Sci-Fi Spacecraft Sound Library
A downloadable Sound Library
Effortlessly traverse land and space with over 900 futuristic vehicle & spacecraft sounds.
Sci-Fi Spacecraft brings together hundreds of hours of sound design work into one easy to use and versatile package, ready to bring sci-fi worlds to life!
Take players on a journey with:
- Spacecraft engine loops (190 sounds)
A variety of engine loops for all manner of small to giant craft, from hovering bots to anti-gravity racers and motherships; burbly alien anomalies to rotor blades slicing through the air.
Use loops individually or layer them for huge variety – combining just 3 loops gives you 6,859,000 possible spacecraft sounds! - Thrusters (99 sounds)
Thruster jet flame ignition and loops. - Boost (178 sounds)
Boost and energy pads/gates similar to those in games like Wipeout, F-Zero and similar, and other rapid propulsion effects. - Collision/impact sounds (71 sounds)
For collisions with asteroids, other spacecraft, or obstacles/barriers. - Turbine spin up/down (118 sounds)
- Takeoff and Landing (55 sounds)
- Air and Wind (33 sounds)
- Ambience (20 sounds)
- Fly-bys (176 sounds)
A selection of fly-bys from Sci-Fi Fly By – a companion library designed for linear media (film, animation, cutscenes, trailers). Owners of Sci-Fi Spacecraft will find a discount coupon for Sci-Fi Fly By in the product folder.
Format: 16-bit/44kHz wav (download through itch.io)
Includes coupon for 24-bit/48kHz wav version redeemable through shapeforms.com
Total Sounds: 941
Metadata: Limited/basic Soundminer (no additional description)
Purchase
In order to download this Sound Library you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $59.99 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Comments
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Update: Raised initial rating to 7.5 and changed value estimation.
Update #2: Raised rating to 8.0, value estimation remains the same. I feel like the negatives made me feel a bit of purchasers regret and lower the rating more than necessary, but upon using the 'useful' samples a bit more, I really like the quality of the pack overall.
Original Review Below
If you're reading this wondering whether this pack is worth $60: It's hard to say. I love Shapeforms audio packs, and would recommend nearly all of them in a heartbeat. But at $60 it's a bit of a hard sell.
I think I'd give this pack a 7.5/10 for now. I believe layering and/or post processing is a must to make full use of this pack. If you are willing to layer / process and don't mind subpar impact sounds, I say go ahead, you're all set. Although I would sooner price this at $45-50 rather than $60, for one particular reason.
Want to know more? Read on ahead:
First the good things.
Positive Points:
* There's enough useful samples in pretty much every category. Every important category is represented, and then some.
* There is a variety of sound profiles available. 'Combustion' style sounds, alien pulses, there's a bit of everything. (Although some profiles are more 'prevalent' than others, and this 'slanted' distribution is present in every category)
* The sounds are really suitable for layering. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on whether you were looking for a drag & drop amazing sound experience. (Spoiler: This does not provide that in my opinion)
* There's a guide that explains how to use the sounds, with some suggestions on how to combine sounds for a vehicle. A very welcome addition for people who may not be as well versed with audio, and just good guidance in general. Especially since again, this seems to be strongly designed to be used in layering.
* Some pre-combined engine & boost sounds are provided, they sound quite neat.
* There's 3 sounds in the engine harmonics folder that should either be in a BladeRunner movie as part of a Vangelis soundtrack, or in some crazy trippy ambient production. They make me want to pick up music production again. (So this made me happy, and I'll give it a point for that)
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Now the bad things:
Minor Complaints:
* Not truly suitable for 'individual' sound use.
The description mentions you can use some sounds individually, but I would highly recommend only getting this if you're into layering stuff together. There are a few sounds that sound good individually, but it's a fraction of the total set. (There are better options if you're looking for drag & drop)
* Some sounds are a bit too 'wet'.
As a result, they feel like they dictate the environment a bit more and make it a bit harder to post process, and also makes the quality between samples feel a bit inconsistent.
* I was hoping for a more "cohesive" feeling between the sounds.
For example I expected a set of x sounds for each 'sound profile':
"Alien Ship (Synthy pulsy waves): Take Off / Landing / Engine Loop"
"Combustion Ship (think Jet Engine): Take Off / Landing / Engine Loop"
etc.
Instead what you get looks more like:
"Turbine: Jet Turbine 1 - 2 - 3"
"Turbine: Sci Fi Thingamajig"
"Take Off: Spaceship 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-100"
"Take Off: Cool Sound SineWave Pulse"
I have two issues with this:
1: Not all sound profiles are represented equally. (1 folder can have 1 jet engine sound and another can have 10)
2: It makes it harder to find 'cohesive' sounds. I would've preferred a bit more organization/curation in the types of sounds provided. Does spaceship 5 sound good with Sci Fi Turbine 3? No idea until you try.
* Boosts is all right, but could've used some more diverse recharging loops and has some 'odd' one shots that feel out of place.
Major Complaints:
* Some of the sounds edge a bit too close to being a basic sound shape + LFO.
For $60 I do not want the sound to remind me of someone fiddling around with a DAW. Worst offender? Some of the Engine Loops - Pulse sounds. "Bass Pulse Layer Loop_01" literally sounds like an LFO'd C3 Sine Wave OSC from Fruity Loops,
* Impacts.
Oh boy, impacts.. Impacts does have some useful sounds like all the other categories, but overall too many of them sound either too 'flimsy', or like someone just took some drum kit samples & metal sheet, whacked it a few times and called it a day.
Worst offenders are:
"Impact Clean Kick Thud_01" (Sounds like a pure DrumKit bass drum)
"Ship Hull Impact 05 & 06" (Sounds like a pure big orchestral drum)
There's a few sounds that sound a tiny bit like you T-boned someone's KIA, but no "groaning metal" sounds, no big heavy bombastic metal crashes like you see and hear in your favorite space games.
