The Weeknd "Sacrifice" Breakdown: Synths in Serum

Ever since The Weeknd released Dawn FM in January 2022, we've had the whole album on repeat. If you haven't noticed from the number of The Weeknd tutorials we have, we're big fans, and even before "Sacrifice" came out as a single we were hooked on it. So now is the time to make a tutorial on how to get these great sounds.

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The Guitar: Sampling a One-Shot in Serum

Let's start by saying the obvious: we know it's impossible to recreate a guitar in a synth. All the nuances of the guitar player get lost, and even with the best guitar VST out there it just doesn't sound natural. But as you know, we are Serum lovers at heart, and the whole point of these remakes is teaching you new things in Serum. So we decided to sample a one-shot of our Telecaster. We ran it through some pedals and amps to get the tone right and loaded it into Serum.

When you drag a one-shot into the noise oscillator (always make sure the sound you import is a C3 so it stays in tune), enable one-shot mode and pitch tracking as shown in the image above. This makes the sound playable on any note, not just C3. Also, if you want it to sound a little more organic and less robotic, route velocity to the level. At the end, we added an ICanHasKick wavetable in oscillator "A" and an FFT_Add_3rds in oscillator "B" for a little body, and that was it.

The Bass

The bass is actually quite simple. In the verses it just adds movement and a little groove, and once the bridge and the chorus come in it only plays the root notes. To make this patch we use a Basic_Mdc with the wavetable position at around 120 and the sync at 2.5. In oscillator "B" we have a Sine wavetable with some FM modulation. Both oscillators have 4 voices so the sound is a little bigger, and envelope 2 modulates the filter cutoff and resonance. That's it.

The Synth Bridge

To make this sound we needed two layers: one with a lot of harmonics and air, and one that adds body and a more mellow tone. Let's start with layer 1.

Layer 1

For this layer, oscillator "A" uses an MB saw wavetable with a little bend modulation coming from LFO 1, and oscillator "B" uses an Analog_BD_Sin with some FM modulation. The filter uses some comb filtering, which makes the patch sound brighter.

Layer 2

This layer complements the first one perfectly: the first gives all the brightness, and this one gives the sound its body and warmth. In oscillator "A" we use a BottleBlow, with LFO 1 modulating the wavetable position to give it some movement, and oscillator "B" uses a Dist Sub Dskperc. Envelope 3 modulates the cutoff so nothing above 6 kHz passes.

The Pad

This pad is a classic sound used in many songs. Here it plays in the bridge and in the chorus. It's actually just a sustained B note, but it gives the track a retro disco vibe. To make it, we started with an ICanHasKick in oscillator "A" with the wavetable position at around 100, and an SQR_SAW_Wrd wavetable in oscillator "B". To get that sweeping effect, envelope 3 modulates the Band 12 filter, opening it slowly so it sounds as natural as possible. A trick I use to make the patch sound wider is to modulate the pan with the LFOs.

The Chorus Synth

Now it's time for the final synth. In this preset we used two Jno wavetables: the one in oscillator "A" is in its first position, and the one in oscillator "B" is in its third position. The main thing about this sound is that the filter resonance is quite high. To make it sound wider and bigger, we use a lot of Hyper Dimension and Chorus in the FX tab, plus the compressor with multiband mode on.

Make your own Sacrifice-style track.

You've heard how the sampled guitar, the two-layer bridge synth and the sweeping pad are built. The Dark Synthwave Pack has sounds like these ready to load in Serum, along with the rest of its 130+ presets.

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