fieldsepulchra | sounds from around . . . be there or be a rhombus Lately, I’ve been spending days and nights on rooftops all over NYC for a collection of surround recordings from up high. One of my favorite locations this far is a rooftop on 20th and 2nd avenue. This location came with a lovely view of the Empire State Building, and, if it hadn’t been for the temperature, I could have stayed out there for hours. 15° Fahrenheit isn’t always the most conducive climate for sightseeing, but this night was special. The skies were clear, the Empire State Building was lit up in classic white, brakes were squealing, and the firetrucks were out. I’ve been making these recordings in quad using Schoeps MK4’s in a double ORTF configuration. I’ll come out and say it, none of this is convenient. This process also involves a fair amount of goodwill from my New York friends and colleagues. Read More
Live Sound Effects Voice - Sound Effects - Music The second major component of audio theater, sound effects. That which takes the place of sets and costumes and even some narration. It sets the scene, effects the mood and much more. Sound Effects. To research old time radio methods, start with your local library looking for old books on radio drama. You will also hear the term "Foley" used by many modern radio drama producers. Is it sound effects or Foley? Readings on Sound Design Books: The Sound Effects Bible - Ric Viers Michael Wiese Productions 978 1 932907 48 3 The Foley Grail - Venessa Theme Ament - Gpvs; z[trdd 978 0 240 81125 3 Radio Sound Effects - Robert L. Funny Noises for the Connoisseur Bart Hopkin Experimental Musical Instruments; (June 2003) # ISBN: 0972731318
Elf Ears, Custom-made in Silicone Rubber: 9 Steps (with Pictures) While costume shops have been selling foam latex pointed ears for some time, their generic one-size-fits-all shape means a standard and relatively bulky set of points which can never completely blend with a human’s natural earlobes. The extra-soft and porous nature of foam latex also means the ears are limited to a few applications before giving in to the stresses of repeated use. In this Instructable you will learn how to make your own custom-fit set of pointed elf ear appliances from two-part silicone rubber, a non-porous material which can be glued, applied, removed, cleaned, and reused many, many times. I have been using the same pair for a few years now, so if you are attentive and careful, your ears could last indefinitely. Edit: The silicone rubber I am using here is Douglas & Sturgess brand SR-1610. Smooth-on makes rubbers with comparable properties for their Dragon Skin line. I make my ears at TechShop.
Game Sound Design - Your Professional Sound Design Resource | gamesounddesign.com Radio head: Zoe Williams on sound effects I was talking to a producer on World Tonight (Radio 4, 10pm) about sound effects. We'd just done a small piece about cycling, which we recorded while cycling. This isn't shameless publicity for me, since it was on last night. Anyway, I wanted to know what the point was of having us cycling along. This rueful self-awareness had not diminished in any way her commitment to on-location sounds. with a policy on inflation." In a segment on Israel, she had stuck her microphone down the hubble-bubble of a man on the Talpiot omnibus, only they couldn't use it because it sounded uncannily like someone being sick.
LARA HAWKER - A detailed look at how I molded my prosthetics for... The Sound of Planetside 2 Written by Gary Miranda & Rodney Gates (edited by George Hufnagl) PlanetSide 2 was a fun, creative, and challenging game to make. In a very short amount of time (~18 months), it went from pretty much scratch to what it is now, with a lot of new technology created for the project and our ever-growing, proprietary game engine. Below we’ll list out some of the highlights along the way. PlanetSide 2 almost wasn’t the game it is today. Rodney had started working on the older version, PlanetSide “Next,” towards the tail end of the development of our previous title, Clone Wars Adventures. Gary got in around November 2011. When PlanetSide 2 started up on our new engine, we didn’t have a lot of things. There were some main things we knew we wanted to accomplish. Distance treatment using separate assets – Initially, this was a way to work with the tech we had in place early on, but ended up working to our advantage. Here is an example of the Proximity Mine. NC Reaver Interior/Exterior Flight Like so:
Behind the box: TV's unsung heroes Ben Jones, foley artist on Life Before I had a go at being a foley artist, I didn't know the job existed. I always thought the sound on natural history programmes was recorded in the field. Then, 15 years ago, when I was training to be a sound editor, a foley artist had to disappear one lunchtime and I was pushed into the sound booth and told to be a snake. The foley booth is a soundproof room with trapdoors covering various surfaces such as earth, rubble, concrete, grass and floorboards. There is usually a cupboard full of rubbish that make different sounds – teapots, kids' toys, bamboo, broken glass, balloons, anything. On Life I've pretended to be everything from an exploding beetle to a baby elephant. Foley ingredients aren't always what you might expect them to be. I'm a vegetarian, and it can be a bit distressing making gory sound effects while I wait for an animal to die. Nick Kellington, Iggle Piggle from In The Night Garden The show's success struck me at different times.
