Heartbeat Sound Effect Now on Pond5!

I was tasked with coming up with a couple horror sound effects for a project that ultimately fell apart, so I'll be uploading a few of them on Pond5!
I loved how simple and soft this bass-y effect came out, and should be perfect for any horror, thriller, high school biology film producers looking to get the pulse rate of their audience up!

Twitter Mailbag - Robot Effect?

From the Twitters:

@solkage 

I'm not great at editing audio. Any tips on how to use Audacity to edit a clip to sound more like a robot?

Robots are tricky. As with anything else we do, the performance is key. What kind of robot is it? What kind of personality? Is it a good guy or a bad guy? Once that performance is nailed down, that's what will dictate the effects placed on the voice.

The most memorable computer voices are often just regular human voices, completely created out of the performance, like HAL9000 or the computer on Star Trek.

Usually you can get away with a little EQ, some compression, and a light metallic distortion effect to make it sound like a normal voice being played through a speaker. If the character dictates more "mass", then you can drop the pitch just a touch, and add a very light reverb.

If more brutal effects are needed, you can turn to Ring Modulation or Vocoding to add specific metallic or synth based elements to the voice, examples of this would be The Daleks or Cybermen from Doctor Who.

Doing a search for "free ring modulation" or "free vocoder" should give you some VST plugins to drop into Audacity.

As always, if this article helped you out, consider dropping a donation, or using my affiliate links before shopping at Amazon.

Top 4 Instant Sound Effect Sites

From the Digg post:

It's embarrassing to admit how long I've spent looking online for single-purpose sound effect sites like Instant Rimshot... and it turns out that it is very difficult to Google for these things. My goal was to present the top 5 sites that exist... but instead you're getting the "top" four.

I've covered some of this before, but these sites aren't bad.

Enjoy!

read more | digg story

'Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' is fun, but MAN am I tired of crappy CG effects...

So before I jump in I want to make 2 points:

1. I'm going to try really hard to make spoilers avoidable. Any time I bring up specific plot points I'll blend the color of the text into the background, so you'll have to highlight that text to read it (if anyone REALLY cares what I have to say).

2. This is going to read A LOT like my diatribe on CG and Jurassic Park...

You've been warned!

I don't like to review movies here. Other places do that, so I'll try to stay focused on the technical aspects of the film. That said, the movie IS fun, and while I have some issues with the plot, the larger than life characters are so much fun to watch on screen (Karen Allen and Harrison Ford!?!?! COME ON!!!). It's hard not to get amped about a film like this.

Seriously, I was 8 when the last Indy movie came out.

My biggest problem with the film is I happen to hate LucasFilm visual effects. They look fake. REALLY fake. They look like giant cartoons. They DON'T relate to gravity. They become hyper-kinetic, moving in ways that real objects don't. LF relies on these effects as front and center visual pieces, and they just don't hold up. They're glaringly obvious.
Indy movies were always fantastic adventures taking us around the globe to exotic locations. Most of this movie felt like it was shot on a sound stage.

The most egregious for me (spoilers, highlight following text):
-GOD DAMNED CG GOPHER THINGS!?!?!
-After the bomb goes off, we really needed a bouncing cg fridge? Were refrigerators in the 50's made out of rubber? THEY COULDN'T HAVE JUST DROPPED A REAL FRIDGE?!?!
-CG Monkeys looked like crap. CG ants not much better. CG scorpions even worse. Even Temple of Doom had real bugs...
-Aliens? Sigh... Aside from just being plain lazy story telling, one of the worst Aliens I've ever seen. Why not just use a puppet like in Close Encounters?
-People in the showing I went to laughed at how Blanchett's character met her demise. Looked silly, made little sense.
-Flying saucer? Meh....

I think the problem here is laziness. Movies like Epsiodes 1-3 of Star Wars, Speed Racer (talk about vomiting cotton candy all over my childhood), King Kong (Jackson's) and now Indy 4 have failed to learn the lessons of movies that have come before (Jurassic Park still looks awesome and was made 15 years ago).
You can't make the whole movie up in post. CG only works to augment what you've already shot. The only exceptions are highly stylized movies like comic book films, and even then this stuff shouldn't be front and center.
Iron Man did a MUCH better job of tackling that. Even after seeing it a second time, there were still several moments where I had a really hard time figuring out if it was a guy in a suit, CG, or both.

