Some of you already know me from Pond5. I make sound effects, mostly sci-fi, industrial, and mechanical stuff.
Lately, a lot of people ask: “How do you get that deep, alive reactor sound? Is it real machine? Field recording?”
No, it’s not a real power plant. I don’t have one in my basement, obviously.
It’s built, sound by sound, using two tools I’ve used for years: Sylenth1 and Serum.
Not because they’re the best, but because I know them well. Like old tools in a workshop.
I start with very simple waveforms, sine, saw, a little noise, then layer slowly. I add movement with LFOs, not crazy fast, just slow breathing. I detune slightly so it feels alive, not flat. Then I route through saturation, real tube emulation, and bitcrush very gently, only to add texture, not destroy it.
The key is this: I don’t aim for cool sound. I aim for believable system.
A reactor doesn’t just hum. It settles, it pulses, it reacts to load changes. So I build small variations, tiny pitch drifts, random modulations, so when you loop it for 2 minutes, it doesn’t feel like a loop.
Then comes the hard part: cleaning.
I remove unnecessary highs, control the low end so it doesn’t blow speakers, and make sure it sits well under dialogue or music. Every file is checked on 3 systems: laptop speakers, studio monitors, and phone earbuds, because people use them everywhere.
These are not like free packs
- High quality, 24-bit, 48kHz. No upscaling, no compression before upload.
- No duplicates. Each reactor sound is built separately. One might be cold startup, another overload warning, another idle core in vacuum.
- No loops from YouTube. Everything is original, made by me.
Also, important: all sounds on my Pond5 page follow Pond5 Standard License. That means:
- You can use them in films, games, YouTube, apps, ads, even commercial projects.
- You can include them in datasets, for research, sound classification, or yes, AI training, as long as you follow Pond5’s terms. They allow it for licensed users.
- No attribution required, though I always appreciate a credit.
I don’t hide behind royalty-free claims. Pond5 handles the license clearly. You buy once, you’re covered.
Where to find them
All reactor sounds and many others, turbines, drones, alarms, control rooms, are here.
Some are short stingers, 3 seconds. Some are long ambiences, over 1 minute. All tagged clearly: continuous, rising tension, with metallic resonance, etc.
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Final note
I don’t make sounds to go viral.
I make them because I need them for my own projects, and I know others do too.
If you’re working on a sci-fi short, a game level, a VR experience, or even training a model to recognize industrial states, these might help.
And if you try them, let me know how they worked for you. I read every message.
– Hewlaq
