Does anyone uses Serum for synthwave 80's style?

I am trying to get into synthwave and i have had all kind of synths thrown my way from u-he, arturia, and tal u no lx even a free synth1. I really want to buy, then learn Serum and use it for this sound but i dont know if its capable because most of that stuff is made with emulation synths. Another thing to mention is im afraid that if i buy just vintage emulations, i wont be able to make modern sounding music sounds. Im hoping serum is capable of sounding vintage and modern.. How does serum compare to synths like Diva or the Arturia V Collection? Do i really need to get those or can serum do that and modern sounds?

Here are some free Synthwave presets:

Here are some commercial Synthwave soundset demos:

I'm not going to put on a salesman hat (beyond sharing the above) - there are demo versions of the various synths you can use to evaluate. Most people wouldn't want to play a blindfold game of what synth they are listening to, because you could make some pretty convincing analog sounds on Serum for instance. I think it makes sense to start with one and get very familiar with it. Then revisiting the others should give you a good idea if the others hold enough value to you personally.

Thanks Steve. Hearing it from the horses mouth gives me more comfort knowing youre plugin inside and out. Most people keep trying to steer me away from it because of it being "digital" and "bright" but after what i just heard, I'm buying it along with diva. Thanks again.

I use Serum for synthwave music … it doesn't cover every need but you can create some really great analogue emulations by being creative with wavetables and voices!!

Hi guys. Hope you don't mind me entering the discussion a bit late. First off I'd like to congratulate Steve on this awesome synth. As a Synthwave producer myself, I can confidently say Serum has no problems reaching that modern 80s retro wave sound. A big part of it is the ease (of use) with which you can recreate that Analog retro feel. Use the Noise OSC to introduce some analog dirt and point an LFO to the Fine settings of the main A / B Oscillators. I like to enable both OSCs and adjust the fine settings on both differently so they are slightly off from each other from the start while the LFO does its thing. Sometimes you can even use a second LFO so each OSC has its own LFO linked to it and is detuning in different intervals. (I suggest using a slightly slower rate on the LFO settings). Hope that helps.

If you'd like to hear some more of what Serum is capable of in terms of that New Retro Wave sound (besides the other great packs Steve mentioned), I recently teamed up with Zenhiser to create a (Commercial) Synthwave 80s style preset pack. I'd love to hear what you think of it. I had a great time making the sounds on this VST ^^ Cheers

Analog Power by Lionshare Sound is another great free preset collection you can use to get a retro sound.

For all interested! Surge Sounds Retrowave for Serum.