Vital Synth VS Serum - The Ultimate Comparison Video

tbh, this isn’t of particular interest to me, but might be to others.

I watched the video, just out of curiosity.

I’m not sure if one can draw safe conclusions from these tests, if one doesn’t know how the synths are programmed, what algorithms and most important what parameters are used internally.
For example what does it mean “Serum sounds more warm, more analog than Vital” ? How one can be sure he has the right setting in both synths? Given the two synths are very similar in structure and the way the function, isn’t it just possible to make one synth sound exactly like the other by just fine-tuning the settings?

Besides that, and with all due respect to ESW, I’m not sure he does a fair test in everything. For example at 5:07 where he compares the filters, I noticed the Vital filter has a bit resonance at the cutoff point whereas the Serum filter does not. So it is logical that Vital sounds a bit different.

All the above is just my opinion though. So maybe I’m wrong…

Vas

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The fact that he create the sound first in Serum then try to recreate that sound in Vital is already a redflag, how about vice versa tho… that’s where the fun begins.

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Pretty much agree. Quite a bit of bias in that video as far as I’m concerned.
It’s all about how you put the sound together. It’s been my experience that Vital sounds more naturally ‘analog’, whatever the heck that means. Serum had this inherent brash clankiness to my ears that I was always fighting to eliminate.

Put simply:
Serum is great.
Vital is great.
Use them, or don’t.
Make music.

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I’m kind of offended (ironically of course) by the use of the term “ultimate” when I made a 3 video series on the very same topic, adding up to over one hour of video, for those people bored enough to spend loads of their time hearing me discuss synths rather than playing synths themselves

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Serum vs. Vital VST comparison UPD. Aug '24 I have made a deep article on this topic.