Tips for Recording a Sound Effect Library
To create sound effects for a respectable sound effect library one needs an audio recorder of professional quality. A digital recorder the size of a small digital camera will run you between $150 and $400 and will give you the quality you need for sound effects worthy of purchase and licensing. Also, many new recorders run easily on battery power, come with an acceptable T shaped microphone, can store up to 4 gigs of info via a flash card, and utilize USB connection.
You must make sure that any recorder you purchase records up to at least a 48k sample rate .wav file because audio for video is prepared as 48k. Any 44.1k samples you have would work fine on a CD but for DVD usage they will have to be up-converted to 48k which can result in "aliases," sort of sonic ghosts that compromise the quality of your recording. Also, 48k sound effects command a higher price on downloadable sites because their sound quality is simply better due to more samples per second of audio.
Two basic categories of sound effects to be recorded are "ambiences" and "hits." Hits are single audio events like a burp, splash, or car horn. Ambiences are longer recordings generally between 30 seconds and 10 minutes that contain background sounds such as those found on city streets, in a hotel lobby, or a doctor's office.
Any quality sound effect library needs both types of sound effects so you should be intent on recording both types. Ambiences are the easiest to obtain because they require only being at a location, standing there, and recording. Hits, though, need more planning because you often need to do foley to get what you need or wait around at various locations for the right moment, such as visiting a new mother and her newborn in order to capture that perfect baby cry.
Actually recording each sound effect is a simply process that only requires hitting the record button. Though, in order to make the best possible recordings, keep in mind these several tips.
1. When you record you want to have the loudest signal possible without clipping the microphone, called recording as "hot" as possible. If you notice a small red LED light lighting up during your recording then you need to pull back from the sound because your incoming signal is too loud. The goal is to avoid distortion but capture the strongest sound possible.
2. Purchase a 10dB pad that fits between your microphone and digital recorder will enable you to record sounds with high decibel levels, such as jet engines or weapons. The pad lowers the incoming signal by 10dB and can be found online for $20.
3. Keep background noise out of your recordings as much as possible without being obsessive about creating "the perfect" studio recording environment because positive and unexpected events can occur such as animal sounds or car noises. A good amount of background noise can be filtered out during editing and being to strict about your recording environment will slow your work down to a crawl.
4. Keep your microphone out of the wind while recording by standing strategically behind wall, trees, or parked cars because wind hitting the head of the microphone will compromise your recordings. Through the editing process and by cutting lower frequencies you can often minimize wind noise but for the most part wind will render your recordings useless.
5. Music from live performances and loudspeakers must remain out of your recordings. If you accidentally include such music in the background of your ambiences it will make your recordings useless. Selling and using sound effects with such music is a violation of copyright law since that music itself is copyrighted.
It is the hope of this author that the simple advice in this article will aid new sound effect artists in their efforts to create a worthy sound effect library. New articles on editing distinct sound effects from these recordings, categorizing these new sound effects, and licensing them are forthcoming.
You must make sure that any recorder you purchase records up to at least a 48k sample rate .wav file because audio for video is prepared as 48k. Any 44.1k samples you have would work fine on a CD but for DVD usage they will have to be up-converted to 48k which can result in "aliases," sort of sonic ghosts that compromise the quality of your recording. Also, 48k sound effects command a higher price on downloadable sites because their sound quality is simply better due to more samples per second of audio.
Two basic categories of sound effects to be recorded are "ambiences" and "hits." Hits are single audio events like a burp, splash, or car horn. Ambiences are longer recordings generally between 30 seconds and 10 minutes that contain background sounds such as those found on city streets, in a hotel lobby, or a doctor's office.
Any quality sound effect library needs both types of sound effects so you should be intent on recording both types. Ambiences are the easiest to obtain because they require only being at a location, standing there, and recording. Hits, though, need more planning because you often need to do foley to get what you need or wait around at various locations for the right moment, such as visiting a new mother and her newborn in order to capture that perfect baby cry.
Actually recording each sound effect is a simply process that only requires hitting the record button. Though, in order to make the best possible recordings, keep in mind these several tips.
1. When you record you want to have the loudest signal possible without clipping the microphone, called recording as "hot" as possible. If you notice a small red LED light lighting up during your recording then you need to pull back from the sound because your incoming signal is too loud. The goal is to avoid distortion but capture the strongest sound possible.
2. Purchase a 10dB pad that fits between your microphone and digital recorder will enable you to record sounds with high decibel levels, such as jet engines or weapons. The pad lowers the incoming signal by 10dB and can be found online for $20.
3. Keep background noise out of your recordings as much as possible without being obsessive about creating "the perfect" studio recording environment because positive and unexpected events can occur such as animal sounds or car noises. A good amount of background noise can be filtered out during editing and being to strict about your recording environment will slow your work down to a crawl.
4. Keep your microphone out of the wind while recording by standing strategically behind wall, trees, or parked cars because wind hitting the head of the microphone will compromise your recordings. Through the editing process and by cutting lower frequencies you can often minimize wind noise but for the most part wind will render your recordings useless.
5. Music from live performances and loudspeakers must remain out of your recordings. If you accidentally include such music in the background of your ambiences it will make your recordings useless. Selling and using sound effects with such music is a violation of copyright law since that music itself is copyrighted.
It is the hope of this author that the simple advice in this article will aid new sound effect artists in their efforts to create a worthy sound effect library. New articles on editing distinct sound effects from these recordings, categorizing these new sound effects, and licensing them are forthcoming.
About the Author:
SFXsource's sound effects library can be found, demo-ed, and seen at Download Sound Effects, and Free Sound Effects and Loops
posted by Marcondes Allen at 11:56 PM
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