In this continuing series, I take a look at the sound designs from my Oblivion demo reel clip.

I wanted to create the bow and arrow sounds myself for this clip, but I wasn’t able to coordinate with my archer friend to record. I was going to have to create the sounds from scratch, as components.

The main bow-draw sounds came from some experiments with a slingshot and a thin wooden dowel. The friction of the arrow against the frame, combined with the stretch of the elastic bands got me in the right neighborhood for the draw sound. Unfortunately, disaster struck as I was experimenting with ways to record the arrow loosing part of the sound, and one of the bands snapped. Although I was able to get a few recordings of bow releases, they needed a serious amount of oomph.

I decided to record various types of strings and cords under tension to mix in on both the low and high ends of the sound spectrum. It was quite the arm and pec workout just stretching a cord in both hands, not to mention that I practically needed to pluck it with my teeth. Instead, I tied one end to my pullup bar and torqued the other with a gloved hand.

By wrapping the free end around a hammer, I was able to stretch it even further with less effort.

I mixed the various twangs from shoelaces, elastic cords, and a small rope together in Audition to make the sweetened bow releases.

The quiver and weapon switching foley was done with more of the wooden dowels inside one of the gloves. This was close but not quite right, so I lined a cylindrical tube with a scrap of suede. The player’s armor foley was done with a long leather coat and a number of keyclips and buckles added for the extra jingle. For the sound of chainmail, I took a length of light chain and wrapped it around a glove.

Here is the video with all of those elements isolated.