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

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.