Wavetables are an essential tool when sound designing and creating your own sounds. It is the brains and the fundamental of sound design when using modern synths like Vital, Serum, Pigments, Phase Plant and more.
So having a custom wavetables unique to you will help you elevate your sound design and be able to create sounds distinctive to you.
Now you might be asking yourself, how can you create your own custom wavetables?
Well let’s start by saying that it is not by dragging a sample into serum and calling it a day, today we are using MATH in a fun way to create some unique FM Wavetables using an amazing app by Glow Shrimp to make some crazy FM sounds.
Getting Started
First need to download our app, called Serum FM Wavetable Studio by Glow Shrimp Software.
Once we download and open our software, we can start with the fun, so first i like to set the Preview note on F2 which is where most dubstep basses sit, that way i can reference how it will sound as a bass once i drag and move the wavetable scroll bar which will allow me to Preview the Bass.
Now that our preview is our set up you might have already noticed that when you dragged the Scroll Bar, a sound played, a Sub Bass, and if you look to the left of the software, you can see a thumb pointing to a “Sine”.
This is where we will start creating our sound. So to start, let’s first add a second OSC, and it will automatically be a Triangle/10 shape, and before we do anything else, i always like to disable the “Keep Equal FM Amouts”.
Once that box is checked, slightly increase the Amp. End Slider, drag the scroll bar and hear your results.
Now you can hit generate, and it will create a .WAV file that you can drag into serum and it will automatically create a wavetable for you!
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Now let's take it up a notch and get to the next level!
To create complex shapes, we can use math to help us out, now we can start changing up our sound by choosing a new OSC Type, and you will see a long list of types.
A rule of thumb is that for our first OSC it should be a simple shape (Square, Sine, Triangle, Saw) and the ones that follow them should be subdivided (/10, /100, /1000…) this is because having that subdivision helps fine tune and have really subtle changes in your sound.
So now what i’d recommend you to try, is create a Square Wave, that is modulated by a triangle/10 wave, and the triangle/10 wave modulated by a sin^3/10 and see the results you get!
Wrapping Up
Creating custom wavetables is not rocket science, and using the power of Serum FM Wavetable Studio, it makes it easier to create some amazing sounds that you can then import to your vst of choice to make basses, synths and more!
And if you still find it hard to create Wavetables for your sound design sessions, all of our preset packs come bundled with some amazing and unique wavetables that you can you in your music production!
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Rafael Olivencia
Owner of Black Lotus Audio
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