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Super Saw Waves in Serum

EDM PRODUCTION

Saw waves are great for making rich, fuzzy like sounds. Saw waves mostly replicate sound waves made by violins, violas and other stringed instruments played with a bow. The incline of the saw wave is like a bow pulling on a string, and the vertical drop is like the string being released from the bow and bouncing back. Use Serum to make really grand and majestic Supersaw Waves!

Unison Mode
Unison mode is like a great first step to making a basic super saw wave. Turn up the unison mode in Serum to make the saw wave sound layered. The saw wave will sound like it’s rubbing against itself making it super fuzzy and buzzy. Adding a low pass will make the buzz a little deeper and less ear tingling. If the saw wave sounds too computed and you want the detuning to sound more natural, try setting the mode to random under Serums global tab. Now you have a basic super saw wave that is ready for distortion.

Chaos
Chaos is like the secret stepping stone to sound design. In Serum, assign a global chaos knob to a matrix and apply it to the master tuning. The chaos will make it sound more analog. Make the super saw sound more analog by adding a LFO to another matrix and applying it to the master tuning too. The super saw now sounds like a harsh organ with a hard edge.

Super saw waves sound less harsh when produced using an analog instrument like the Moog. With analog instruments, the saw wave cannot drop as harsh like saw waves in a DAW. So saw waves produced with analog instruments have a softer edge that take the highs down.

To make a softer edge in Serum, lower the level of the noise oscillator. Then open up the envelope by adding some release. The super saw wave will now sound less harsh and mimic an analog saw wave more. Then make the super saw sound more smooth by adding a sub, chorus effect, delay effect and changing the shape of the saw wave. In the video above you will see the results of adding effects and changing the shape to a rounded saw.

EDM tutorials to learn how to make edm music in Ableton and other DAWS.
EDM Artist and Music Producer ill.Gates on ProducerDJ

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