.THEORY · patch story
IB LEAD (Serum)
the innerbloom 5th-only pad trick
I needed a pad that could carry the first minute of 08 NØW without stepping on the eventual vocal top-line. The Innerbloom trick is old and beautiful: omit the third. Just root + 5th. The ear fills in the rest and the mode stays ambiguous — Bb feels like it could tip either way. Under a vocal it disappears. On its own it floats.
Serum makes this easy because you can stack two oscillators on the same wavetable with a small detune and a wide unison, and the result holds tension without locking the listener into major or minor. The sub sine pins it down, the LFO gives it breath, and the hall reverb makes it ceremonial. Sits right in the set where the parallel-major flip from SØUL happens — same home, different light.
IB LEAD (Serum)
2026-04-21 · used in .NØW
/breakdown
- Oscillator AWavetable · Analog BD · pos 14
- Oscillator BWavetable · Analog BD · pos 14
- SubSine · −12 dB
- Unison4 voices · detune 18%
- FilterLow Pass 24 · cutoff 64%
- Env 1Slow attack (1.2s) · long release (3s)
- LFO 1 → pitch0.25 Hz · depth 2¢ · phase random
- FX chainChorus 25% · Hall reverb 40%