Here’s a bit of behind-the-scenes shenanigans from myself, Rob, and Josh while recording some new material for Identity Collapse.
Identity Collapse recording teaser #1
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Tag Archives: recording
PVKII Audio Devlog 2: player foley and bridges
Here’s another behind-the-scenes look at my sound design process for PVKII.
PVK II sound breakdown: homemade bow sounds
I’ve been working on some new bow sounds for Pirates, Vikings, and Knights II out of household items. A creaky dresser in a bedroom turned out to be a good sounding-board for stretched cords. This video shows parts of my process and the finished results.
Sound design update: NMRIH Door project
For the zombie survival shooter No More Room In Hell, I’ve been working on creating new sound assets for the doors, hoping to match the game’s creepy atmosphere. To begin, I went through and screen-recorded footage of the various types of doors, gates, and barricades that needed sprucing up, so I had a better idea of what to record, and the approximate timing.
I brought my field recording kit out on a door safari, starting with some of the more interesting doorknobs and hinges in and around my home. While scouting around the neighborhood, I found an abandoned newspaper vending machine that looked promising. It wasn’t as squeaky as I had hoped, but I was able to get some good thumps and rattles, which proved useful for roll-up metal door sounds. Continue reading
Cinematic Sound Design Demo Clip: Dark City
In this clip from the 1998 Alex Proyes film Dark City, I have completely replaced the soundtrack with original sound designs. I wanted to avoid using library sources so I started by recording as much as I could myself.
For the footsteps and foley, I built a small platform using wooden pallets and scrap lumber. The rope strain sounds came from a number of different types of ropes, combined with a wicker basket that I twisted and pulled apart. All of the vocal sounds started from my voice and I used the FL Studio vocoder to impart some different texture layers to the Strangers. Although I was able to record some actual sparks with the help of my father, most of the electrical elements at the end came from an experiment with a contact mic taped to a wooden dresser with a thin chain dragged over it. The brain creature was a combination of a squeaky keychain, synthesized elements, mouth noises, and a layer of cooked pasta for the extra squishiness.
Demo reel breakdown: creature vocal effects
In this continuing series, I take a look at the sound designs from my Oblivion demo reel clip.
The Flame Atronach, the main enemy in this clip, is a fiery creature from another plane of existence. I wanted to give it an evil, demonic quality. Here are some of the unedited vocals I recorded of myself:
After cleaning up some of the background noise, I applied pitch effects and a little bit of vibrato to get the following:
I thought it was getting close to the right sound, but I also wanted to impart some more menace by modulating the voice clips with elements of rock and fire. I fired up FL Studio and set up a channel with a vocoder so that I could mess around with different carrier waves (roaring fires, road construction, avalanches, etc.)
More recording projects
One of the video clips that I’m redoing the soundtrack takes place on a wooden billboard scaffolding. I needed to record clean footsteps, impacts, and friction sounds, but it can be difficult to control all the variables. There are some boardwalk areas near my house that I’ve recorded in the past, but I’ve always had to struggle with noise from the wind and waves, not to mention distant boat and car traffic. I found a wooden pallet outside of a dumpster the other day and saw my golden opportunity.
This turned out to be pretty good (and free) foley stage.
The clip involves a couple of bodies falling onto wood, so I made myself a foley dummy. I filled a gym bag with shoes, clothes, and books and dropped it from various heights to record these.
This should be good for the main meat of the body falls.
I wanted to record some heartbeat sound effects for a game project to use as an auditory health cue, so I set out to try and build a sort of stethoscope using household items. I took the plastic lid of a cd spindle and wrapped the open end with saran wrap and affixed a rubber band around it to form a diaphragm. I drilled a hole in the other end and attached a cardboard tube that was just wider than one of my condenser microphones.
This is one of the recordings, after a little bit of compression and noise reduction:
Making audio lemonade
The other day, I had just set up my microphone and recorder to get some squishy pasta sounds for alien brains. A minute after I got the take, the jackhammering started from across the canal. I couldn’t record anything else for a while, so I decided to point a shotgun mic at the construction site and roll tape.
Some more recording pics
Recording some gulls, turns, pelicans, and other seabirds at the Florida Keys Wild Bird Center.
Applying tension to some different types of ropes and strings to sweeten a longbow.
Junk and debris crashes for the elevator scene.
Some recording shots
Some recording projects I’ve been messing with for PVK II and other projects.
To get some ice cracking and crunching sounds, I froze a bag of water to make a larger, pillow-shaped ice brick. It turned out to be less impressive of a crack than I was imagining but I was able to break it by hand and get some nice ice friction stuff out of it, at least.
For PVK II, I needed to create some desert winds for the map Sandstorm. I already had some library recordings of wind that I liked but I needed some “sand” to add in, so I experimented with recording grainy items around the house including rice and oatmeal to try and get the right feel.
Some veggies awaiting destruction in the name of flesh rips, stabs, and other gooshy gore noises.
Here I am capturing some field recordings of the Key Largo shore. I usually record ambiences with the stereo mics from my Zoom H4 or H2. They also pick up a lot of background car traffic and distant boats and such so I thought I’d try track some wave crashes with a shotgun mic.