How can I reduce the CPU load of Serum 2?

Serum 2 is an extremely powerful synth, but this comes at a cost - the CPU load of Serum 2 can be exceptionally high, especially when using the Sample, Granular and Spectral engines. If you're suffering from CPU overload, resulting in crackling and broken audio, then here's a few things you can try.

Adjusting the Quality setting

Serum 2 has a quality setting built in, which allows you to reduce the CPU load of Serum 2 at the expense of a little bit of audio quality during playback. To reduce the CPU load using the quality control, head to the Global tab at the top of the interface, then go to the Quality selection box. For maximum reduction of CPU load, set this control to "Good". This setting will change whenever you load a new preset, so be sure to hit the Lock button to prevent the selected quality option from changing. 

When you've set the playback quality, you can ensure the highest quality audio when bouncing audio using a separate setting within Serum 2's Global tab. On the left side of this tab, scroll down until you find a check box labelled "Use Ultra quality when rendering". By selecting this option, you'll have a reduced CPU load during live playback, but will ensure the highest possible quality when bouncing your audio - the best of both worlds!

Reducing the Granular Density

The Granular engine is by far the most CPU intensive aspect of Serum 2. This is due to the nature of granular synthesis - by taking small slices of audio from a sample and playing lots of them back simultaneously, it requires a lot of processing power. This is something I use a lot in my soundbanks, especially the binaural editions, and so if you have an older system then you may find CPU overload happening often. One quick way to reduce the CPU load of the granular engine is the Density control. At higher settings, this allows more sample grains to be played at the same time, and therefore increases the amount of processing power required. To reduce the load of the granular engine, simply turn down the Density control for that oscillator. Of course, this will change the character of the sound a little, so this option is about finding the right balance between CPU usage and quality.

Use Track Freeze in your DAW

Track Freeze is an under-appreciated function of many DAWs that allows you to freeze your track in place. This prevents you from making any further edits to it while it's frozen, but it drastically reduces CPU usage of the track. If you need to make edits, of course, you can always unfreeze the track, then freeze it again when you've finished editing. Track Freeze is available in most DAWs, so be sure to check whether this is something you can make use of, and how to enable it.

If you're struggling with using Xfer Serum 2 due to CPU usage issues, then make sure you try the above options and see if you can find the balance of quality and efficiency that works for you. If you're using a Tom Wolfe Presets soundbank and are still struggling with CPU usage, then be sure to get in touch. I'll be happy to help you further, or provide a refund for you in the event that we're not able to get it working smoothly for you.