Drone Flutes

We teamed up with acclaimed sound practitioner René Jenkins to bring you a fantastic catalog of indigenous Central American drone flutes, in the Mayan, Aztec and Zapotec traditions. René performed with six of his favorite 2, 3 and 4-chambered flutes at the giant cathedral-like St Paul's Church in San Francisco.

We recorded a variety of chromatic articulations and improvised phrases and effects in meticulous detail, including sustains, staccatos, true legato, chirps, swells, trills, flutters, and more. This library is perfect for cinematic compositions, game scoring, atmospheric songwriting, folk music and creative sound design.

The first instrument is the Double Wooden F#4 Drone Flute. It reaches from F#4 to Bb5, with soulful overtones and a wooden, breathy timbre. Next up is the Double Zapotec A4 Clay Flute, spanning from A4 to C6. In the midrange, the Harmony C4 Flute spans C4 to Eb5. The Quad Clay Flute plays D5 to F#6 - the ceramic body gives it a warm, rounded sound for gentle melodies or powerful rhythms. The Triple Snake Flute and Triple Zapotec Clay Flute both span F4 to Ab5. All of these flutes come with a variety of articulations and mic positions so you can mix and match to create your own chamber ensemble. This level of depth and detail lets you craft naturally lush drone flute arrangements, while our advanced sound-shaping and dynamic performance features allow you to explore with complete freedom.

To encapsulate the feel of live drone flutes in the hands of an expert, René also played thousands of beautifully dynamic live performance phrases for each flute, performing a total of over 3,000 distinct melodic elements. The phrases are organized by flute type, tempo (80, 90, 100, 110, 120, 140 bpm), musical key and style. You can trigger them individually with your keyboard or sequence them in the phrase sequencer, with full control over tempo, offset, release, pitch and so much more.

We captured his beautifully haunting sound from three distinct microphone positions: Close, Mid, and Far. The close microphones are a stereo pair of large studio condensers, offering an essentially “dry” sound, with strong tonality, minimal room tail and full presence. The mid position is a wide pair of omnis with a lush, blooming and open quality perfect for orchestral blending. The far mics are a distant pair of studio mics with a wide, cavernous and smoothly cinematic sound with an almost lonely and somber quality.