How to make a professional supersaw in Serum

Supersaws are an important ingredient for many genres of electronic music, and there can be a big difference in how they sound between different genres. Supersaws are recognized by their big and wide synthesizer sound. This sound became very popular around the year 2000, during the time Trance music became more mainstream. Nowadays supersaws are used in a variety of genres like Future Bass, Progressive House and Big Room.

Some popular songs using supersaws are: “One by Swedish House Mafia”, “High On Life by Martin Garrix feat. Bonn” and one of the best songs (in my opinion) by the King himself “Tiesto with Adagio For Strings.

The sound of a supersaw is created by multiple saw wave sounds played at ones in a slightly different frequency. This slight difference in frequency is called detune. The slight difference in frequencies between the saw waves that are played at the same time creates complex interference, which makes the sound very wide. This technique can be applied on different synthesizers and digital synthesizers for your DAW. Today I will show you 9 tricks to make a professional sounding supersaw in Xfer Serum.

1. Use two oscillators with a slightly different saw wave

By using two different saw wave oscillators, you get a slight variation in sound that will make your supersaw more unique. You can experiment with more complex kind of saws on the second oscillator, but decrease the volume on a more complex saw to keep your supersaw clean. Instead off using two saw waves you can also use one Saw wave and one different kind of wave.

2. Use a unison level between 7 and 12

Use a unison level between 7 and 12 for both oscillators, this creates a big sounding supersaw. New producers tend to use very high unison numbers, but this will create a muddy, less bright, sound when you start applying effects to your sound. You can use levels below 7 to make your sound more harsh. Using an even number for the amount of unison will also give a more harsh sound and odd numbers will create a more smooth sounding supersaw.

3. Add a saw wave as sub layer

By adding a saw wave as sub layer your chords will sound bigger. Keep the volume below 10 percent to keep your mix clean.

4. Use a filter to boost the high frequencies

The Filters Low Pass 6 can be used to boost the high frequency of your supersaw layers a bit. Make sure you have both oscillator A and B enabled within the filter. To get this slight boost in high frequencies you increase the resonance and drive a bit and put the cutoff almost completely up. This makes your supersaw a bit brighter.

5. Add chorus FX for a wider supersaw

In the FX tab in Serum you can add effects to your sound. The chorus effect makes your sound even wider and more detuned, this creates a slightly bigger and more unique sound. You can copy the settings down below to get my favorite setup for this effect.

6. Balance your synth using an equalizer

A supersaw can sound quite muddy or clogged up when there is too much low end. To reduce the amount of low end in the sound you can use the build in EQ effect in the FX tab of Serum. This is not a very precise EQ but it gets most of the job done for supersaws, I recommend to use a more precise equalizer when you are finished with your sound in Serum. Besides reducing a bit of the low end you can boost the highs in your sound using this equalizer when your supersaw isn’t bright enough.

7. Apply the multiband compressor

Another great product from Xfer Records, besides Serum, is OTT. This is a free multiband compressor that has become famous within the EDM producer community. Great news is that this plugin is build into Serum! OTT has an unique sound that makes your sound brighter and wider. In my opinion it sounds the best with the mix on 100 percent. Turn the threshold down to make the sound more aggressive.

8. Use the plate reverb effect

Add a small amount of reverb to your synth to make your supersaw sound a bit more full. This little amount of reverb also fills up the silence in between the chords.

9. Pro setting: Use “Stack”

To further customize your sound you can edit the “Global” settings in Serum. Within the “Unison” tab on the “Global” settings tab you can change the “Stack” for both oscillators. By setting the second oscillator to “12 (1x)” you add a bit of crisp high end to your supersaw. This nice high end sound is caused by some of the unison voices being pitched up 1 octave.

Try some of these tips and let me know what worked for you. You can also use all techniques in one synth and build a massive supersaw!

You can get 11 supersaws for Xfer Serum for free!

If you want to play around with some big sounding supersaws right away you can download 11 free presets down below. I believe you can learn a lot from loading these into your DAW and by using them yourself.