Dive into the realm of magical combat with Strata’s Sorcery collections, a collaborative effort between Rock The Speakerbox and Audiokinetic. Crafted with the aim of enriching your audio encounters within mystical and magical settings.
In April 2024, Strata will be releasing the first of a series of Sorcery collections: “Sorcery Absorption”, which naturally divides its magical spell sounds into the elemental powers of Water, Lightning, Fire & Ice. Each subproject has Absorption, Surge, and Pulse castings, synonymous with sorcery casting, and each cast has a Start, seamless Loop, and End action. You’ll find multiple inspiring layers in every sound to facilitate the home brewing of your own spells, as well as endless possibilities to integrate each sound in layers that blend continuously and uniquely at runtime.
Understanding Sorcery: What Sets It Apart?
Before crafting the Sorcery collections, the Rock The Speakerbox team sought to distinguish between magic and sorcery. In their exploration, they defined magic as any metaphysical endeavor where humans deliberately seek to achieve something. It's commonly used to delineate between high magic and low, gritty witchcraft. Sorcery, on the other hand, represents a form of high magic, often delving into rituals, transformations, and necromancy. Hence, the Sorcery collections were envisioned to complement the existing Strata Magic collection (created in partnership with BOOM Library).
Exploring the Sorcery Collections
With over 1,000 magical combat sounds delivered at 96 kHz and 24-bit in multitrack format, the Sorcery collections empower you to fine-tune every aspect of your sound design, from clip edits to source manipulation. The three distinct categories are:
- Absorption: This category features 513 rendered files capturing the essence of magical absorption processes, including variations in elements like fire, lightning, ice, and water.
- Strike: With 500+ sounds across five fundamental element types (fire, water, ice, earth, and lightning), this category covers a range of actions such as striking, stunning, projecting, and impacting.
- Whimsical: Adding a touch of charm in cartoonish and exaggerated styles, this category comprises 240 rendered files including zaps, bursts, spells, and interactions.
Design Challenges and Solutions
The primary challenge in designing these collections was to create something unique yet complementary to the Strata’s Magic collection. Sorcery, being considered a "higher skill tier" among enthusiasts, required careful attention to detail.
To address this, the Rock The Speakerbox team reimagined the sorcery library with multitrack functionality in mind. This approach enhances versatility, allowing users to customize sounds according to their specific needs. For instance, by muting certain frequency layers or adjusting parameters within the REAPER project, users can tailor the sounds to suit different scenarios. Additionally, a size parameter module was introduced within the REAPER session, enabling users to modify the size parameter of each sound and its variants.
About Rock The Speakerbox
Rock The Speakerbox comprises a team of seasoned audio professionals renowned for crafting immersive soundscapes for top-tier game titles. With their extensive experience in game audio they have a deep understanding of how to build valuable sound libraries that help sound designers to improve their workflow. The Sorcery collections are tailored for sound designers engaged in video games offering meticulously crafted sound effects to elevate their projects.
Comments