Processing Crowds

Question

You have recorded chants, yells, and other phrases with a 50 or so odd group of people - how would you make it sound like thousands?

You have the whole stereo field to play with.

You could use any plug-in.

Theres only so much you can do by layering the same material - how would you use DSP to create a larger arena from out of a small group of people? (Other than the obvious worldizing reverb)

My attempts consisted of pitching duplicate layers to mix, shifting a left channel slightly off time with the right, using stereo wideners on specific layers, and using delays to either add more character to the reverb or to smear others into a layer of a slightly unintelligible element.

Thoughts?

Answer 1

Pink noise.

I know it sounds a little crazy, but it can work. I had a really short turn around on a project recently, and didn't have time to mess with layering up more than 3 or 4 crowd recordings. I just didn't have time to search for and audition more recordings. I started thinking about my own experiences and remembered how noise-like the crowd can be under the more present sounds of the groups immediately surrounding you. I dropped some pink noise on a new track, with some EQ (high and low pass filters, and some gentle shaping in between), and it really sold it for me. It may not work in every situation, but it did allow me to get on with the rest of the project.

Answer 2

I find a general crowd track of the size & type I need, say 200 happy people, provides the bed into which I can sit my specific crowd lines. So go and find a generic sound sound effect of the right size and type and use that as your basis.

Alternatively you could try the new Revoice Pro plugin from SynchroArts. It has a doubler feature that might work in this context. There is a time limited demo available so you could try it out without spending any money.