Underwater hydrophone sound effects capturing container ships, oil tankers, ferries and tugboats manoeuvring in port, plus cliff surf, streams, waterfalls and plumbing across 81 files at 192kHz/32-bit float.
AQUATICA SFX is a comprehensive collection dedicated to water in all its forms: the rough sea against a cliff, the constant murmur of a mountain stream, and the vast, alien world that begins just below the waterline.
The hydrophone microphone capturing what the surface hides – container ships and oil tankers grinding past, tugboats manoeuvring in a working harbour, ferries arriving, propeller cavitation, and the deep structural resonance of a port seen from underneath. Alongside these, the collection covers the full surface spectrum: binaural and Ambisonic sea ambiences, waterfalls, streams, fountains, and close-up domestic plumbing.
Every file was recorded along coastline, at high sample rates and in 32-bit float or 24 bit, so the material holds up under extreme pitch-shifting, time-stretching and granular processing. Slowed down, a tugboat propeller becomes a leviathan; a boiling ampoule becomes a geothermal vent.
The library is organised into UCS-compliant categories to streamline your workflow:
• Underwater (25 files, 1h 31m) – The core of the library. Container ships, oil tankers, ferries and tugboats passing and manoeuvring; harbour and port activity; underwater river flow, shoreline waves and cliff surf, recorded with three different hydrophone setups. Also included is a pond micro-fauna ambience: the clicking, ticking biophony of aquatic insects and invertebrates, captured in still fresh water. Several takes run 8 to 18 minutes, giving you long, uninterrupted beds rather than short one-shots.
• Surf (15 files, 50m) – Sea waves in every mood: stormy swell crashing on cliffs, rough sea from the beach, calm breakers on sand and pebbles. Includes true binaural and dummy-head recordings, an Ambisonic dune beach ambience, and a coastal scene with a Coast Guard AW139 helicopter passing overhead.
• Flow (19 files, 37m) – Streams, creeks and rivers, from delicate trickles to swollen flood water. Includes a 4-channel AmbiX river ambience for immersive and VR work.
• Wave (8 files, 22m) – Calm to distant wave activity on sand and rock, plus 360° open-sea Ambisonic soundscapes recorded away from shore.
• Waterfall (3 files, 6m) – A woodland stream waterfall inside a cave, recorded close and at distance.
• Plumbing, Drain, Fountain & Misc (9 files) – Running showers, sink and drain, toilet flush, city fountain splashes, water flowing down a sewer grate, and water moving inside industrial pipes with rising pressure, captured with contact microphones.
• Bubbles (2 files) – Liquid boiling in a glass ampoule: tight, close-mic’d chemical bubbling, ideal as a layering element.
• Total Files: 81
• Total Running Time: approx. 3 hours 37 minutes
• Format: WAV – Mono, Stereo, Binaural & 4-Channel AmbiX
• Sample Rate: 32-bit float, 192 kHz / 32-bit, 96 kHz / 24-bit, 48 kHz
• Recording Gear: Zoom F3, Zoom F6, Zoom H3-VR, Zoom H1essential, Tascam Portacapture X8; Hydrophone H27S MKII, Hydrophone MSH27M, Potar Design Hydrophone; Audio-Technica BP4025 and AT897, Lewitt LCT 440, LOM Usi Pro, Earsight Binaural, Earsight Nano, Dummy Head BE-P1, Korg CM-300 and Metal Marshmallow Pro contact microphones
• Metadata: Fully integrated with the Universal Category System (UCS) standard, with embedded descriptions and originator info
