Texture and Atmosphere Designer

Create rich and immersive drones for film, games, music and more

Dual sample engine with IRCAM Granular, modulation, and high-quality effects

Native MPE integration and surround sound sources*

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$149

Evolving Textures.
Infinite Atmospheres.

Designed for composers, sound designers, and musicians, Drone is a creative instrument that delivers constantly evolving textures and atmospheres, from deep and powerful low-end ambiences to rich and shimmering environments.
Outfit a dual-layer sample synth with hundreds of included long-format samples, turn them into mesmerizing textures with the IRCAM Granular engine, add depth, grit, and detail with built-in effects like Swarm, Feedback Loop and Harmonics, and easily craft movement to taste with a customizable XY controller, and Chaos or LFO modulators. Drone is a fully-featured tool expressly designed to create rich and detailed sonic environments and sound effects with endless movement and variety.

Explore Drone

Trailer

Overview

Cinematic Trailer Scoring

In-Depth

Comprehensive Workflow

At a high-level Drone is a multilayer sample/granular synth with unison, feedback loop, harmonic modulator, manual and automated parameter animation, professional-quality bus effects, a 32-step gate sequencer, true surround sound engine*, and native MPE integration, fueled by an exclusive library of long-format samples designed specifically for drone and soundscape creation.
Whether you're looking to quickly browse presets for inspiration or craft your own sound from concept, Drone's interface is structured to provide what you need when you need it.

Sound Exploration

The high-level MAIN page is the ideal place to browse presets, explore the included sample library, and make broad-stroke changes. When you're ready to dig deeper, the full range of controls are available in dedicated Edit, FX, Modulation and Settings pages.

Dual Sample/Granular Engine

The EDIT page houses the full set of Source 1, and Source 2 sample layer controls, the XY pad, LFO/Chaos modulator, and the Swarm and Feedback Loop effects. Quickly browse the 500+ samples by category or hit the Randomize button until you find the perfect one, choose between conventional Sample or IRCAM Granular engines, adjust level, pitch, and attack and release times and shape.

XY Animator

The XY pad lets you manually control and animate your sound, and is a great tool for purposed sound design and cinematic movements. The Y axis controls the mix of per-voice effects (configurable on the FX page), while the X axis can blend Source 1 and 2 in a few different ways including typical crossfade and filtered modes.

Chaos Modulation

Directly below the XY pad is the Modulator, which provides automated motion to your sound in either the predictable XY LFO mode, or dynamic Chaos mode. In XY LFO mode, you have a fully-customizable LFO for each axis, with variable shape, speed and depth, with unipolar/bipolar range and switchable phase. Chaos mode animates the XY position randomly, using only Speed and Depth inputs, which can make fantastic automation targets.

Swarm and Feedback

Below the Source 1 and Source 2 editors are Swarm and Feedback Loop. Swarm is a Unison voice effect, providing up to 8 voices and a range up to 48 semitones. Feedback Loop allows from subtle to infinite looping with Frequency Shifting, Delay Time and Drive contribution, capable of creating incredible depth and variety over time.

Powerful Effects

The FX page is divided into two sections, Keygroup Effects (top), and Bus Effects (bottom). Keygroup effect level is controlled by the Y-axis of the XY pad (visible at the top of the page). Three effects are available including Distortion, Harmonics, and Filter, and their sequence can be changed using the (<>) arrows.
Distortion is a multi-mode effect providing Tube, Tape or Fuzz-style distortion with input, output, and drive controls.
Harmonics is a novel harmonic modulator, providing independent gain control and LFO modulation over each order of harmonics (I-VIII). With a little distortion this can radically alter your sound over time.
Filter is a switchable LP/HP filter with sweepable frequency. Modulatable with the 'FX Mod' knob, you can easily move the filer frequency based on the Y-axis.
Bus effects include Tape Delay with feedback, saturation and host-sync or free-running rates, Sparkverb algorithmic reverb with independent low and high frequency decay multipliers, and a bus limiter.

Gate Sequencer

The MOD page features a capable Gate sequencer, allowing you to create sequences up to 32-steps long. Independently set the sequence speed, shape (smooth), and depth. The sequence can run freely or in retrigger mode, and a large collection of presets is included. Pitchbend depth and Modwheel mapping for conventional controller keyboards can be configured at the bottom of the page.

Expressive Control

The SETTINGS page is arranged in 3 sections: Program, MPE, and Pan. In 'Program' you can adjust the global polyphony, velocity curve, root note, and assign velocity as a modulator for Gain, Filter, Harmonics or Distortion. In 'MPE' you can control parameters for X, Y, and Z channels, setting semitone range for X, and mappings for Y and Z. In 'PAN' you can set the panning for each channel based on the instrument configuration (stereo, quad, or 5.1*).

Sound, Designed

At the heart of Drone is an exclusive sound library created by UVI and the renowned sound design Nicolas Becker (movie credits incl. Gravity, Arrival and Ex-Machina) arranged into 4 categories, Acoustic, Digital, Organic, and Synthetic.
Acoustic sounds include orchestral sounds from UVI, and an exclusive sound set by Nicolas Becker created using theremins, waterphones, crystal bowls, bass guitar, reamping of EMT reverbs, bass amps, a Space Echo and more.
Digital sounds include savagely augmented Max/MSP patches and noise samples, glitched, chopped, slowed down, frozen, and otherwise mangled to the extreme with digital techniques.
Organic sounds include surround field recordings of cities, nature, and underwater ambiences, sometimes processed to be more tonal and playable chromatically.
Synthetic sounds include exclusive recordings of synths such as the Korg Radias, Access Virus Ti2, Black Corporation Deckard's Dream, and Schmidt Eight Voice.
A deep and inspiring sound design tool with endless potential for evolving soundscapes, detailed textures, and evocative ambiance, Drone is a unique and powerful instrument perfect for film, games, music and more.

Listen

UVI

Reviews

First Look at Drone

Sample Library Review

Noodling around with Drone

Matt Creamer

How to use Drone with Protoculture

SonicAcademy

Create Amazing Atmosphere with Drone

Mikael Baggström

How To Horror Movie Score!

Ave Mcree

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Specs

Licensing:

3 activations per license on any combination of machines or iLok dongles

What you get:

Size:

17.52 GB (FLAC lossless encoding, was 50.04 GB in WAV)

Content:

3,332 Samples (1,666 stereo, 1,666 Surround), 320 Presets

Sample Resolution:

48 kHz. Recording at 96 kHz

System requirements:

  • Runs in UVI Workstation version 3.0.12, and Falcon version 2.0.8
  • iLok account (free, dongle not required)
  • Internet connection for the license activation
  • Supported Operating Systems:
    • - MacOS 10.14 Mojave to macOS 26 Tahoe
    • - Windows 10 to Windows 11 (64-bit)
  • 18GB of disk space
  • Hard Drive: 7,200 rpm recommended or Solid State Drive (SSD)
  • 4 GB RAM

Compatibility:

Supported Formats:

Audio Units, AAX, VST, VST3, Stand-alone

Tested and certified in:

Digital Performer 8+, Pro Tools 2019+, Logic Pro X+, Cubase 7+, Nuendo 6+, Ableton Live 8+, Studio One 2+, Garage Band 6+, Maschine 1+, Tracktion 4+, Vienna Ensemble Pro 5+, Reaper 4+, Sonar X3+, MainStage 3, MuLab 5.5+, FL Studio, Bitwig 1+, Reason 9.5+, Ability 1+

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