This is the one category where this pack really dropped the ball, and could've provided some more heavy / deep metal clangs & clashes, screeching noises and groaning metal. If I could change one thing in this pack, it's a re-do of this category. And for this reason I would really wish this pack was priced a tiny bit cheaper.
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In conclusion: Despite my negative points, every category in the pack does have some useful sounds, some more than others. Layering these together and some optional post processing can make these sound epic. However the question is whether this is still worth $60 despite the shortcomings.
If you are looking for 'ready made' drag & drop sounds I might consider looking elsewhere as there are packs for $25-30 that provide 'ready made' sound profile sets for specific space ships.
But if you are looking for a layering product, I'd argue this pack would be easily worth $40, maybe $50. Now that's not $60, but do note that there are not really any proper alternatives as most packs don't focus on layering, so you don't have much of a choice. Do I regret spending $60? A tiny bit, but if the content issues were fixed (Impacts!), I would feel much happier already.
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Note to creator:
Please please please consider adding some additional Boost loops and revisiting the Impacts section to add some more proper impact sounds in there.
Hey, thanks as always for your detailed reviews and feedback, it's genuinely really helpful in gaining insight into how people are using the libraries, what expectations are and where I might be able to improve with updates and new content!
Because you've bought a bunch of libraries and provided so many reviews/useful feedback I'd like to give you a new sci-fi bundle I released on shapeforms.com recently! Email me at hello@shapeforms.com if you like! :D
Some thoughts on the negatives listed:
If you're reading this wondering whether this pack is worth $60: It's hard to say.
It's true it's the highest-priced of my libraries to date, but not without reason: it reflects the time and effort put in (there are a handful of individual sounds in the library that took full days each to design), the value and versatility on offer, and was set after evaluating about a dozen competitors' products of similar quality, where I found the average price per sound was 13c (which if applied to this library would make it about $120 – so $60 I feel is actually very reasonable value). I'm definitely open to feedback on price though; I want to meet or exceed expectations, and want people to be truly happy with their purchase and ultimately enjoy using the assets!
* Not truly suitable for 'individual' sound use.
As you say the main draw of the library is in the versatility and variety found in layering multiple sounds. It's true not all sounds will stand alone as well as others but this is partly by design to allow 'room' for multiple layers at once without cluttering the spectrum and turning into noise. I tried to provide a mix of simple through to complex sounds in each category.
* Some sounds are a bit too 'wet'.
This is interesting feedback as generally I worry my sounds are too dry (which I do so people can set the sounds into any space with reverb etc.) Again though it's possible I've tried to include a mix from quite dry to a bit wet for variety in options.
* I was hoping for a more "cohesive" feeling between the sounds.
For example I expected a set of x sounds for each 'sound profile':
"Alien Ship (Synthy pulsy waves): Take Off / Landing / Engine Loop" "Combustion Ship (think Jet Engine): Take Off / Landing / Engine Loop"
Pre-designed sound sets is something I've been wanting to add to this and other libraries, I think it would be good to include to fully round it out. What I didn't want to do though is be entirely prescriptive in the design of the library, since modularity and layering gives people more freedom and uniqueness in results (at the expense perhaps of a bit more trial and error). I'll aim to add some sound sets in a future update (but this may be a very long term goal)
* Boosts is all right, but could've used some more diverse recharging loops and has some 'odd' one shots that feel out of place.
Boosts was a hard one to communicate the idea behind (since there are also 'thruster' sounds). Boosts I imagined being like boost/warp pads/gates in games like Wipeout, while thrusters are the vehicles' own propulsion. Though of course any sound can be used for any purpose if it fits! It's true there aren't a ton of charge loops either, I'll look to include more in an update.
* Some of the sounds edge a bit too close to being a basic sound shape + LFO.
This was actually a later addition to the library realising I only had quite complex, heavily 'designed' sounds in there – I had been playing Ratchet & Clank and noticed their floating robot/vehicle sounds were actually very simple/minimal, so I see the addition of these sorts of sounds as a plus not a negative: more options to suit a wider range of use cases.
* Impacts.
...no "groaning metal" sounds, no big heavy bombastic metal crashes... could've provided some more heavy / deep metal clangs & clashes, screeching noises and groaning metal.
Groaning metal and massive crashes was something I wanted to include and attempted some designs for but realised ultimately I just didn't have the appropriate source recordings to really sell the effect well. These LARGE sounds are often best sourced from real world industrial-sized machinery and the like and as a solo indie sound recordist/designer I just don't have the clout/access that AAA studio sound design teams have. However! With some clever ultrasonic recordings of metal clashing I can probably produce something useful – this will be another long term goal since I'll need to gather new source material to record.
Again, very useful insights into how the library is being used/perceived, and I hope eventually to update it and further round it out!
Heya! I reached out to your offer by e-mail.
Your response is more than valid of course. I think initially I was also a bit sour due to my initial findings. I've mellowed a bit over time and have grown to appreciate the sounds I do like a lot more.
You're right, "more" can be better for the average person. I think I'm just extra strict on this as an amateur audio / music production person. Since I already have a ton of audio production tools, any 'ready made' sounds that steer too close to 'regular' instruments or 'minimalist' sound engineering feel a bit like 'wasted money', if that makes sense.
Perhaps people without those tools feel less strongly about this issue :)
I've also never played Ratchet & Clank, so I'll give those a listen too to see how they did their minimalist sounds.
And for what it's worth, I still think this pack is great, the other points I raised are really 'minor' nitpicks, the only big concern for me was Impacts. And as you mentioned, it's hard to create those 'big' sounds if you don't have access to the right tools & machinery.