The Weeknd "Is There Someone Else?" Breakdown: Synths in Serum

I can't believe we're doing yet another The Weeknd tutorial, but every time he puts out new music we find it irresistible to recreate all those synth sounds. This time it's "Is There Someone Else?" from Dawn FM (2022), and as always the song is a synthpop masterpiece. It also has a few production tricks that will be great for your next track, like the sidechain that runs through the whole song. So let's dive in.

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The Bass

As always, let's start with the main driving force of the track, which in this case is the bass. To make this patch, oscillator "A" needs an ICanHasKick waveform at position 55, while oscillator "B" uses a Basic Shape waveform in its second position, with one voice. Envelope 1 has a short decay of around 600 ms for that plucky sound and is routed to the filter cutoff.

The important part of this preset is that LFO 1 is modulating the Amp. To do this, first draw a sidechain curve in the LFO. Then go to your Matrix, set the source to LFO 1 and the destination to Amp (in the Global section), and that's it.

The Chords

To make these chords we use an ICanHasKick wavetable in oscillator "A" and a Basic Shape waveform in its seventh position in oscillator "B", with some sync modulation. Envelope 1 has an attack of around 40 ms, and envelope 2 modulates the filter cutoff. This sound is also sidechained the same way as the bass, with LFO 1 modulating the Amp.

The Keys (Rhodes)

For this patch we recreated a Rhodes sound. To get it, we need a Basic Shape in its first position in oscillator "A" and an Analog_BD_Sin waveform in oscillator "B". Both oscillators have 7 voices, and the amp is modulated by LFO 1 at a rate of 4.7 Hz. Envelope 2 modulates the filter cutoff, closing it at around 2.10 s.

The Arp

This arp enters at the 9th bar of the song, adding a new element and a little contrast to everything else. It was my favorite patch to recreate. For this preset we used a Harmonic Morph in oscillator "A" and an Analog_BD_Sin in oscillator "B". Both oscillators have 6 voices, and the filter cuts everything above 7 kHz. Envelope 1 is what gives this preset its plucky sound: just set a short decay of around 200 ms.

The Chorus Synth

This synth comes in during the chorus. It plays the same chord progression as the verses, so it just adds another layer. To get this sound, we need a SawRounded in oscillator "A" with the wavetable in its last position, and an ICanHasKick in oscillator "B" with only one voice. Now set envelope 1 with an attack of around 70 ms, routed to the filter cutoff, and use an LFO to sidechain the amp like in the other presets. That's it.

Make your own Dawn FM-style track.

You've heard how the sidechained bass, the Rhodes keys and the plucky arp are built. The Synthpop Pack has sounds like these ready to load in Serum, along with the rest of its 125+ presets.

Want the whole palette? The Special Synthwave Bundle adds 9 more packs including Synthwave, Retrowave and Outrun: 10 packs for $49.90.