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I've got one (actually a group of 3 that I'll pull from) that I've started hiding in everything I work on.
A little over a year ago, a friend and coworker died in a motorcycle accident. He was the primary camera operator for our company, and I was able to find a few relatively clean recordings of him in the footage from one of our previous productions. I ...
15
Freesound.org
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There is a ...
13
How about some eggs from the grocery store?
Or watch this:
[youtube]Dp7aJ6zoLXY[/youtube]
11
(fade up on scene already in motion)
The old rickety elevator, which should have been taken out of service a decade ago ago, shimmies up to the 38th floor as it has for years. But, unbeknownst to the lone passenger, this trip will be different...
(cue A MENACING GROAN FROM ABOVE as the cable strains against an unknown force, and suddenly...)
CRACK!!! The ...
10
Library producer here (echo collective, echo collective:fields)
regarding cleaning background sounds -
All background fx cleaning is destructive and alters the source in some way. The reason this step is not done is because that type of work really requires context to be done well.
In other words, if you place a sound with some background wind or ...
10
I want to tell the story from the designer perspective and I totally agree with Rene's answer. I do sound design for video games. I always prefer non-edited files even if they require some extra work.
Sometimes I find a very nice sound to fit my project but disappointed to see it was ruined because somebody assumed that it is better to add some fancy FX so ...
9
...you've ever frozen contact mics or hydrophones
...you plan an extra couple of hours into your road trip's drive time for amb recording
...your wife is ok with that.
...you'd bring the dog, except that you know she'll make noise
...you agonize for weeks over a mic purchase
...you build stuff to hide mics and recorders in
...you've spent weekends just ...
8
I like to take some interesting ambiences and pass them through a short doppler effect.
You can generate a lot of varied material rather quickly and have precise control over the length.
It works great with natural elements such as wind but I've had some surprisingly good results with machinery, there is quite a large opportunity for experimentation with ...
8
Paper spike tape. Not that sticky, good for sensitive surfaces.
Gaffer's tape. Stickier, the standard, gentle on most surfaces.
3M Micropore tape. Excellent for lav placement.
Double-sided wig/toupee tape, for similar.
Self-adhesive Dr. Scholls moleskine, for buffering the edges of a lav from cloth rubbing when concealed.
Electrical tape, for its actual ...
8
my .02
Adding sync sounds gives a sense a reality and often a sense of weight and grit to any given scene. If reality, weight, and grit are what's required artistically then the tendancy would be to make a sound for the object on screen. The vast majority of the time, this is probably the case.
Abstaining from placing sync sounds creates a sense of ...
7
I carry the title of Sound Librarian at Dallas Audio Post (amongst others)
Its my responsibility to edit, import and tag all of the sfx for our library as well as maintain the databases and the media backups for our (5 seat) facility. This includes both custom recordings and library purchases.
I kind of love that though, because that means that all ...
7
About ten years ago I had borrowed an unimpressive but functional Mini DV-camera which I used to record sounds (this was before my first real field-recorder). At one time I brought it with me just to get some nice sounds from a special place I found quite a bit from where I stayed for the moment.
The recording went well, and eventually I got home and began ...
7
The area of synthesis that's closest to the formulas you posted is additive synthesis. Before I get into some sounds, one useful way to break up the formulas is into a waveform and an envelope. For example, in the following formula you posted, the waveform is the sin() part, and the envelope is the combination of exp() functions:
f(t) = sin(2*pi*t*f) * ...
6
Mine is not one i use very often, I've used it (not always the same take) around 5 or 6 times, but i like knowing its around. And come to think of it, i've recorded in my first ever field recording session!
It was at a friends jewelry workshop, the sound of melting silver being cooled in warm sulfuric acid. It sounds pretty much like a volcanic spaceshuttle ...
6
the few things that I run into when doing forcefields:
1) electrical forcefields are going to sound different than magical forcefields. Be sure to know what's causing the FF story-wise as you pull together your source elements.
2) forcefields tend to be tricky to mix unless you plan the frequency spectrums out carefully. Its very easy to get caught up ...
6
This is a perfect opportunity to get inside your protagonists head and use sound to tell the story more effectively. I imagine we all have a different perception of what heaven sounds like...why not try to nail your protagonists POV. This was well done in the movie Contact for example.
My perception of the sound of heaven might include a collage of my ...
6
Audacity is a great tool for this kind of work. You might be able to make a slightly better sound using a sampler that can crossfade across different sounds for different pitches, but I'm not sure if the result would be worth the extra effort.
It sounds to me like the problem with your "current best" is that you either aren't looking for zero crossings when ...
6
Well, that was fun!
It's actually a pretty complex piece of synthesizer work--the link ObscureRobot posted in the comments sheds some light on this.
Since the music isn't exactly metered, I didn't bother to attempt to quantify that in transcription (I didn't bother to typeset it either, that would've been more trouble than it's worth). So, I used spatial ...
6
As the other comment said. Try a low-pass parametric filter. Adjust the frequency down to about 300 Hz, maybe lower, and see how you go.
6
ccmixter
Creative commons licensed audio files and sample packs.
6
You need two components - metal clangs for gear hitting gear and grinding sound for the shaft rotating. Record lots of metal clangs - you need many variations and often finding the sound that matches perfectly takes some time. Experiment with samplerate of existing sounds. Grinding sound should match to material shaft is connected to, but if it's unknown ...
5
I think your decision not to master these recordings is a good one.
It's definitely a violation of Union rules to put group ADR in your personal library. Those actors rely on sessions to make a living (sometimes a very good living, but they gotta eat). Good group ADR actors can bring alot to making a project come alive, so it's best to keep them in business....
5
I have a set of 4 body falls I recorded a few years ago that I end up using all the time. They are a mixture of a few different elements but the final result is magic. They work for falls on wood, cement or dirt. They have this great thud that is all body and really translates pain to the listener. Between the four falls I have used them maybe 50 times ...
5
My family has a black powder cannon that was custom built for my Dad many years ago. It's about 4 feet long and has a barrel nearly 6 inches across. Every Fourth of July (or anytime he feels like it, really) we load it up with packs of powder, newspaper, and a nice round hunk of granite from the beach and let it rip. It has a tremendous THUD and signature ...
5
You could try making your own flash powder and cover it with a wine glass (or other close-to-spheric piece of thin glass) to mimic the bulb's attenuation of the ignition...
5
Seconded on the details selling it. I had to design a bunch of train car impacts a while back and ran into similar problems with getting things to sound massive. Don't think that your pitch-shifted layers will make the entire sound - they can provide some low body, but all that high tinkly, full-res stuff is also really important.
My quick tips in addition ...
5
if your ears say it sounds good, it's probably good.
5
Alternative if you have the time and means:
Worldizing.
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