I have got both
Synthmaster and
Serum. Right now they are both similar in a few areas but also they are apart in other ways in their sound.
Serum can sweep wave tables in a way and have a certain sound while doing it and I am not hearing that in
Synthmaster. As yet anyway. If
Serum wavetables can be read by
Synthmaster than that is also another fortunate outcome of owning both.
Serum has an incredible sounding sample transposing algorithm maintaining very high fidelity while doing it. It has 4 oscillators really and the noise oscillator can also be any imported waves too.
Synthmaster One sounds a little different to me right now compared to
Synthmaster and it is a worthwhile companion synth. It is not a cut down version of
Synthmaster but a slightly different synth engine instead. I like it a lot. It is strong in more complex sounding ambient pads and things.
Serum is nice to edit and also has a rather colourful effects section. I like having all three. One thing I found with
Serum, is that it is deep and the more you learn about it the more impressive it becomes.
Synthmaster is in that same league though. Groove 3 have some great training material on it too.
It still never ceases to amaze how good
Synthmaster can also sound. It has a deep quality sound to it. I have got Synthmaster for iOS running on a docked iPad and it also sounds sensational coming from there too. There are large X/Y pads on the iOS version and they are a blast to manipulate while you play the sounds.
I don't think you need both
Serum and
Synthmaster, you can certainly create those types of sounds from either of those alone. But having both is nice and luxurious. Especially when you start layering both of them and then throwing
Synthmaster One into the mix as well or another layer. Things get interesting for me when you start doing stuff like stacking ambient patches. I am also using the
Brauer Motion plugin which adds a three dimensional movement effect to the sound placement. Also some pretty amazing panning options come to mind especially on some of the individual layers within a total ambient patch.