Review: Sound Librarian Sound Recording Workshop

As Designing Sound’s month devoted to Silence comes to an end, what better time to take a look at a remarkable video course that delves into the vast and interesting world of effective sound recording.

The Sound Recording Workshop (video/audio series) comes to us from Sound Librarian and presenter Stephan Schütze.

This video series contains a vast wealth of information and resources for any sound recordist/designer and I highly recommend this to any student of the craft (with at least a basic knowledge of audio fundamentals and recording equipment). Included in this course is over six (6) hours of video footage filmed live at the Sound Librarian Recording Workshops hosted each year in Melbourne, Australia.

The footage from the events (which was edited together to make this video series) demonstrates and discusses a wide variety of recording scenarios, including but not limited to:

Setting up and recording usable impact sounds of various materials (such as glass, stone, metal).

Successfully recording complex sources such as firearms and motorcycles -get ready for next month’s Designing Sound theme: Vehicles!.

All the way to more nuanced recording techniques such as foley recording and even working with/recording dry ice.

The presenter (Schütze), which many of you will recognize from the FMOD Tutorial videos on Youtube, does an exceptional job delivering the material throughout the course in an interesting and engaging manner. It is always easier to learn from someone that loves what they are doing, and here, the presenter shows a true passion for the art of recording that is apparent in his delivery of the material throughout the course, making this not only informative, but truly enjoyable viewing.

The video series by itself is $100.00 USD, but I believe the true value comes from the recordings that were captured during the live events. With the Recording Workshop, there is the option to purchase the sound effect recordings from the 2012 and 2013 events (over 3.5 Gigs of material each) for $100 USD each, or the complete bundle (video and audio recordings) for $250 USD (full commercial license granted).

Regarding the audio recordings (optionally) included as part of the Recording Workshop video course, Sound Librarian explains within their site that:

“The recordings made from the 2012 [and 2013] Sound Librarian Recording Workshop are cataloged by microphone type. All the dialog has been removed leaving just the sounds of objects and events being recorded. The different microphone versions provide a variety of perspectives resulting from proximity, position and microphone characteristics. In some instances the differences will be sufficient to provide real variation between mic versions of the same sound event, in most cases they will provide a useful reference for how much a sound can vary depending on the type of microphone used and its location relative to the sound source.”

This method of delivering their audio material works perfectly for this context; it allows each listener to get very familiar with the sonic content, and also to edit/layer/manipulate/add metadata to specific to parts of the recording that fit their individual preferences and needs. By releasing this as continual audio recordings, it provides a level of freedom when editing that serves as another opportunity to practice a very important part of our craft.

The video series is strong on its own, but with the added audio recordings, the whole package is well worth the investment of both your time and money. It is my belief that anyone who completes this “course” and edits the included audio to produce their own custom sound effects library (or libraries) will leave a stronger recordist, editor and audio professional (and also equipped with some new audio “ammunition” for your next project).

Head over to the Sound Librarian’s Online Learning Center and register for an account (if you do not already have one) to get started. Once registered, your account will have access to purchase all or some of the content from the Recording Workshop video series (once again, I recommend the complete bundle for the most “bang for your buck”).

In a farewell to our theme of this past month, I urge you to “break the silence” and take a look at (and listen to) this incredibly informative video series and the associated recordings. Then get out there and make some sounds (and capture them more effectively than ever before).