Review: Serum Nova I & II by The Unfinished
The Unfinished harnesses the powerful, digital sound of Serum with his latest energetic and evocative collection of presets. Spread across two volumes, Nova takes us on a wild ride to a cyberpunk city full of both futuristic neon shine and gritty dystopian violence.
Jump to the Videos of Serum Nova I & II by The Unfinished
Jump to the Demos of Serum Nova I & II by The Unfinished
Review: Serum Nova I & II by The Unfinished
After building a considerable reputation as a first-class synth programmer through his releases for a range of u-he synths and Omnisphere, the first sound set for Serum by The Unfinished, Alpha, was highly anticipated and well-received back in late 2021. Fortunately for us, Matt Bowdler’s newfound love for the harder, ultra-modern sounds of Serum shows no signs of letting up, with the Nova project spilling over into two volumes. While Alpha was a general cinematic toolkit, Nova has a tighter focus and leans strongly toward cyberpunk and sci-fi. The inspiration behind it comes from the world of TV, film, and anime, with works such as Akira, The Matrix, Metal Gear, and Blade Runner serving as reference points. On the artist side, think of Ben Frost, Jean-Michel Jarre, Geoff Barrow, and Ben Salisbury. With 300 presets to explore, all brimming with energetic pulses, hyper basses, and widescreen pads, I was excited to get playing – even more so when I discovered a specially customized skin with cyberpunk neon stylings to get me in the mood!
Serum Nova I & II normally sells for £29.99 from The Unfinished
Thoughts
Things kick off with the Basslines, some of which pump with a crisp urgency, whilst others go for a more brooding and aggressive feel. None of them remain static and constantly evolve though the use of filter and wavetable modulation. Serum lacks a sequencer so everything is done using looping LFOs, which makes tweaking the patterns for things such as note length very intuitive. It also opens the door to creative pitch modulation, shifting the focus beyond single note pulses. There is great complexity on show here; New Buenos Aires, for example, has three distinct parts – a relentless pulse, a pounding sub kick thump, and 16th note noise hats. Clever stuff!
BL New Buenos Aires
The Basses have plenty to offer and it’s all pretty full on. There are punchy and tight patches for quick lines, deep drones, dirty distorted basses, and heavily modulated presets. What most of them share is a snappy filter envelope that gives them a futuristic and bold quality. As bass is so important in this genre they do need to feel almost as hooky as a lead and Nova really delivers on that, with a large number and wide variety of signature bass sounds. It was fun to find some more retro sounding basses here too, that took me straight back to the sci-fi kids cartoons I watched in the eighties – the deceptively simple yet effective Tura being a prime example.
BS Tura
The keyboards are typically light and bright with plenty of reverb and delay for that ambient vibe. Many have a bell tone chime typical of the genre and for those The Unfinished often does not overcomplicate matters and uses plenty of sine, triangle and sawtooth waves. However, it’s the deft choice of slightly modified oscillators, filters, envelopes, and especially the effects which make them so evocative and invite you to play.
In terms of Leads, there is a wide variety, from plucky retro to snaking mono synths. I especially loved the slightly wonky, gritty presets such as Famicon One with its unusual unison oscillators. If the sound is close, but not quite what you are after, as with all the presets, the macros and mod wheel do the heavy lifting of key parameters related to the particular preset. That is to say the macros are customised for every single patch and I found that most of the time they were creative and powerful enough that I did not need to go tweaking on a deeper level.
The Loops are small in number but nevertheless very useful for instantly getting a beat going. Somehow they turn Serum into a drum machine as can be seen from the Niko preset. Here the macros actually control the volume of the kick, hats and bass – incredibly inventive programming.
LP Niko
With the Pads we explore the more cinematic side of cyberpunk. We are firmly in the dystopian sci-fi world of films like Bladerunner here. They tread that fine line of having a digital feel, but without ever getting overly cold or caustic. A similar aesthetic bowls over into the Soundscapes, but they are thicker sounding and more complex, being designed less for chordal playing compared to the pads. Hugely atmospheric, a single drone can maintain interest over quite a long period once you start employing the macros and mod wheel to morph the original sound.
Next up are some really inventive SFX patches. Utilising plenty of LFO and envelope action these are ideal for adding risers, sweeps, sub thumps, alarms and hits to compositions. This is where the power of Serum’s wavetable synthesis and extensive effects really shines for sound design when you have someone who really knows what they are doing twiddling the knobs. Achille is loads of fun – part downer, part braam and part trailer hit!
SFX Achille
The Sequences take the baton from the Basslines and make a run for it into more complex patterns and with timbres more geared for use higher up the keyboard. Again, the LFOs are intricately programmed to modulate pitch. There is plenty to get inspired with here, from tense sequences to brash pulses and from jumpy bleeps to noisy glitch weirdness.
The Nova collection on both volumes is rounded out by the Synth category. I am always a bit bemused by this title and, at least in this product, it seems to just be for any sound that does not neatly fit into one of the more familiar categories. That said, there is some lovely stuff here! Patches like Deviance are so huge sounding they can really make a melody take centre stage. By contrast, the percussive Oil Refineries makes for superb signature sound design. And if you just want it truly epic The Blade, nicely described as a ‘Luxury synth’, will remind you what got us here in the first place and just how powerful a couple of sawtooth waves can be.
SY Deviance
In many ways Serum is a perfect fit for the cyberpunk genre, boasting futuristic sound and features, coupled with lo-fi and dirty distortion capabilities. Such a tool in the hands of someone with the keen ear and programming nous of The Unfinished results in an absolutely superb collection of presets. The wavetable synthesis within Serum has been fully embraced on many patches and both volumes also include seventeen bespoke wavetables. To top it off we also get the ‘Nova’ and ‘808’ custom skins. It is worth pointing out that there is no distinct difference between Nova I and Nova II – they both contain 150 patches across the same range of sound types. At what is basically 10p per preset, if buying both volumes bundled together, this is exceptional value and there is enough to keep you scoring for gritty future-retro urban stories for quite some time.
Facts
The Unfinished Serum Nova Bundle combines Nova I and Nova II for a total of 300 patches for Xfer Records Serum soft synth, priced at £29.99 plus VAT. The volumes are also available separately for £19.99 plus VAT each. Each preset has programming built into the mod wheel and all four macro knobs. Both Nova volumes also include custom wavetables and skins. An up to date, fully licensed version of Serum is required to use this product.
Serum Nova I & II normally sells for £29.99 from The Unfinished
Demos of Serum Nova I & II by The Unfinished
Videos of Serum Nova I & II by The Unfinished
Contributor Sam Burt reviews Serum Nova I & II by The Unfinished
“The Unfinished harnesses the powerful, digital sound of Serum with his latest energetic and evocative collection of presets. Spread across two volumes, Nova takes us on a wild ride to a cyberpunk city full of both futuristic neon shine and gritty dystopian violence.”
