(Page 2 of 2 pages for this article  <  1 2)

Filed under: Audio •

Effective Sound Effects

Ambiences

Ambiences are longer environments that define the foreground or background “hum” of a scene, such as a train traveling down tracks, birdsong in a countryside, or the murmur of a expectant crowd.

This is my second-favorite category of sounds after whoosh-bang events. Being a visual person, I just like the cinematic flavor of “establishing the shot” or setting the mood by using an ambient bed either in the intro, or to mark new sections in the music. On the more experimental side of things, it is fun to noise “gate” (mute and unmute) a long ambient track with the a drum or percussion track to create an unusual rhythmic texture.

They also serve the equally important task of providing a distracting noise that can cover up other unwanted sonic events. Have a problem with a glitchy edit or time stretch, or noise in a sample that is all too obvious when heard on its own? Mix in an ambient bed, and these bits of sand dissolve away in the resulting tide of sound. Think of it as an aural slight of hand - don’t listen to what that hand’s doing; listen to this one instead. Or as I’ve been known to exclaim, “If there’s going to be noise, I want it to be my noise!”

Remember that even ambiences can have events inside of them. I look for major, ear-grabbing events - such as truck zooming by, or a child’s exclamation in a crowd - and either slide them onto downbeats as a subtle whoosh-bang in themselves, or to get them out of the way of a word or musical phrase I want the listener to pay attention to instead.

Rhythmic Sounds

Rhythmic sounds are those that might be candidates to use as layers on top of or even replacements for drum tracks, or as perhaps drum rolls or other shorter rhythmic events. Motorized objects are usually the best for these, such as a clock ticking, mechanical press, or a one of those rotating “grasshopper” oil pumps.

The numbered markers above indicate the starts of cycles in a longer, rhythmic sound effect; the unnumbered markers are potential “beats” inside the cycle that I might use as sync points, or later remap to the beats in my main rhythm track.

There is often a cycle to these sound, with the equivalent of a measure or phrase when it complete a rotation. Try to identify a recurring sound in the cycle, and mark these as “downbeats” (or course, you can slide them to a beat other than The One). After you’ve spotted a couple, note the time between them; knowing a cycle’s duration makes it easier to predict where the next downbeat should be, instead of having to locate every one by hand - a task often made trickier by the uneven nature of some effects. If it’s a short sound, trim it to loop at your downbeat marker or other suitable event inside a cycle of the sound. If the sound has a very short cycle - such as the cylinders firing in an engine - I usually pick some musical multiple like 4, 8, or 16 of these events to count as one longer cycle.

Find the average duration of a cycle of your rhythmic sound by measuring the time between the earliest and latest clear repetition you can find, and dividing it by the number of repetitions. Compare this duration to that of a measure in your music, calculated by taking the tempo divided by 60. Then decide how many measure of your music you want to stretch one of the cycles of your sound effect over. The resulting times will probably be different, so try a few different techniques to get these two to line up. Of course, there’s time stretching and compression, but this can sometimes result in a glitchy sound. Since most effects tend to be relatively unpitched, try transposing or varispeeding instead. For something more outside the mainstream, try experimental algorithms such as granular synthesis to extend or compress the sound.

I want to emphasize the usefulness of transposing rhythmic sounds. For example, an internal combustion engine is inherently rhythmic, but it is usually running too fast to use as a nice rhythmic sound, often occupying a noisy, higher frequency range. Transposing it down a few octaves more clearly reveals this rhythmic nature, and spreads out the “beats” to match a more reasonable tempo.

Some rhythmic sounds effects are not the most solid timekeepers, such as older, well-worn machines. Others have percussive events inside their overall cycle that don’t fall on nice, clean beats in typical time signatures. Some composers celebrate these eccentricities. Personally, I don’t - I like deep, solid grooves. Therefore, I make liberal use of the beat mapping features of program such as Ableton Live to warp these rhythmic sounds to stay in the pocket, so I may more easily layer them with other sounds.

If the percussive events inside a rhythmic sound effect loop don’t line up with normal beats in my main rhythm track, I’ll use the beat markers and time warping features inside a program such as Ableton Live to bend them into a tighter groove.

Coda

These categories and ideas are but starting points that you may use, adapt, or ignore completely when you are creating your own works. After all, being creative involves learning how to break boundaries and standard definitions. Hopefully, thinking about how to use sound effects in your own music can start you down this path.

Acquiring Effects

Sound effects libraries have traditionally come in collections of multiple audio CDs - often 4 to 40 in a set! These collections are so big because even the smallest ones try to be exhaustive in a certain category, such as cartoon sounds, the sounds of war, and the such. Wide-ranging libraries may dedicate a full CD to all the various sounds a car can make (drive-bys, windshield wipers, door clunks, power windows, and so forth).

I have over 100 sound effect CDs total, and I consider that about adequate - although it certainly wasn’t cheap to build up. The good news is, a good sound effects collection rarely goes out of date, so your investment - although initially steep - will pay off for years to come. Also, having an extensive library can provide another income source, by allowing you to branch out into doing sound design or sound effects work for some of your clients.

When starting out, it can be very hard to decide which collection or collections to buy. My trick is to keep a reference catalog from Sound Ideas - one of the largest creators and resellers of effects - close at hand. It contains a cross-reference list of effects available in most of the collections they sell. When I need a particular sound, I search through the catalog to see what collections have examples of that sound. After awhile, certain collections will probably keep popping up; those are the ones you should consider buying. Sound Ideas still has copies of their print catalog which they will sell you for $20; they also have a free search program available on CD or online for download.

My personal favorite libraries are the Sound Ideas 6000 collection for hits and events, and the BBC SFX Library for ambiences. For more specialized needs, I have Sonic Boon’s The Works (everything mechanical from the smallest switches to the largest metal presses), and VideoHelper’s Noise Generator for musically oriented beds, stings, and whoosh-bangs.

Mainstays of my collection are 40-disc sets from Sound Ideas and the BBC. The Works provides a great assortment of specialized mechanical and metallic sounds, while Noise Generator has a great selection of musically oriented events.

Some collections date back as far as the 70s, and as a result are compromised in terms of sound quality; I’d stick with sounds recorded at least in the late 80s or after when digital recording became more common. Also, good libraries record the full, natural duration of a sound, while lesser ones artificially truncate or fade sounds to save room.

In addition to sound effects-specific places such as Sound Ideas, music sample providers such as Sony Creative Software also carry sound effects collections. Also, more and more online sites are offering downloadable sound effects: You use their search engine to home in on the sound you need, audition it online, pay for it, and download a digital file. Although I am yet to use these services myself, I regularly hear good things about SoundDogs and the Sound Effects Library.

(Page 2 of 2 pages for this article  <  1 2)

Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Smileys

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?