11

Dear All,

I'd like to share a win I had today in recording wind.

I took a Coleman camping air mattress, filled it brimming full of air, and let it deflate by opening it up and placing a 5 pound weight on top of it to keep a steady flow of air.

I got about a minute of time to work with a constant flow of air without any extraneous noise because it was inside my floating record room and it didn't require any fans or anything.

What I got was custom-made air flow sounds by using different objects to obstruct the air stream I created - paper, glass cups, my hands, etc. etc. etc. I then took this detailed wind and layered it on top of a wide ORTF recording of "air" in a forest or desert, and I got a realistic exactly-the-sound-I-had-pre-visualized-in-my-mind and it worked perfectly for the scene I needed an extra little something for. (and it didn't have any birds or cars or planes in it so it could be featured in the mix!)

This is probably also a cool way to create custom wooshes and pitched-down eerie wind sounds.

Thought I'd let you guys know - it works very well IMHO.

I also didn't know how else to tell you guys because I don't have a blog as I don't think a blog written by me would be that interesting...

Anyway, enjoy!

http://soundcloud.com/utopiarc/wind-sample-1

  • Ryan
Improve this question
5
  • Can you post up some examples. I would love to hear them. Great work and thanks for sharing. – Bruce Feb 5 '11 at 5:34
  • @Ryan - Thanks for the tips, the sample sounds great! Much appreciated! – Andre Feldmann Feb 6 '11 at 9:24
  • @Andre Anytime. That's what SSD is for. ;-) – Utopia Feb 7 '11 at 23:01
  • @Marco No problem. Anytime! – Utopia Feb 18 '11 at 23:59
  • That's really good, and something I'm definitely going to have to try and emulate. Thanks for the idea. :) – Dave Matney Aug 24 '11 at 19:23
3

Ok, ok.

I finally worked out how to upload a file (my own wi-fi keeps giving me an error right at the end of uploading - does anyone else have this problem?). I had to go all the way to a coffee shop for you guys. I hope you're happy!

Here it is:

http://soundcloud.com/utopiarc/wind-sample-1

This was created using my camping mattress with an empty wooden kleenex box-frame (with the hole right next to the mattress opening so it created a whistle/acoustic guitar effect) and I varied the speed of the air flow with my hand on the mattress. The first one is the raw, the second one is a bit of processing I did for the final mix (it was also placed in on top of a wide stereo desert wind ambience).

Hope you guys enjoy. I think if I worked at it I could get a better recording - more desolate perhaps.

Mic used was a U87 about 2 inches above the hole of the mattress via a tube pre into Pro Tools at 192K.

Improve this answer
7
  • GREAT sample! Nicely recorded with tasty modulations. Do I hear a boutique library on the way?? – Jay Jennings Feb 5 '11 at 23:13
  • What a neat technique. Nice work, and thanks a lot for sharing! – NoiseJockey Feb 6 '11 at 1:45
  • Thanks @Jay and @Nathan! That means a lot coming from you two. Gee, Jay, you think a library full of this would be valuable? – Utopia Feb 6 '11 at 1:47
  • Love the whistle you manage to get in there. Great work and thanks for sharing it. I hope the coffee was good. – Bruce Feb 6 '11 at 2:57
  • @Bruce No problem. Just trying to help ;-) – Utopia Feb 7 '11 at 23:01
1

Awesome samples! I think you could make some amazing breathing sounds with this technique also.

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.