Directors are going to have to relearn their craft IMHO. CG makes it WAY to easy to have your characters perform the impossible. Not the improbable, or the fantastic, but the impossible. The take-you-out-of-the-moment-and -break-suspension-of-disbelief-impossible. That moment where you go from having fun to realizing you're just watching some silly cartoon in a movie theater, and it doesn't matter what happens to the characters next because it's just going to be even more ridiculous then what they've already done.
Imagine if the boulder scene in Raiders had just been a wash of CG bouncing rocks and motion blurring effects.There's no fun in that...

So, all that above being said, Skywalker Sound did an AMAZING job. This movie sounded every bit like an Indy film. Great score, incredible mixing and ADR (Barbara Harris knows her shit), and the foley was incredible. I have to say I got a little giddy when I heard the classic Indiana Jones"punch" sound effect (sounds like a shotgun going off while breaking a 2x4).

All in all the movie is fun, with great performances, and is totally worth seeing. It is Indiana Jones after all, and it's been 20 years since the last one came out, so that's reason enough right there.

Having seen it though, I don't think I need to see it again.

A friend of mine still hasn't seen Iron Man though. I think I might be up for a third viewing there...

News Sound Bites - Mostly VO Stuff Today...

Scott Brick is giving you an audiobook free sample! Click to hear the first chapter of Lord Foul's Bane by Stephan R. Donaldson! Scott's the man! I would listen to him narrate paint drying!

io9.com is quickly becoming one of my favorite places on the web to hang out. They're feeding my sound design obsession with this awesome mega-post of the most iconic sound effects in scifi history!

In other audiobook news, Voiceregistry has a two part interview with Alfred Molina, on his work in audiobooks, VO, and narration! Part 1 Part 2

Will text to speech software replace voice over actors? Join the discussion at VOX Daily!

I'm SO STOKED for Iron Man, it's kinda silly. Robert Downey Jr is the PERFECT pick for Tony Stark. Gaming Today has a great behind the scenes video on the making of the Iron Man video game staring Downey.
Check it out below!


Iron Man Behind the Scenes Video 2 - High
someaudioguy some audio guy voice over demo production animation video games direction voice acting anime adr dubbing audiobooks narration

Awesome Sound Effect - The Caste Thunder Noise

I love crazy old sound effects!
I first posted on the Wilhelm Scream, then I noticed that the guys over at IO9 share my obsession, and ALSO posted their own write up on Wilhelm.


Well the guys there just wrote up a piece on the Castle Thunder Noise, and it's a great write up.
They even included a link to a wav file of Castle Thunder, but I made mine louder (Snarky!):

Get this widget | Track details | eSnips Social DNA

Now go read the write up at IO9, if you're in any way interested in classic movie sounds or sound design, and for more info you can also check out the wiki on CT.
someaudioguy some audio guy sound design sound effects voice over voice acting io9 history film

Do it.

Now!

The REBOOT dedicates an entire episode to Game Audio

Hey this is a pretty good show! I've never seen this podcast before, but I think I'll be subscribing. Wonder if I can Miro it? ... hmmm ...

Anywho, a reader sent in this specific episode knowing my about my love of all things audio, and ... they also just happen to be one of the guys interviewed. LOL, I love my readers!

This entire episode of The Reboot is on video game audio, it's development, and evolution into a more cinematic form, so check it out. It's pretty cool.




Thanks David!

Sound Design tips from Create Digital Music

FOLEY IS FUN!

Create Digital Music has some great sound design tips up on their site. What's great is they also include some pictures, so you can see what's involved in getting sounds for media. Pretty funny stuff too.

It's all really crazy, and is some of my favorite recording. We all know the basics, punching a steak for realistic body hits, breaking celery for bone and tissue damage, but I had to come up with some fun ones for my last animation project. Sound effects rule!

