Freesound Forums
What's one of your best sounds and which techniques did you use to make it?
Started February 1st, 2023 · 12 replies · Latest reply by newlocknew 1 year, 9 months ago
(Apologies if this topic is already covered somewhere else.)
A little while ago, I was intrigued to discover how to create the ambience of warp core/generator in operation. I looped a crescendoing timpani roll three different resonator filters that emphasized very low frequencies (this particular resonator focused on C0, or the lowest C pitch on a piano for those who don't know). After turning that noise into samples, I copied and pasted the samples into three different audio tracks. I re-pitched the samples on two of the tracks (one higher and one lower) to make the ambience sound bigger (which in this sense meant louder and possessing a wider range of frequencies). For those who use Ableton, the resonator was one of the two "Munich" ones - the one that tends to give sound effects a sort of metallic vibration.
This was the end result:
https://freesound.org/people/SilverIllusionist/sounds/669566/
https://freesound.org/people/Timbre/sounds/77402/
Empty "tin" can & elastic band stretched over it.
Can base pinged with elastic band, then a boatload of reverb.
My best sounds were made with a decent field recorder and two high quality microphones. Why do you expect that there are special techniques needed? Of course it depends if you generate artificial stuff or just record something from the nature or enviroment.
Erdie wrote:
My best sounds were made with a decent field recorder and two high quality microphones. Why do you expect that there are special techniques needed? Of course it depends if you generate artificial stuff or just record something from the nature or enviroment.
I think Dylan (SilverIllusionist) started this topic so people could share sound design techniques. But you can also share your recording secrets, if you want, of course!
SilverIllusionist wrote:
(Apologies if this topic is already covered somewhere else.)A little while ago, I was intrigued to discover how to create the ambience of warp core/generator in operation. I looped a crescendoing timpani roll three different resonator filters that emphasized very low frequencies (this particular resonator focused on C0, or the lowest C pitch on a piano for those who don't know). After turning that noise into samples, I copied and pasted the samples into three different audio tracks. I re-pitched the samples on two of the tracks (one higher and one lower) to make the ambience sound bigger (which in this sense meant louder and possessing a wider range of frequencies). For those who use Ableton, the resonator was one of the two "Munich" ones - the one that tends to give sound effects a sort of metallic vibration.
This was the end result:
https://freesound.org/people/SilverIllusionist/sounds/669566/
In roughly the same way, I created this sci-fi ambient element. Some old school telemetry sound or something like that. The initial sound was the sound of a pencil lightly hitting the glass shade of my ceiling lamp, followed by a tail of ringing. I remember that there were three layers, with different filtering, the filter parameters were automated. In each layer, in the samplers, a certain granularity effect was configured, due to a short loop, and an automated starting point for this loop. There was some other processing, but I don’t remember. Almost five years have passed. I won’t say that this is my best sound, but I remembered it.
Sound:
https://freesound.org/people/newlocknew/sounds/478091/
I think this one is the best https://freesound.org/people/wkalmar/sounds/614180/
At least it has the highest rating.
It was the time when I was experimenting with supercollider to artificially program a timbre: to generate a multitude of sounds at different frequencies with pop-up one at a time thus slowly changing the entire timbre of the composition. However, due to the small duration of sound envelopes, it sounds rather like tiny crystals constantly shattering. Still, love this sound.
I'm torn between the rather organic mixture of many layers, including a baby's squeaky toy and my own mouth sounds, in this malfunctioning portal sound design: https://freesound.org/people/zimbot/sounds/122984/ and this haunting creation of an analog box circuit processed in cool edit pro: https://freesound.org/people/zimbot/sounds/189605/
wkalmar wrote:
I think this one is the best https://freesound.org/people/wkalmar/sounds/614180/
At least it has the highest rating.
It was the time when I was experimenting with supercollider to artificially program a timbre: to generate a multitude of sounds at different frequencies with pop-up one at a time thus slowly changing the entire timbre of the composition. However, due to the small duration of sound envelopes, it sounds rather like tiny crystals constantly shattering. Still, love this sound.
It will be even more interesting if you try to blur this sound in different ways. You can get a fluid texture.
zimbot wrote:
I'm torn between the rather organic mixture of many layers, including a baby's squeaky toy and my own mouth sounds, in this malfunctioning portal sound design: https://freesound.org/people/zimbot/sounds/122984/ and this haunting creation of an analog box circuit processed in cool edit pro: https://freesound.org/people/zimbot/sounds/189605/
I decided to remix your composition "choirBotOutputL". You can listen at the link: https://freesound.org/people/newlocknew/sounds/724204/
There is also a description of what plugins and techniques I used.
zimbot wrote:
Thanks for letting me know. It's definitely a different flavor. Some of the dynamics processing was an improvement. Not sure about the rotary stuff.
Yes. Initially, I just wanted to smooth out the too excessive dynamics, but then I decided to add touches, some of which are very subtle, and you won’t immediately feel their presence.