Axel Rohrbach Special: Making of BOOM Libraries

[Written by Axel Rohrbach]

1. Cinematic Metal

The decision which sound library we will do first was easy: “Creatures”! We started creating a concept and did the first recordings. During this time however, we had to make sound for a lot of trailers. It was not really rewarding to search for metallic impacts that can be used for trailers in the standard libraries we have here. So we started to record and create some from scratch. We found out that this works pretty well and started to write a concept again and go out to record things to design our very own trailer impacts, which we can throw into trailers when a client once again calls and says: “we have a trailer here, voice overs will be done tomorrow morning, the whole thing has to be ready tomorrow night.”

Because this was our first library, we stumbled over a lot of things. Besides tons of none audio related topics it took a lot of time to write, rewrite and re-rewrite the Metadata, how the sounds themselves should be offered, which samplerate we want to submit.

In the meantime “Cinematic Metal” is used in a lot of cool projects. The funniest statement we had so far was a client, who complained that he would not really like the “Construction Kit” – half a year later he wrote us an email that he now uses it in nearly everything he works on and that he would be extremely happy that he purchased it. Other user statements are:

Alex Pfeffer – Composer (Crysis 2, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, Halo Legends)

“Every time I open and work with Cinematic Metal Impacts, my heart goes BOOM!”

Christian Schilling – Senior Audio Designer at Crytek

“Cinematic Metal is a fantastic resource for powerful, edgy impacts and collision sounds. Thanks for putting together this excellent material, which was used more than once in Crysis 2.”

2. Creatures

Finally we came back to what we had planned to do first: the “Creatures” library. The first thing we did was re-recording things we used before for all the game creatures we did sound for in the past. That was purely out of experience, but from there we were able to improve things like microphone positions, choice of the microphone, room set-up and so on. When we recorded our own voices or voices from actors, we always had buckets around. Trying to make weird and inhuman noises with your voice brought us to our limits. There were probably no recording sessions without someone being very close to vomiting – fortunately it never happened. Coming out of the studio after only thirty minutes, having wet eyes and a husky voice was always worth it and after all a lot of fun. Some words on this library:

David Farmer – Sound Designer (Lord of the rings, The incredible Hulk, King Kong, Bioshock 2, Dead Space, God of War II & III)

“The “Creatures” library has lots of good wet close proximity sounds that are often difficult to get from real animal recordings.  I typically have to record myself to get those, so this is a welcome addition to my library.  Nice work and nice price!”

Jordan Wilby – Sound Editor (Desperate Housewives, Dexter, The Vampire Diaries, Nip/Tuck, Criminal Minds, The Closer)

“Thanx for the buybuyBoom stuff – am using the creatures in my CW show Vampire Diaries. Looking forward to working with you in the future.”

3. Guns

This was quite a lot of fun and together with Jeff Ball, Zach Johnson and Terren Kissler we had some cool days of hard work and fun. I wrote an article for Sonic Terrain which dives into a lot of details concerning the equipment used, the planning and the mixing. You can find it here.

Here is the demo for the “Guns – Designed” library:

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/8753578″]

Don’t forget to check out the tutorial videos. Tutorial 01 is very basic, tutorial 02 shows all the details:

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/18533205[/vimeo]

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/18618820[/vimeo]

We have also some statements on that:

Charles Maynes – (A-Team, The Pacific, Planet Terror, Spider-Man, Flags of Our Fathers)

“Sounds great…. they were all really good – very nice stuff”

Jay Watford – Sound Designer at Riot Games (League of Legends)

“You guys are awesome, thanks for continuing to put out top notch audio!”

4. Wildcats – Tigers & Lions

Wildcats was a tough one. First I had troubles to find animal trainers who are willing and able to suit my needs. The first recordings I did were less optimal than expected, so I had to record the lions twice. Anyway, with this experience it was easier to record the tigers. I was told that tigers love doing that: in one situation the Bengal Tiger walked away from me and started to piss a large jet towards me. I didn’t get hit much, but the windshield was hit, too. And it stank so terribly! Anyway, as a sound designer, I like the animals more if they don’t like me. That makes more noise.

David Farmer – Sound Designer (Lord of the rings, The incredible Hulk, King Kong, Bioshock 2, Dead Space, God of War II & III)

“This is a great set of recordings of some of the most essential animals used in making creature sounds.  I imagine I’ll be using these quite a bit. Nicely done Axel!”

Javed Khan – Post Production Sound Designer at MBC / Dubai

“I just wanted to say that you guys are doing an awesome job with your sound libraries. All the three series I have bought so far are top quality and very unique.”

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/14140590[/vimeo]