Serum 2 Manual
Welcome └ Registering Serum └ Getting in Touch └ Downloading Serum └ Installing Serum Exploring Serum └ Exploring Sound Design in Serum Getting Started └ Adding Serum to a Track └ Loading a Serum Preset └ Creating a New Sound └ Saving Changes └ Dragging Audio to Your DAW └ Exploring Basic Operations └ Using Oscillators and Filters └ Resizing the UI

Using Pitch Controls

You can alter the pitch of the waveform using the OCT (octave), SEM (semitone), FIN (fine tuning in cents), and CRS (coarse) controls.

The CRS setting controls the pitch transpose that tunes or detunes continuous (no snap) semitones. CRS is most useful as a modulation destination or automation parameter for wide sweeps.

Serum uses separate controls for the four settings to facilitate automation and modulation (rather than a combined value such as 36.04).

Oscillator Pitch Controls
Oscillator Pitch Controls

It’s often handy to assign an LFO to the octave setting, for instance, without having to count in 12 semitones.

There are times, however, when you might want to have an LFO control an oscillator pitch in a more coarse manner (a siren-type sound might require an LFO to modulate an oscillator pitch smoothly across an octave or more).

You can do this by modulating the CRS setting. (You’ll read about modulating controls later in this guide.)

Use the Global > Main Tuning modulation destination to have all oscillators follow a coarse pitch change.

Last updated: May 03, 2025