Squeaky Gate
Clean-tone squeaky gate sound design
Ever opened a squeaky metal gate and thought, "I want to use that sound in my music"? Well, now you can! Various metal gate squeaks were recorded, cleaned and processed to make this genuinely useful sound-design sample library. Each sample is available as an instrument inside Floe. You'll also find 40 presets, including plucks, pads, basses and leads, ideal for soundtracks, atmosphere or adding a unique edge to any genre. The resonation caused by the gate hinges produced a surprisingly clean and consistent tone — almost similar in character to a cello. Most of the samples were put through a granular synth to lengthen them. As part of this, it was possible to capture both soft and intense versions of the same sound. You can smoothly modulate between these 2 states using the engine's dynamics knob, allowing for expressive performances.
Beautiful sound design from a bizarre source
As a sound designer, sounds in your everyday life sometimes perk your ears up. A metal gate squeaking was one for me. I discovered that aspects of the sound had a very clean and consistent pitch. By employing in-the-box processing techniques, and the features of our sample-based synth engine, I wanted to see if it was possible to create a genuinely useful instrument from this single sound source.
The samples are wide and lush stereo recordings from a medium-sized string ensemble recorded in a church. It is not a deep-sampled and technical concert hall type library, instead, this library excels at strings for ambience and atmosphere. They are incredibly easy to use and fill that gap between detailed realism and smooth, rich pads.
Perfectly tuned and playable across the whole keyboard
Each recording was cleaned up and tuned to a musical pitch so that it could be used as an ‘instrument’. Some samples were also further processed with granular synths and effects.
Two kinds of gates were recorded, a small garden gate and a large, heavy farm gate. Both fully metal, including the hinges. By slowly opening the gate, long consistent-pitch squeaks could be drawn out; these recordings are the core of Squeaky Gate.
Intriguing instruments for IDM, soundtracks and atmospheres
Create playable string-like pads and textures, synthy plucks and resonating basses with Squeaky Gate. This tool is designed to be something genuinely useful that you can reach for when you want to add an intriguing organic-synth hybrid type sound to your track. The 40 included presets have been categorised and appropriately named – ready for you to instantly use in your production.
Videos
3 independent layers for blending
Unified browsing across all Floe libraries
Effects rack of 10 effects
Powered by Floe
Squeaky Gate runs inside Floe, FrozenPlain’s free, open-source sample library player and the direct successor to the Mirage engine.
Key features:
- 3-layer engine, each layer can host any sound source
- Full sound-shaping tools (volume, pitch, panning, ADSR, LFOs, filters, EQ…)
- 4 macro controls—each can modulate up to 6 parameters
- Rack of 10 customisable effects (delay, algorithmic reverb, convolution reverb, stereo processor, chorus, filter, distortion, compressor, bitcrusher, phaser)
- Keyboard splitting with zone layering options
- Full MIDI automation support
- Unified preset/tag system across all FrozenPlain libraries
Floe requires either a Windows or macOS computer with music production software that can run a CLAP, VST3, or AU audio plugin (such as: Logic Pro, Reaper, Ableton Live, Cubase, FL Studio, Studio One, Reason, and many more). See Floe's requirements page for additional details.
What’s Included
Here's what's included in Squeaky Gate. You'll receive a Floe package. The installed size is similar to the ZIP size due to our use of modern lossless compression.
FrozenPlain - Squeaky Gate.zip (47.5 MB)
Squeaky Gate
Mirage-format sample library containing 13 instruments. Mirage-format sample libraries do not have tags in Floe.
Pure Gate
Gate Ensemble 1
Smoothed Ensemble
Windy
High Squeak
Low Resonation
Gate Ensemble 2
Long Swell
Dual Pitch
Raw Recordings (4)
Rumble
Wobble
Clean B
Clean A
Presets (42)
Preset files for Floe.
Squeaky Gate/Factory/Pads (14)
Squeaky Gate/Factory/Leads (11)
Squeaky Gate/Factory/Basses (5)
Squeaky Gate/Factory/Plucks (12)
About FrozenPlain
Founded in 2013 in southern England by Sam Windell, FrozenPlain began as a passion project, creating cinematic Kontakt libraries from his bedroom studio. The mission has always been to provide creative tools for musicians, composers, and producers working in film, TV, and games.
Over a decade later, Sam works with professional sound designers, audio engineers, and composers from the film and gaming industries, plus other specialists who help shape each library.
The brand’s philosophy is simple: make music creation accessible and inspiring. That means:
- Fair, year-round pricing (no endless sales gimmicks)
- No DRM, no dongles, no serial keys just download and start creating
- Simple, intuitive virtual instruments that put creativity first
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