Here are just a few.

A slinky and a dollar store toy microphone made great high tension lines and steel cabling.

Slamming a bottle of juice into our apartment's stove became the footsteps of a giant killer robot (and pissed off the neighbors).

Our old ink jet printer/scanner became the motors and servos of the killer robot (think robocop).







And of course there's our in house space alien:



Check out Create Digital Music's article for even more great sound design tips!

Thanks D4Dirty!

Audio Guy is now on Freesound!

Hey all,
If you haven't checked it out before, the Freesound Project is great place to find enthusiast sound effects, recordings, and music samples. All clips submitted are under a Creative Commons license.

I finally got around to posting some of my work up (including some Unhelpful Robot), so if you're needing elements or sound effects, you should check it out.

I've also added a link to the right hand side (Audio Guy around the web) ------>

Long Live Wilhelm

I dig the Wilhelm Scream.
It's pretty much awesome.

It is surprising how often it creeps up, but it seems to be a staple of movie making (or at least ADR), especially for how long this little sound effect has been around.
From Wiki:

The Wilhelm scream is a stock sound effect first used in 1951 for the movie Distant Drums. Actor-singer Sheb Wooley is considered to be the most likely voice actor for the scream, having appeared on a memo as a voice extra for the movie.
The Wilhelm scream has been featured in many movies and television programs since. Alongside a certain recording of the cry of the Red-tailed Hawk, the "Universal telephone ring"[1], the Goofy holler and "Castle thunder," it is probably one of the best-known cinematic sound clichés.

Finding this Youtube clip was a joy. Funny just how many modern films/TV shows are still employing it today (though it gets kinda grating when you hear it back to back to back).

SO, check the clip out, and you'll never be able to see a film again without picking up on a scream that's been used for over 50 years!

HAHA!
***EDIT***

Just caught this on Digg from user 'bettereth'

Yeah I was totally about to say "no effing way", but imdb has a list of the movies it's in: http://www.imdb.com/keyword/wilhelm-scream/

Considering Sound Design...

We live in a world infested with noise pollution. We live in a world of bad neighbors, loud cars, crappy leaky headphones, gadgets, airplanes, hustle and bustle.

Rob Scovell over at VOIP and Other Stuff... takes a brief second to examine the situation with our gadgets and the noises they make. I for one agree, that little to no thought really seems to go into why devices make the noises they do. Watch a meeting grind to a halt as Hawaii 5-O starts blasting out of some guy's crotch and you'll know what I mean.

"I'll never forget one meeting I had once at Waikato University. We were sitting around discussing something or other and there was a beep. It came from the table of the chap whose job it was to do innovative things with PDAs and other small devices. When it beeped, he jumped, started looking frantically at the collection of gadgets in front of him, and said, "Whoooaaaaa! What was that?! What am I meant to be doing?". Was it a phone call? A text message? An appointment reminder? Or was a device announcing that its battery was going flat?

That was the first time I thought about sound design. Not design that is sound, in the sense of a bridge being sound, but design of appropriate sounds for appropriate situations. I thought about it briefly, but it never really went to the front of my mind."

When I got my 6700, I IMMEDIATELY turned off all of the stock sounds and put in my own. Song samples that don't sound like songs (the beginning of Baba O'Reilly is an excellent ringtone), simple subtle sound effects (like a TARDIS whoosh), all of these really serve to shape how I used my phone, and helped to deliver information quickly. Ringtones are invaluable in that I know who is there before I even look at the screen.

So read the rest of his article, and at the end he links out to another great read by Max Lord, on the tailoring of sound effects for devices and situations.
someaudioguy some audio guy voice over vo voiceover sound effects design floey adr dubbing production


I wish my crotch played the theme to Hawaii 5-O...

I MET A LIVING LEGEND!!!: Norman Corwin Edition

Yup he's 97, and as sharp as ever.

