• Home
  • About
  • Site Policies
  • Contact

Designing Sound

Art and technique of sound design

  • All Posts
  • Featured
  • News
  • Interviews
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • Resources
    • VR Audio Resources
    • Independent SFX Libraries
    • Events Calendar
  • Series Archives
    • Featured Topics
    • Featured Sound Designers
    • Audio Implementation Greats
    • Exclusive Interviews
    • Behind the Art
    • Webinar/Discussion Group Recordings
    • Sunday Sound Thought
    • The Sound Design Challenge

Making Sci-Fi Weapons with Fireworks Library [Review + Demo]

September 27, 2010 by Miguel Isaza

It’s time for another review and demo of a HISS and ROAR library. Now is the turn for an amazing library: Fireworks, recorded by Tim Prebble with other three recordists.

The Library

The library includes several kinds of fireworks and different performances for each one. Also, they recorded the library in multi-channel 192kHz WAV format, so you can find several takes from each performance, with different gear, approaches and perspectives, which is really awesome because it gives you many different options for each sound. Each microphone captures certain characteristic of the source. For example, with one perspective you could have the first attack of a firework and with other perspective you can also hear the tail of the launch, or the crackle, etc.

Also, having the sounds at 192k gives a lot of flexibility when you need to do several processes to the sounds, specially with time/pitch changes, which I used a lot (and heavy) and never had problems with the results obtained. So, this quality is really gold when you need to design new things.

The work on this library is simply amazing. It’s really unique, powerful and flexible. Was recorded by true masters at the best quality, and the most importan thing: was made with love. It’s definitely a package that any sound designer would love to have in his library.

Tweaking the sounds

I had the idea of putting another challenge myself with this library. This time my goal was to design four different sci-fi weapon sounds using only the fireworks library and my imagination, without specific references. I imagined four different sizes of guns, from mini to big. Let’s listen:

Mini Hand Gun

A kind of futuristic mini handgun with a short impact. The different kinds of small impacts and some of the reflections/tails of the fireworks were useful to create this one.

Small Hand Gun

Another handgun but this time with a bit of more power. Again, several impacts with tails, processed with different approaches.

Medium Gun

For this one I imagined a fast two-hand weapon with dangerous power. I made a first shot, followed with a big impact made from several sounds of the fireworks. The sounds were processed depending on his purpose, trying to give different characteristics to each layer. For example: a group of sci-fi/futuristic sounds, a group for fast/short attack, another for the tails and long reflections, etc.

Big Gun

For this one I imagined a kick ass monster gun with big power. Its system is slow, but it makes a lot of damage. The approach was similar to the medium weapon, but this time I had to create other sounds such as the pulsating tone, a big leveler, and some low rumble. I used almost all the different kinds of fireworks, including the shots, the boom flowers, the crackle, etc.

Filed Under: reviews Tagged With: demo, fireworks, guns, haar fireworks, hiss and a roar, review, sci-fi, sound design, sound effects, tim prebble, weapons

Comments

  1. Colin Hunter says

    October 3, 2010 at 5:21 pm

    Awesome manipulation. Really like the way you’ve completely eliminated any essence of the original fireworks sound…

Social Media

  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Posts By Month

#sounddesign on Twitter

#sounddesign

tunepocketTunePocket Music@tunepocket·
26 May 2020

Download royalty free gunshot sound effects, incl. one shot gun sounds, gun cocking sounds, gunshot with silencer, machine guns, and more #gunshot #sfx #sounddesign #videoediting #gamedev #royaltyfree https://t.co/bTTDQkveKF

Reply on Twitter 1265206307927162880Retweet on Twitter 1265206307927162880Like on Twitter 1265206307927162880Twitter 1265206307927162880
Reel2MReel2Media@Reel2M·
26 May 2020

At Reel2Media we are harnessing the power of smart speaker technology, to deliver cutting edge skills that solve problems and add value. To find out more, click here https://t.co/VAAw7vTW1V #sounddesign #smartspeaker #alexaskill #amazonalexa

Reply on Twitter 1265206269255847936Retweet on Twitter 1265206269255847936Like on Twitter 1265206269255847936Twitter 1265206269255847936
SoniKSoundLibSoniK Sound Library@SoniKSoundLib·
26 May 2020

Listen to #soundcloud preview of our next release! #np https://t.co/S3bxxrnqrh #audiopost #soundlibrary #soundediting #sounddesign #ambisonics #spatial #surround #ambience #roomtones

Reply on Twitter 1265204382779559936Retweet on Twitter 12652043827795599361Like on Twitter 12652043827795599361Twitter 1265204382779559936
asoundeffectA Sound Effect@asoundeffect·
26 May 2020

Want to know what the independent sound effects community has been up to? Hear the very latest SFX libraries here: https://t.co/OUBM2SqMoP #sounddesign #soundeffects #soundlibraries #indieSFX #gameaudio #filmsound #filmmaking #gamedev #indiedev #indiefilm

Reply on Twitter 1265199255838511105Retweet on Twitter 1265199255838511105Like on Twitter 1265199255838511105Twitter 1265199255838511105
OblikLinesOblik Lines@OblikLines·
26 May 2020

Working on new tracks with many instances of Misty Valley ! ⁠
Misty Valley is free for all NI Reaktor users⁠
You can get it here: https://t.co/bb53Gtkw5e

#reaktor6 #reaktor #nativeinstruments #synths #vst #sounddesign #virtualinstrument #musicproducer #obliklines #mistyvalley

Reply on Twitter 1265198647307907073Retweet on Twitter 1265198647307907073Like on Twitter 1265198647307907073Twitter 1265198647307907073
Load More...

Copyright Info

All content on Designing Sound is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in