Wallows "Are You Bored Yet" Serum Tutorial & Breakdown
Wallows released their album Nothing Happens in March 2019, and its first single, "Are You Bored Yet?", is still their most popular song. It charted on the Billboard charts and went platinum. The band is made up of Braeden Lemasters, Cole Preston and Dylan Minnette, whom you probably know from the series "13 Reasons Why". The song was also co-written by Clairo, one of the most popular artists in bedroom pop and dream pop. In this tutorial, I'll show you all the sound design behind the synths of the track: the bass, the pluck, the keys, the bells and the string pad, with audio and settings for each. Let's get started.
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The Bass
Let's start, as always, with the bass. This organic-sounding bassline runs through a little distortion, which makes it sound like an electric bass. To start this patch, we need a Jno wavetable in oscillator "A" with the sync at around 20%. In oscillator "B" we have an Analog_BD_Sin with some FM coming from oscillator "A". Envelope 2 is modulating the cutoff, which is cutting everything above 300 Hz. To get some extra harmonics, we use the distortion in the FX tab in HardClip mode at around 60%.
The Pluck
If you ask us, the most emblematic part of the song has to be this melody. Once the first note hits your ear, you know you're about to hear an amazing song. Funnily enough, this patch isn't that complicated, which shows that something doesn't have to be hard to make to be brilliant. To make this preset, we need an Acid wavetable in oscillator "A" with the sync at 2.5% and the wavetable position at around 200. Oscillator "B" has a Sine wave with FM coming from oscillator "A". To make the patch plucky, envelope 2 needs a fast decay and is routed to the filter cutoff, and that's it.
The Keys
To create this patch, you will need an Analog_BD_Sin with the sync at around 2% in oscillator "A". In oscillator "B" we use an FM_Splat with the wavetable position at around 120. Envelope 1 has an attack of 0.5 ms, a decay of 1.34 s and a short release of 630 ms, and it is modulating the filter cutoff.
The Bells
This patch plays the same melody as the vocals in the chorus, and it's a great way to add an extra layer. To make these bells sound shiny, we used a Ring wavetable in oscillator "A" with the wavetable position at 150, and an ICanHasKick in oscillator "B" with the wavetable position at max. Both oscillators go through the "Reverb" filter with Filter Key Track on.
The String Pad
Now for the final part: the string pad at the end of the chorus. For this sound, I started with an ICanHasKick in oscillator "A" with the wavetable position at around 100. Oscillator "B" has a Basic Shape in its second wavetable position, and it is also being bent by LFO 2. To get that sweeping effect, envelope 3 modulates the filter, opening it slowly so the higher harmonics come through. We also used tons of reverb and chorus to get that washed-out sound.
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