I got to go hang out at the the Museum of Television and Radio yesterday. AFTRA was wrapping up this years mentoring program by having college students perform a radio play, complete with live sound effects. Of course I'm a sucker for this and had to be there. It was only after RSVP-ing that I realized the play they were performing was an unpublished work from Norman Corwin, and that he would be in attendance. To be honest I only had a cursory understanding of who Corwin was, but I knew enough to know that this was a pretty big deal.

I showed up 90 minutes early.

The play was a funny little romp called "The Strange Affliction", and dealt with a woman who couldn't stop speaking in rhyme, and the students had a fun time performing it. After the play we were then treated to the Academy Award winning documentary about the life of Corwin called "A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin".

As it was also so close to his birthday, a reception was held with a cake and refreshments. My favorite moment was Corwin's proclamation post blowing out the candle on his cake, that he couldn't enjoy the cake because of dietary restrictions, but that it was sweet enough knowing there were only some 500 days left for Bush.

It was a great way to spend an afternoon.

For those not as familiar with Corwin's work, first up, check out these Youtube clips of him speaking, the link should direct you to search results.
Then check out his web page here. It has tons of clips of his work in radio.


someaudioguy some audio guy narration voice over production aftra voice acting radio drama plays theater demo audiobooks

Brice Carrington Releases HAWT SFX, but are they his?

Following up on a recent posting I made about Carrington, a commenter (hey SteveLee) alerted me to the fact that Carrington has misrepresented himself and his work before.

I tend to not endorse products, so much as alert people to their existence, but this was enough for me to amend my previous posting.

I must state that I have absolutely no reason to think that there is any misrepresentation of work in this collection, but it just further serves to warn sound designers to watch their creations like a hawk.

From a previous incident (which you can read about here), here was Carrington's explanation:

"I am Brice Carrington. I am writing this note to address comments made about me and to state some facts about my work. All the statements made that say directly that I have NEVER worked on a film or have won an academy award for sound is absolutely true. I have never worked on a motion picture nor have I ever won an academy award. The fact is, I am a sound designer, and I make recreations of sounds found in films and sell them to the public through a brand called Ultimate FX. I am completely responsible for all the misleading or incorrect statements made about me in the press. My effort was to create press for the brand Ultimate FX, which I am the author. I did this foolishly. This is a library where I have made my OWN versions of movie sounds. I have no association with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. I commemorate the Oscars by creating a version of the main characters in films that win Oscars. Like in Jurassic Park, we make a T-Rex using hogs in water, lion growls, a lawn mower and elephant roars. That is My version. I sell this and other sounds complete with the stems to consumers. This is a lawful enterprise, but misleading the public or allowing mis-characterizations is wrong. I am issuing an apology for making all of the misleading or mischaracterizations of my work. I apologize to those in the sound industry and the makers of the original works and studios that distribute them for this offense. To correct this, I will ask for retractions were appropriate in the press. I will also refrain from any further public comments and allow the brand and the product to speak for itself through traditional means of sales and marketing. To those in the sound industry and those specifically I have offended, you have a right to be upset, and I offer my sincere apology. I am sorry that you had to spend one minute of your time addressing this. b"

Spidey 3...

So we just go back from it.

It's ok. I can't say I loved it, but if you haven't seen it yet, it is worth a matinee. I wont bore you with a review. There are plenty of those out there.

As this is a blog about sound, I guess I should talk about that.

The sound was good was good, but I can't say I loved it.

Really everything kinda felt generic or sloppy. Sandman was nothing special, just 'sand sifting' sounds. Music and explosions were cool, but I have to say when it came to Venom I was SEVERELY disappointed. Topher is cool and all, but he's just NOT dark enough ... AT ALL. Venom as a character is the melding of the symbiote AND Eddie, two identities working together. They refer to themselves as a 'they' or 'we'. Do they use that for any cool effect? Nope. They tweak his voice, but it's barely noticeable.

I hate to say it, but the voice from the cartoon was MUCH better. Chorusing, pitch shifting, a little reverb and flange to spice it up, made for a great "dual consciousness" kinda sound.
Topher needed a little help there.

So yeah, again it was OK.

But I can't say I loved it...

Doctor Who Rules!

