Earlier this year, I reviewed the Hybrid Library from Pro Sound Effects. Overall, it was a fairly positive review. While I was impressed with the library, I also pointed out some of its rough edges. The primary focus of the review was on the library's metadata and how it would affect work-flow. I won't go into heavy detail on the process here, as you can simply lick on the link … [Read more...]
All Those Important Little Touches…
Sometimes selling the story isn't about how cool that weapon sounds, how intimidating the monster vocal is, or how eerie the wind feels. Sometimes, the sounds that are needed most are those tiny little touches we take for granted. Getting just the right footfall, the rattle of keys as they're shoved into a pocket, or the gentle rustle of fabric that comes with the turn of a … [Read more...]
Glitchmachines release Polygon
Polygon is a new sampler plugin designed to facilitate the creation of stunning composite sound effects. Co-developed by Ivo Ivanov and Thomas Hennebert, Polygon was conceived from the ground up with unconventional attributes and a fast, forward-thinking workflow. At the heart of Polygon, you will find 4 Sampler modules featuring a granular mode and various play and loop … [Read more...]
SoundSelf: Sound Design-Oriented Gaming Experience
SoundSelf is trailed as an interactive and meditated experience in which gamers use their voice, actually their chanting voice, to navigate through the gaming environment. Wired Magazine has an interview with the creator, Robin Arnott, and the game itself - which is still in development but will be available at some point in 2014 - has a dedicated website and a trailer on … [Read more...]
Gordon Hempton – Recording Rain and Thunder…plus a bonus
Gordon Hempton has a new post up on his blog about recording rain and thunder that is well worth checking out: Winds may be among the most difficult nature sounds to record, but Thunder & Rain are surely among the most risky. A microphone amid a thunderstorm is for all practical purposes a lightning rod. Here, I will draw upon three decades of experience recording in one … [Read more...]
Short Film On Sound Recording
This great short film on sound and the experiences of a sound designer Justin Boyd comes via the Audible Worlds forum. There is fantastic attention to detail here in terms of both the recordings and the process. The film also demonstrates the very personal relationship that we all have to the sound environment, and the individual ways in which sound designers and recordists … [Read more...]
The Dialog Re-Assign Workflow
My first exposure to noise reduction processing was with Waves X-Noise, working clip-by-clip, finding a snippet of noise in the clear, setting the noise profile, then processing the clip before moving to the next one. This offline processing method, while effective, would end up taking a lot of time, especially on long-form projects. Similarly, if you had a processed clip that … [Read more...]