Precisionsound Sonic Laboratory review

You know me by know…you know I like to checkout stuff that’s not always “in the norm” when it comes to sounds.

I love sound, and sound exploration.

So I was definitely excited to checkout Sonic Laboratory from Precisionsound.

This is a library dedicated to fx and tonal elements for sound design, film, game audio, etc.

They aren’t instruments in the traditional sense, but moreso the extra sauce you can add to a composition that gives it that “cinematic” feel.

So let’s check it out!

What is Sonic Laboratory?

In simple terms it’s a library of 500 sound fx that were created from acoustic sources.

It’s a bunch of hits, plucks, scrapes, and other weird electronic devices, noises, etc.

They were processed and combined into 10 separate kontakt instruments, depending on their category.

It’s that special seasoning that you can use in your electronic music or next trailer, it’s really up to you.

Quick Specs

• content: 1.28gb
• format: Wav, Halion, Kontakt
• price: $69

How does it sound?

The care taken to design these sounds shows as soon as you listen. There’s more than just a simple noise here and there, some of them have been stacked, layered and even seem to evolve a little bit.

What I like about this library is that it isn’t just the normal, customary collection of big hits and crashes, there’s a lot of ambient and atonal stuff here as well.

This makes the library work just as well in music productions as it does in sound design situations, and that’s always a plus for me.

Though the sounds were created to be simply dropped into your sequencer timeline, I have fun with the kontakt instruments and playing them out in real time.

Some of the stuff puts me in the mind of what you’d hear at random points in a movie…not neccessarily the main theme but you know, those sounds that add to the ambience of the scene as the character turns the corner…or the secret tri-dimensional portal is opened accidentally?

It’s hard to explain but I hear it clearly in my mind…they just have that quality about them that adds just the right touch without overdoing it.

So what’s the bottom line?

Bottom line is this is a great addition to anyone’s library, especially if you’re like me and ambient, weird, cinematic sounds make you quite happy.

I was very happy to see the extra scripting that was done to provide a nice clean interface as well as some controls for tweaking the sound right there from the interface, it’s one of my favorite things to see in Kontakt libraries.

I give this library 4 out of 5 subs, it’s very good, very diverse, and it just plain sounds great. I love some of the ambient scrape type sounds and the light tonal ambiences really “float” in a way.

Every category was pretty much true to it’s description but not only that, they were useful.

Again, this is a nice contrast to some of the other “big” fx libraries that focus more on the big bangs and super duper stingers, etc…this one has a more mellow, ambient, downtempo feel and I can appreciate that!

Definitely check them out over at Precisionsound, this is the first I’ve heard from them personally and I like it. Sonic Laboratory