So Mrs. AudioGuy and I just finished season two of Dr. Who, and man is it a great show. I sobbed like a little girl for the K-9 episode.
One of the fun things about this revival for me though is seeing the show maintain it's tongue in cheek roots, while also modernizing. Seeing the updates to the Daleks and Cybermen has been really interesting, and of course after every episode I try to make myself sound like one of the villains.

I've gotten pretty good at cybermen. Pitch drop, EQ, Flange, and smooth it out. Bam! Cyberman! I'm actually having a spot of trouble with the Daleks. I know there is some upper end EQ, and some ring modulation, but I can't figure out the doses. Also there might just be more performance involved too. Cybermen are pretty flat.

I'm thinking about holding a contest for best monster/sci-fi/etc editing here on this blog. Just always been one of my favorite things to do, and it seems like it would be a lot of fun.

So for you Doctor Who fans, here's a great older article about the shows sounds, and here's a link to a page full of awesome sounds (I use quite a few on my 6700, good times).

Have fun!
someaudioguy some audio guy sound design demo production sound effects scifi software recording

HOW THE HECK DID I MISS THIS!?!? - Academy of Motion Pictures Edition

Damn it!
I'm seriously pissed. The Academy does an examination of sound effects throughout film history, highlighting films that have had serious impact on the way we watch (listen to) movies, AND I FIND OUT JUST IN TIME FOR TOTAL RECALL!?!?!

So if you're uber slow like me then you've already missed 'The French Connection' and 'Jaws'. BOO! I know! It DOES suck!

Anywho, I'm hoping to salvage this a bit by catching this:

"The “Sound, Camera, Action!” series will culminate on May 17 with “The Sound behind the Image,” a program, hosted by Oscar-winning sound designer Ben Burtt and 19-time Academy Award-nominated sound mixer and Academy governor Kevin O’Connell.

“The Sound behind the Image” will explore the extraordinary impact of sound in the history of the action-adventure genre and pay tribute to the sound design of the 1977 Oscar-winning classic “Star Wars.” A panel discussion with key members of the “Star Wars” sound crew will be moderated by O’Connell."

For $5, how can you go wrong?

Check it out, maybe you'll see me there.

Dont laugh.

I've been working out...

Brice Carrington Releases HAWT SFX

Super hawt yo!
Since my early days doing sound for college theater, I've never been a huge fan of canned SFX. I've trolled through CD after CD of crappy SFX compilations, that most (9 for 10) times I give up, and record my own.

That being said, every now and then you find a gem. This collection looks like it could be one of those gems.

"Carrington has always wanted to make professional sound effects you hear at the movies available to consumers and independent filmmakers, at an affordable price. This is not a new concept, but our approach to it is. It may not be popular to some, but recreating the sounds heard in movies and making them available to consumers makes sense. To show consumers how to make their own sound effects with the click of a mouse is a natural progression in amateur movie making and could be a great asset to the independent film maker."

Check out the full article here!

NEW SOUND FORGE! HOW THE F@CK DID I MISS THIS!?!?!

Yup,
We're up to SF9. I'm downloading the trial now. True Multi-track, built in noise reduction (finally), iZotope plugins, it looks all good!

Here's a brief review from Studio Monthly.

I'm stoked. I use SF more than any other audio program. Sure, sequencers like Sonar have grown up to include an impressive suite of editing tools, but if you quickly and easily want to get in and surgically edit audio there's nothing better than SF.

YO ADRIENNE!!!!

From Uberreview,
I just can't help it. I love these things. Same with the hulk smash gloves, and Homer Simpson slippers that go "d'oh" with every step you take, I've been a sucker for these toys since my first Darth Vader voice changer.


"Each glove has a sound chip which activates on contact, so you will hear the Rocky Film music, punching sounds & voice clips"

SWEET!
Imma gonna go punch a Russian in the FACE!
someaudioguy some audio guy toys voice over audio production

Are you still looking for MORE SFX?!?!?!

Haven't I given you enough?

No?

FiNE! Go here!

They're fun!
someaudioguy some audio guy voice over sound design sound effects foley mixing