SoundMorph has announced the release of DR01D, a free SFX generator virtual instrument that is available as a Native Instruments Reaktor ensemble, a Max for Live device and a standalone application for Windows and Mac OS.
DR01D is a simple virtual instrument for generating old school style sci-fi noises and sound effects. It sounds quite a bit like R2D2 (the coolest little droid in the world!) and, judging by the instrument’s color scheme and name, this is exactly the kind of vibe that SoundMorph was going for.
The sound engine features three individual modules (talk, beeps, whistle), each with a set of individual control parameters and volume settings. The instrument is monophonic in the sense that only one of the three available modules can produce sound at any given moment. The sound parameters of all three modules can be fully randomized by activating the random mode (although the user can still set the playback probability for each module).
DR01D can save up to twenty custom presets (SHIFT+click on one of the preset slots to save the current state of the instrument) and it can also render the sounds directly to 16-bit WAV by pressing the REC button in the upper-right corner of the user interface. The built-in HP filter helps to keep the low end of the generated sound effects under control.
If you’re running DR01D as a standalone application, the computer keyboard (numerical keys 1, 2, 3 and 4) is used to trigger the modules, as well as for activating the random mode. While running in Max for Live and Reaktor, the MIDI keyboard notes C4, D4, E4 and F4 are used for triggering the modules and for going into random mode.
It’s true that these types of old school sci-fi sound effects could be easily generated with pretty much any virtual analog synthesizer out there, but it’s always nice to have a simple and easy (and free!) tool for making a particular type of sound without too much hassle.
And with Star Wars: The Force Awakens arriving in less then three weeks (PLEASE OH PLEASE DON’T BE A TERRIBLE MOVIE!), it makes sense to add something like DR01D to your music making arsenal, to help you create some cool R2D2 style noises in those few boring hours between playing Star Wars Battlefront and watching the old Star Wars episodes over and over again.
Download
DR01D is available for free download via SoundMorph (197 MB download size, ZIP archive, standalone application for Windows & Mac OS, NI Reaktor ensemble, M4L device).
Last Updated on November 27, 2015 by Tomislav Zlatic.
