Company: Articulated Sounds
Product: Yeti Monster
Price: $39
Our Rating: 4.7/5
Articulated Sounds latest product Yeti Monster, is a great example of their implicit attention to detail. An innovative theme with outstanding execution, and more uses than you might think.
Breaking The Ice
The first thing to mention about Articulated Sounds is that their presentation is impeccable. A quick look over their website reveals a company who care about the user's experience when searching for products. Their sound libraries are also high quality, Yeti Monster being recorded and delivered in 24Bit 192kHz and recorded with high end microphones such as the Sanken CO-100K and the Sennheiser 8090.
The file hierarchy here is clean and simple, with naming conventions, extensive metadata and every organisational base covered for users. Their ReadMe document has a nice thank you message and offers a chance to give feedback or contact the company with questions.
As well as the main body of sounds provided, there is a folder intended for use in cartoons, which makes sense given the library's theme.
The Abominable
Snowman
So, does the library live up to this mythological creature's spooky reputation? We think so. The inclusion of different vocalisations, snow movements and footsteps have this monster well covered. The pitching in the sounds is clean and free of artefacts, leaving audio that can be processed much further if desired.
Yeti Monster has uses for much more than just this ice dwelling ape. We would happily use it as a base layer for vocalisation, adding other animals into the mix to create unique textures. The fact that over 10 voice actors were used adds immense value, but isn't painfully obvious. There is enough difference and variation to cover multiple beasts without them sounding too far apart in a scene. We could see them being used as trolls, gorillas and other humanoids.
The overall sound is great, the variety is plentiful and it has an 'instantly usable' feel. You can tell that some of the worlds best equipment was used to capture these performances, and time was invested into pitching them down to the correct point with a good algorithm.
The price is fair and gives you great bang for buck, as well as saving you the time and rental cost of hiring this great equipment and sourcing voice actors for vocalisations on your projects.
Yeti Again
The one downside to this library, which came as quite a surprise to us, was that there were some inconsistent edits on particular files. The great news is that Articulated Sounds instantly fixed these and updated the library after we informed them.
The Bottom Line
Do not underestimate this library's potential to cover multiple beastly expressions within projects. For those who do creature design and cartoon/animation frequently, this product will be a useful addition.