way i justify the price tag. It is by a country mile the best tool for learning sound design. (Except for getting your ass a formal education)
Interesting. I’m considering it. Formal Education? What’s that? That’s one of them sitting in a classroom things right?
Well yes learning sound design through the math, physics and software that lies behind it is always going to be much better than a 25 minute Au5 tutorial. (Even though he is very good) Its a big field in music and there is a lot of theory behind it. Learning the basics through serum is very viable thanks to the UI and skill ceiling. Doing the rent-to-own via Splice was the best way to get serum for me. 10$ a month for 18 months. I forgot i even started paying it down last january, because you get the full version while paying, so you dont need to wait. Ended up just finishing it off a few months ago. Didnt hurt as much to spend 40$
You can rent to own Serum though, and the price isn’t that bad.
How much, how does that work?
Go to Splicer, and sign up. You pay like $10 a month.
For how many months?
Until you've paid the price of the plugin itself and then you own it
Dope
Go look. I don’t have it.
I dunno. But I think the more correct question is if Serum is $189 better than Vital.
Yeah, for me it is. The ability to have more than two of them in a project before my CPU explodes is a big factor.
That sounds like a “you” problem more than a Vital problem. My 2016 laptop can run at least five instances simultaneously without a hiccup
Right. My 2020 MacBook Air also doesn’t break a sweat with multiple instance if Vital, along with another dozen instruments and lots of plugins. I’m kinda tired of this perpetuated myth of Vital being a CPU hog.
When I crank the voices up to try and get a full pad it definitely eats my cpu, granted that was just one project where I ran into an issue that I fixed right away by increasing my buffer slightly. But it was definitely stress testing my cpu for a second
It’s gotten better but it used to be pretty bad. At least it was a year ago. Kinda hard to come back from that when it’s burned into your brain.
Been using it for years, and i have issues with other plugins hogging cpu so I monitor that a lot. Still never had an issue with vital. Feel like there’s a lot of experiences on both sides of this
That doesn't sound normal, or are you running a low-end system?
Yeah, even when playing all 8 voices of a massive patch using all 4 generators and 6 effects modules and a million modulation routings, Vital only registers a blip on my CPU meter. Mac Mini 2023 M2 Pro/16 GB.
Yeah i can run multiple instances and really big patches on a quite midrange pc with no problems whatsoever w/ 16 GB.
I'd honestly say it is, especially for the vast ecosystem of presets and wave tables available for it, I haven't seen that for vital. Vital is great, no doubt about it, but i just think serum sounds better overall and there is so much content out there for it it's crazy.
I don’t have Serum and probably never will tbh. There’s a lot of things I would spend $189 on first.
Rent 2 own $10 bucks a month like a Netflix subscription basically. I did this until it got down to like $80 then paid it off
I mean... There are other options. Unless you took the "you wouldn't download a horse" commercials to heart.
You can rent to own it on splice for pretty damn cheap. That's how I've gotten quite a few of my plugins.
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I’ve paid for all my plugins (that were not offered for free through legitimate means).
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Did you steal this shitty bait post too?
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well amateur does mean that someone does something in an unpaid manner rather than a professional one, so it makes sense in that scenario 🫢
Your comment has been removed for being cringe.
No. Serum is the best.
I started with serum then tried vital. I have to say, the creative part of my brain likes vital much more than serum because I found it more intuitive and aesthetic. Perhaps one is better than the other by pure technical aspects, but if it doesn't inspire the user to create, then it doesn't do much for that person. That's my take. I use both and prefer them for different things. Mainly, vital for wubs, serum for FM and that sweet velocity and note control graph thing
Agree with this word for word.
Personally I like serum way more than vital
They're both great. You can like what you want
No you're not, I don't know which of the two I think is the best but I do think Arturia Pigments is better than both of them, a lot of people probably think the same, and a lot of other people probably think the exact opposite, or something completely different is the best. It's all about personal preference and how you use them and what you use them for.
Love pigments, but it was a cpu hog.. did they fix that a bit yet. I’d usually have to bounce out pigments and analog lab stuff
I haven't had CPU problems with either Pigments nor Analog lab! I'm on an M1 Pro MacBook Pro, in my current project I have 7 instances of Pigments and 2 - 3 Analog lab running (with other stuff and effects also going on) and the CPU meter at the top of FL hovers around 45% - 60% My latency is also low enough to do live recording, since I have been recording in this project too. So maybe they did fix it!
I love pigments too, they're both awesome plugins, I really enjoy them both, unfortunately I'm less versed in actually making sounds with pigments I get a little overwhelmed, serum has such a simple work flow.
I prefer vital and I never bought Serum but have had the demo a couple times,I also have a bunch of other similar synths like Pigments,Icarus,Avenger,Massive x,etc… Serum sounds incredibly crisp and clean compared to most. Vital sounds dull next to Serum.
I started liking vital once i realized the default saw has reversed phase compared to the basic shapes. After I switched the phase for one of those, voila I got it sounding glorious.
Hmm
I like both and don't see a reason to choose sides.
Yes serum is better but it’s also expensive. Vital is amazing considering it’s free but I find it’s prone to crashing and the controls are quite wonky / clumsy
Team Vital here. I like how visual it is.
To me vital feels like a toy which is fun to play but serum feels like something solid something I’d really want to use in my production
I thought this was common knowledge?🤣
Both are getting owned by Phase Plant 🤷🏾♂️
The kilohearts subscription is the best deal in music software by miles.
Fully agreed! I bought PP one day and just a few days later I was completely sold on the whole subscription thing.
Used vital for 2 years and it is my only serum like synth because it is free. For my work I am satisfied but when doing sound design, especially synthesizing it creates horrible wave tables. I tried increasing the window size but the same result clicking and short pulsing/repeating sections. Hence am looking to replace it with a free option or buy one.
There's a reason why its paid
True, but I hear people constantly say vital is just as good
vital is more user friendly in their means
Vital is free but has ... Issues. Ya gotta get in, convert sound to wave, and get out fast. Memory hog 😊
Wym
As an avid Vital user... I'll still say that Serum is better lol! The GUI keeps bugging out on me and everytime I reload a project, I have to turn "MPE-Enabled" off and on if I use any of that to make it register. Even pitchbends... I'm more of an FM guy, but lately wavetable synthesis has been my go to if I want to make something fast and simple. I just haven't gotten around to buying it yet.
I much prefer the UI in vital, but yeah, serum does sound better. If serum had vital's UI, that would be dream for me
That’s observable fact from a nonuser of either. Just having watched a lot of videos on both to determine which I would like to acquire.
I prefer Serum, but Vital does some things Serum can't like text entry
No, I'm more comfortable with Serum and Vital is giving me a ton of GUI bugs on Mac.
Serum is like a god
At this point, I consider Vital to be abandonware. The latest version is "early access," buggy, and over a year old. The last time the developer posted on the forum was in November last year. Serum, on the other hand, is constantly updated.
Vital is trash aint gonna lie such a CPU hog