The story
While redoing the floors in my house and moving things around, I discovered some interesting dungeon-y rattling sounds from my metal cube wire shelves. After emptying it, I realized this thing is basically a giant reverb cage, and decided to do what any reasonable person would. Hit it with stuff until it makes a cool sound. Using a pair of drumsticks to scrape along the metal, as well as drenching the samples in reverb, it creates a beautifully scary horror soundscape. I found that using a pair of unlacquered drumsticks, which my sister bought for me from the Abbey Road gift shop, to scrape along the metal rods, produces a lot of random scratchy sounds and harmonics.
I recorded a bunch of one-shot scrapes, up-close with a single condensor, and another set of stereo recordings with a pair of condensors facing inwards. There are also 4 sustained recordings ~60 seconds long if you want a naturally evolving sound. I also threw in some hits with 9RR and 3 dynamics in case you want some ticky metal noises.
I also recorded another set of one-shots using a violin bow on the metal which produced a more clean tonal sound compared to the drumsticks, but still scary sounding. Finally, there is also some bowed-sustains, the first 4 samples are played with swells, and the last 5 are played with more constant pressure/speed. The samples are organized from left to right with increasing pitch more or less. The red colored keys have a somewhat aggressive rattle which doesn’t work too well for ambient sounds, so they were separated from the blue keys, which are the main tonal samples.
Features (Kontakt 6.3.2+):
-Modwheel controls the LPF to shape dynamics and tame the high end a bit. (Not on hits)
-Speed up or slow down playback of all the patches
-Control Dry/Wet Reverb signal
-Reverse Samples. (Not on hits)
Spooky McSpookyFace Scary Metal Shelves Demo
Interface
Reviews for Scary Metal Shelves
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Horrifyingly good SFX!
Everything is trully good about this patch. It is made extremely well, it has a great GUI, great settings and 6 patches for you to play with, with very well sampled and processed metallic noises.
The only thing I would like to see for the sake of convenience is that some patches could have been combined, since the range is very limited, but that doesn't take away anything really.
It's awesome!
One of the best SFX free library I've ever heard , perfect for soundtracks and I love the character of those metal shelves. Great job!
Sent shivers down my spine...
This instrument is frankly fantastic. For what it does, it doesn't get much better. The GUI is clever and has the right controls you'd need for a sound such as this. The speed knob is a game changer and the reverse control combined with the low pass filter can make for some really diverse sounds. If you are working on anything horror related and are bored of your scraped cymbal sounds, you'll find much more character here.. Great Job!
Look out Charlie Clouser
How'd you know, these are the exact sounds I need in my library! By the way, fantastic job on the Kontakt GUI and controls. Like usual, there are dry/wet knobs, the reverb completely transforms these sounds. But also a Reverse button!? Awesome. There are also a speed and low pass controls, the speed comes especially in handy and is easy to use since there is a visual of the wave with a progress bar moving through it, very intuitive. I think with a more dramatic polished background image, this would pass off as a small sized, but professional quality Kontakt instrument. Also, instead of having ADSR other than speed there are separate patches for hits, sustains, and bowed or drumstick, 6 total. Fantastic job, now I can take over for Charlie and score the Saw reboot next 8 movie series.
Best heavy metal shelving ever.
Outstanding. Does one thing and does it to perfection. If you ever need any scrapy/banging metal sounds then this is it. Then, just when you thought it couldn't get any better you can slow them down or speed them up from the GUI! Not to mention filtering and splosh to boot. The "performances" are spot on as well. Love this. Deep space, horror, forbidden planet, ambient techno... if that's a thing...
