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I am doing a sound design for a play and I wonder how to simulate the sound of hundreds of fists being raised in the air. Imagine a huge crowd of people raising their fists in a certain rhythm during a political event or a demonstration. My idea is to record multiple slicing sounds, like swinging some sticks through the air, but I guess it needs more body to it. I wonder what itmes I should use to achive this and what extra sounds I should add?

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Raising your fist in the air doesn't actually make a sound, except for the slight rustle of a sleeve. Maybe consider that they all vocalise &/or make a corresponding foot stomp, then your 'swoosh' noises could be buried in that for some added hyper-realism.

If you can get all the cast [& crew] on stage at rehearsal, perhaps you could wild track a few takes of them doing that, then composite them into a larger version.

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    Thank you very much, adding some sleeve rustles and foot stomps will probably help. I acctually have to record some other sounds with the cast, so I will add some foot stomps on the list as well. I know that you can not really hear the sound of raising fists in reality, but the script says so :-D, So I need to get that impression to the audience somehow. Thank you for your help!
    – David
    May 20 at 9:14
  • A late thought on this - if the cast contribute to your foley as a wild track, they'll remember what they did & could also repeat it live, so you've got a part of the overall sound coming from onstage too [assuming there are characters assigned this action, of course, & it's not just noises off].
    – Tetsujin
    May 20 at 11:56
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    Yeah, that would be a good idea, unfortunately there are only four actors in this show.
    – David
    May 20 at 14:31
  • The Monty Python fan in me could see the comedic value in that ;))
    – Tetsujin
    May 20 at 14:32
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    Luckily, I will get some help from the cast of the show which is currently running. also director, stage manager and set designer have to help out. :-D And I probably should record them with several mics from different angles and distances to get a better result
    – David
    May 20 at 14:46
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I'd start with samples from a marching army or something where you hear hundreds of boots and pants rustle almost in sync; maybe some unnoticeable drums rolls too, tweak the attack to soften it a bit, add some little swooshes.

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  • Hey, thank you for your reply. That will help!!
    – David
    May 20 at 9:16

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