Painting silicone | PS Composites You may be trying to paint on silicone prosthetics, props, or you may just want to figure out a way to get paint to adhere to the silicone caulk that is sealing the edges of your exterior windows. Either way, the process is pretty much the same. Because paint doesn’t stick very well to silicone, certain preparation techniques are required to encourage paint adhesion. If you need to paint silicone rubber, you need to learn these techniques before you get started. The first step is to clean the silicone thoroughly of any grease or release agent that may still be on the silicone. Do this by wiping the silicone down with a solvent such as isopropanol (IPA), acetone, or delimolene (orange solvent). As silicone is flexible it is important that the paint has the same flexible quality. When painting silicone to look like skin (prosthetics or creature effects), it is a good idea to paint with more of a thin mix and to apply the paint in layers.
Implementation is Design Pt.1 | Re-Sounding Sound design is a bit like arranging and producing a song. It could be defined as the process where you get all the micro ingredients to work well together (to quote Tomlinson Holman: “Sound design is the art of getting the right sound in the right place at the right time”). The mix is when you cook the ingredients to fit the context. It can get even more blurry with interactive/non-linear mediums. By trying to answer some of these questions it perhaps might be easier to understand what can be done offline (in the DAW) and what can be done at the implementation stage. We faced some of these questions while creating Meltdown. First and foremost, it was important for us to setup the environment. Would it have been possible without the implementation-design tricks? Here’s a sample. SonicEchoes – Before/after on SoundCloud More examples in the next post! Click on the images below for more detail. Tags | game audio, implementation, Max, max msp, meltdown, Sound Design
Interview: Ben Burtt and J.W. Rinzler - 'The Sounds of Star Wars' hide captionTo create a believable new universe, Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt recorded everyday sounds — motors, animals — on which to build the sonic signatures of spaceship engines and droids like R2-D2. Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM It takes only a few seconds of sound — a spaceship launching, the familiar clash of lightsabers — to know that you are positively not in Kansas anymore. Now the most celebrated of these sounds have been collected for a new book-and-audio collection, The Sounds of Star Wars, written by J.W. hide captionBurtt, the sound designer behind Star Wars, explains that the movies' sound effects are based in the real world rather than being fully computer-generated. Jason Kempin/Getty Images Burtt, the sound designer behind Star Wars, explains that the movies' sound effects are based in the real world rather than being fully computer-generated. Burtt was the man who engineered that soundtrack revolution. Hiking in the Poconos? Burtt tried lots of approaches. The result?
Contact Us – Exchange The Science & Entertainment Exchange (The Exchange) is based in Los Angeles and has its offices on the campus of UCLA at the California Nanosystems Institute. All consultation queries should be directed to the LA headquarters of The Exchange. Rick Loverd, Program Director The Science & Entertainment Exchange, National Academy of Sciencesrloverd@nas.edu 844-NEED-SCI (844-633-3724) Amy Brown, Program Coordinator The Science & Entertainment Exchange, National Academy of Sciencesaebrown@nas.edu 844-NEED-SCI (844-633-3724) Sachi Gerbin, Senior Program Assistant The Science & Entertainment Exchange, National Academy of Sciencessgerbin@nas.edu 844-NEED-SCI (844-633-3724) Because The Exchange is a program of the National Academy of Sciences’ Office of Communications, additional resources and staff support are routinely provided from our home office in Washington, DC.
BRZAP! 5 tips for creating unique sci-fi sounds in video games Everyone has their own vision of what sci-fi should sound like. To some, it's Star Wars lightsaber sounds and juicy thumps of phaser blasts. To others, it's the steady electrical hums and tweets of Star Trek. To yet others, it's a theremin, a musical saw, and some well-placed Moog synth tones. With so much strong history in movies, games, and musical experiments, how does one go about creating a new sci-fi universe's aural landscape, especially when it's a shooter? "Everybody has their own kind of approach," says Bush. But you don't have to go sci-fi with it right away. That leads us to the second point - in a world where we're so used to digital sounds chiming around us all the time, oldschool analog electronics actually sound a bit otherworldly, and can link you to reality while also inspiring the fantastical. "For the sci-fi weapons, I just mic-ed them as you would a guitar amplifier," he says. That brings us to the final point, where our article began.
20 Scientifically Backed Ways To De-Stress Right Now What's your stress "tell?" For some, a quickened heart rate or a slight feeling of queasiness is enough to let them know they're getting anxious or overwhelmed. But just as a slight from your boss or bad news from a family member can get your stress hormones pumping and your blood pressure rising quickly, you have the power to reset almost instantly. Jamie Grill via Getty Images When we're stressed, hormones like cortisol flood our systems, producing the "fight or flight response" in which our heart rate goes up, we breathe more heavily (requiring more oxygen) and our blood vessels constrict. While in the pre-civilization world, the increased blood flow to our heart and muscles helped us escape from predators and dangerous situations, we find ourselves in a very different position now. The good news? We don't really have a choice when it comes to getting stressed -- we may as well work to undo its effects. Go For A 10 Minute Walk Breathe Deeply Visualize Eat A Snack (Mindfully!) Pucker Up