Monday, June 23, 2008

How to Edit Sound Effects for a Sound Effect Library

By SFXsource

After recording a fair amount of raw audio intended for sound effects then it is time to edit these recordings. In order to edit your recordings well use an audio editing software that provides, eqs, normalization, fade ins/outs, and the ability to cut. Useful freewares can be found on the web and there are a plethora of digital audio workstations (DAWs) for sale that will allow you to edit.

The first step in editing your sounds is to import all of the various raw .wav recordings into your software. This can be done one at a time but for efficiency I usually import 40 audio tracks at once and then solo each track, in other words muting all but one tracks. Once you've imported all of your tracks and you are ready to edit and bounce your edits down to completed sound effects. These following tips should help ease your experience and provide the best sound effects possible.

1. First, normalize each track before editing it. This function increases the highest existing amplitude of the .wav file to the highest possible amplitude, meaning simply that it makes the .wav files as loud as possible.

2. Second, use eq to cut out any unnecessary frequencies that may interfere with the quality of your sound. For example, you may have a recording of a bird chirp which also has an outside air conditioning unit humming mixed into the sound. To fix this problem, you can cut out all frequencies below 2,000 Hz which will take out the AC but keep the bird's higher tones.

3. Once you've gotten a strong and clean as possible .wav file find a good starting point that beings clean and create a nice ending either through a fade out or even better letting the sound fade out itself giving 1-2 seconds of air after the sound effect for the natural reverb to ring out.

4. Create a stereo 48k 24bit .wav file of your recording for video editing purposes. This quality of file is highly valued by individuals and libraries that license sound effects and will earn good money.

5. In order to increase your amount of products make as many versions of each recording as possible. For example, if a recording has a cat meowing 25 times, make sound effects with one meow, two meows, 5 meows, 8 meows etc. while changing up the combination of meows. This process will easily give you 50 or more sound effects from one sequence of cat meows.

6. Use pitch shift and other effects to create new versions of each sound to increase your number of products. For example, a burp sound effect could be pitch shifted down to create a monster burp sound and pitch shifted up to create a more childlike sounding burp.

With some prior knowledge of audio editing, one can follow the above tips to take raw audio recordings and create professional quality sound effects that can be licensed for profit to media creators.

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