Gunshot Sound Design

Question

First of all, please forgive my absence of sound design knowledge, (my skill set falls in the camera department). Anyways, I'm stumped here.

I have a short film that will be shot in the next couple of weeks, and I will also be editing it. We know that there is going to be one scene where a few gunshots are fired.

This film is not action oriented, it's more or less emotion driven, and there isn't a whole lot of big loud noises that go off throughout the video. I wan't those gunshots to boom when they go off, really wake up that particular scene. Actually, I wan't to make them rumble, just like they do in the Furious 7 Trailer,

(around 00:42)

How would I go about making a gunshot, that sounds pretty neutral in terms of not being too bassy, or too high (again, apologies for my lack of terminology here), sound like one of the gunshots from that trailer.

I know that EQing the sound will have a big play in that, but I am at a loss as to how I can achieve anything close.

Any help much appreciated!

Answer 1

The simplest way is to find some free gunshot sound effects online.

If you need to create your own it can be done by layering 2-3 basic sounds. Start with a cookie sheet being hit against something (try to get a few different sounds from the hits). The cookie sheet will give you the metallic sound on top and should be the root sound. The next part of the sound the bass/ bottom end can be created using a short thud from something like dropping a 5lb bag of flour etc. The third sound I would use might be something like the handles of two spoons being clicked together (this would go milliseconds the beginning of the thud and crash of the other two to make the click of the hammer falling on the gun) Use volume control on the individual sounds combined with the smallest timing adjustments you can to get them to sound as close as possible to what you are imagining before you start eq'ing. Then add a touch of hall or chamber reverb to the cookie sheet sound and adjust volume and length of sound to get as close as possible to what you want.

EQ is a tricky beast and almost impossible to discribe in writing. Reduce the highs with a high shelf filter and reduce something around 3,000-4,000Hz (adjust the frequency and strength of the cut to taste) to the reverb and cookie sheet sounds to get the hollow distant sound (the distance is mostly the highs being reduced, the hollow is the 3,000-4,000Hz cut). Around 45-60Hz and 180-250Hz boost the EQ for the bass sounds to add more punch 45-60 is chest/gut thumping subwoofer range, 180-250 is body/bigness to the bass sounds.

Answer 2

Lots of ways. Duplicate and EQ out top end and boost some harmonics. You could use Waves Renaissance Bass, MaxxBass or Loair. Pro Tools SansAmp maybe too. Also layer up the sound.