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Company: Mindful Audio
Product: WW2 Aircraft
Price: $80
Our Rating: 4.7/5
Mindful Audio's new library WW2 Aircraft takes flight, with recordings of rare and wonderful aerial vehicles.
This library was recorded at 96kHz 24Bit WAV with high end equipment: Sennheiser MKH8040 and MKH416 microphones, Sony PCM D100 and Sound Devices 633 recorders.
Upon opening our review copy, we were happy to find a clean and clear file structure. Folders for photos, sounds, demos and documents are featured, including a thank you document with contact details for support - a nod to Mindful Audio's great customer service. We started to use the library on a project to put it though it's paces.
10+ vehicles are featured, which must have been difficult and time consuming to setup and capture to this extent. More than 96 minutes of content in 59 files - impressive. Metadata is also included, although the nature of this library lends itself more to users navigating the sometimes lengthy files to find sweet spots for tracklaying. Mindful Audio have also informed us that they offer free lifetime upgrades for this product, with new recordings already captured ready for releease in the future.
The artwork is nice, but it would have been better to have a darker themed background and warlike font to match the vibe of the library.
Ready For Take Off
The first thing to say about this library is that the selection of planes is wonderful. They each have a character of their own and are named according to model, allowing users to pick a German or American plane for instance, in their battle designs.
The movements and textures the planes create are really soothing to the ear, and they feel natural within a warzone. They don't have an over designed aesthetic, which allows each plane's engine to tell a story that viewers will recall throughout the length of your projects.
The fly-bys are exquisite, and could definitely be useful for Sci-Fi sound design as well as their intended use with the high sample rate on offer. The natural phasing and flanging that is occurring here is so addictive to listen to, you'll find yourself wanting to overuse the library!
The overall tonality of the sounds is quite midrange focused, which lends itself well to the film and game genres you will require them for. Mindul Audio clearly focused on accuracy here rather than Hollywood, over-hyped war planes, leaving more options for the end user.
We have already started implementing some of the distant planes into a WW2 Drama film we are working on with great results, which correlate with the project's harsh reality and coldness.
George Vlad, Sound Effects Recordist at Mindful Audio
Bogey At 12 O'Clock
There isn't much criticism to be given for this product, it serves it's purpose well and is a historically accurate representation of multiple vehicles that many Sound Designers will need and use.
It is worth mentioning that some vehicles have less files and content than others. Thankfully, the good ol' Spitfires are covered extensively, perhaps a sign of great British engineering? It would also have made sense to put each vehicle into it's own folder, for the sake of file navigation, but this cane be arranged rather quickly.
The price of $80 really is a steal for your clients working on war movies, considering a recording session for one day alone with these beauties would set them back much, much more than that. You can even get some free sounds from the links provided below to hear for yourself how you can transport viewers to wartimes of the past with WW2 Aircraft!
The Bottom Line
Are you working on a WW2 film, or looking for spaceship design and movement layers? This product is for you and is a bargain.