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Company: SKYES Audio
Product: Aberrant Drones
Price: $59.99
Our Rating: 4.1/5
SKYES Audio bring a colossal 13GB of droning material to your productions with Aberrant Drones.
Opening Our Copy
SKYES Audio have delivered a neatly packaged drone library at 24Bit 96kHz, organised into a single folder with an index PDF file for the metadata. We have to say, the metadata makes or breaks a drone library, and the descriptions are well implemented and organised. SKYES have used emotions / movement to describe each file, for example:
'Drone, Sci-Fi, Abstract, Cacophonous, Anxiety'.
Each of the 79 files vary in length substantially from 34 seconds to 14 minutes in duration. With a total of almost 7 hours of content, this library will be fun for all you drone lovers. The artwork is quite basic and minimal, and demonstrates the left-field vibes well.
Aberrant
The sounds in this library are fairly simple and effective - many sound like the result of detuned sine waves at different frequencies, they feel cold and unnerving for the most part. SKYES have kept the palette small, and sculpted these sounds through beat frequencies and modulation, which often descends into further processing as the track progresses. This allows you to lay an atmospheric bed under scenes effectively and quickly.
Aberrant Drones shares the aesthetic of modern Sci-Fi - films like Interstellar, Alien: Covenant and The Martian would play nicely with it. Everything from 'glowing', 'hollow' pulses as you enter the alien's lair, to 'turmoil' as the space shuttle loses power.
Because of the beating nature of the sounds, psychological soundscapes will also benefit from their charm, the sounds are rather dry too, so they will blend with further design tracks with ease. You may find that these tracks eliminate the need for musical score in some scenes.
Droning On
Aberrant Drones would have largely benefited from more consistency, where each drone is the same length so that the editor can tracklay them with ease, around 3-5 minutes would suffice.
While the drones are useful for a modern, edgy Sci-Fi sound, we feel that SKYES Audio should have experimented with more sound sources, and provided multiple folders reflecting this. Although you will always know when to reach for this library during sound editing, it may not be as flexible as you would expect at this price point.
The Bottom Line
If you have a modern sci-fi, psychological thriller or horror project, Aberrant Drones will find it's place there, and will likely cover scenes without the need for music.