Monday, June 30, 2008

Tips on Editing Sound Effects for a Sound Effect Library

By SFXsource

Editing your raw audio recordings into professional quality sound effects is the step that takes place after the initial recording period. Hunt down an audio editing software that has eqs, the ability to cut audio, normalization, and fade in/out capabilites. You may use either a freeware readily found online or purchase one of the many digital audio workstations (DAW) available on the web.

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. When your sound is normalized and cleaned up with eq find a clean beginning point to the sound and either create a fade-out or more desirably let the natural reverb ring out for 1-2 seconds.

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. Make as many versions of each sound recording as possible to increase your number of products. For example, if you have a dog barking 20 times then create sound effects with one bark, three barks, six barks, 10 barks etc. switching up the combinations of barks. This could easily give you 50 or more sound effects from just that one sequence of dog barks.

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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