SoundBits Offer 45% Off Any Of Their Sound Effects Libraries

First off we have a great deal we are offering in partnership with SoundBits and you can get 45% off any of the SoundBits sound effects libraries with a special code you will find on our Deals page. 

In this video Mike Thornton takes a whistle stop tour around some of the sound effects libraries from SoundBits. He takes a look at a number of libraries that have filled some gaps in his 50,000+ sound effects collection.

SoundBits will also be offering a special Halloween deal on a selection of Horror related sound libraries and this Halloween deal can be used in conjunction with the Pro Tools Expert deal.

A Sound Effect Announce The Results Of the Sound Library Survey

A Sound Effect have been running a survey to gather new ideas for sound effects libraries – and they have received loads of responses. They have now compiled a list of the ideas that came in. You can check out the full list on the A Sound Effect site.

Sound Ideas In the UK Recording New Sound Libraries

Sound Ideas have been in the UK recording a 700HP Pollit & Wigzell Steam Engine called "Anges"! Built in 1909 with a horizontal 2 cylinder engine that has a single crank compound. 

WestWorld - The Story Of The Sound Design & Production From A Sound Effect

HBO’s new series Westworld, melds a world of futuristic technology with the dusty grind of the wild west. Westworld is essentially a ‘theme’ park where guests can fulfill their dark fantasies without fear of retribution, because the guests are interacting with sophisticated artificial lifeforms and not real humans and in the exclusive new A Sound Effect story, Emmy-winning supervising sound editor Thomas deGorter takes you behind the sound for the series:

Westworld is a sound person’s dream show because it is a western and it’s sci-fi. We get to mix these two worlds in the same project. We get to go as far as we can and just have a ball with it.

The main sound design challenge of the show is that we have a future world, and for that, we didn’t want it to sound cheesy. We wanted to keep it real and not sound like the typical science fiction show. It needs to have a realistic feel, and not go over the top. It took a little bit of experimentation to find that balance. With every episode, we do change things slightly. There will be a new wrinkle that gets thrown into it, but for the most part, we wanted to keep it believable.

Another example of a sound design challenge for the show was creating the sound of the character Old Bill. Old Bill is an antiquated robot that Dr. Ford created when he first built the park. Old Bill has a more primitive technology due to his old age. This challenge ended up being very difficult. After many attempts we ended up using adding machines, clocks, and old typewriters synced to Old Bill’s movements. The sounds were manipulated with iZotope’s RX 5 primarily to remove artifacts, such as the ring of bells on the clock chiming, just leaving us with the whirring sound of the clock mechanism. So that made the sound for this antique robot’s movements, to make it feel like he’s moving with this servo-clicking sound.

Soundminer has a built-in VST rack where you can stack effects plug-ins, to pitch, and effect, and loop sounds in real-time while recording your performances in the background. There were many sound effects in Westworld that were created this way. It’s very quick and handy. Some of his go-to processing tools are iZotope’s RX 5, Serato’s Pitch n’ Time, Audio Ease’s Altiverb, Eventide’s H3000, and Soundtoy’s FilterFreak and EchoBoy plug-ins.

For me, I use a lot of iZotope, Pitch n’ Time, and VocALign by Synchro Arts.

You can read the article in full on the A Sound Effect blog.

Airborne Sound Enhance The Metadata Formats In All Their Libraries

Airborne Sound have always included extensive metadata with each sound effects library they supply but now they have augmented every one of their sound libraries with additional, improved metadata for everyone and this update is available to all existing Airborne Sound customers, completely free of charge. They have added two types of additional, new metadata:

• BWAV metadata. Each sound file now includes BWAV Description and BWAV Originator metadata. BWAV metadata is an open, international standard that can be used by almost metadata app from Soundly to BaseHead to BWAV MetaEdit.

• Spotlight metadata. Each sound effect now includes MacOS spotlight metadata:

  • Title (Soundminer TrackTitle)

  • Musical genre (Soundminer Category)

  • Authors (Soundminer Designer)

  • Comment (Soundminer Description)

  • Copyright (Year and Soundminer Manufacturer and Library)

You can learn more about these new metadata formats on the Airborne Sound web site.

Pole Position Production Release Free Door Slam Library

This free library from Pole Position Production is made from a recording of a big door in a school building hallway and could be very useful for doing swoosh and bang sound design. The door has been recorded from close to very far distances. There are 10 files recorded at 96kHz / 24bit.

Creating The Sound Track For Deepwater Horizon From A Sound Effect

The Deepwater Horizon accident was a devastating disaster for the environment in the Gulf of Mexico. And now, the Deepwater Horizon movie tells the story of just what happened on that fateful day on the oil rig, from the crew’s perspective.  The Deepwater Horizon sound team was led by supervising sound editor Wylie Stateman – and on the A Sound Effect blog, sound designer/re-recording mixer Dror Mohar tells the story behind the dramatic sound for the movie:

In terms of sound, creating a sonic vocabulary that describes the technology, human trials and incredible forces of nature was an intense and uniquely satisfying journey. For the first half of the project, I worked with Peter [Berg], Colby [Parker], and Gabriel [Fleming] at their picture cutting room where we worked in short, intense bursts to explore sound elements, designs, and treatments that speak to the identity of the story. This collaboration was very special in that the rapid exchanges led to picture, sound, and visual effects constantly informing one another. It was an opportunity to push the definition of storytelling both within the frame and beyond it.

One challenge was to create acoustical space, since the geography of the story happens in two very isolated locations: on the ocean floor, five thousand feet underwater, and up on the rig platform in the middle of the ocean. In order to express scale, speed and distance, some of the design favored feeling over sound accuracy. In terms of rig mechanics, we needed to establish the sounds and functionality of the rig’s components under normal conditions and later under overloaded conditions. The rig’s navigation system, engines, pumping systems and BOP (blow out preventer) on the ocean floor all needed to be established and become quickly familiar to the audience.

As far as plug-ins and instruments go, I would say that my main tool was a series of processing chains of saturation, distortions, delays, futzing and low end. I used these in creating textures, hard edges and mass for things like the PAs, explosions and underwater movement. That said, I am more of a story guy than anything else. At the top of my list for gear is always a field recorder, great monitors and a good sounding room where, together with the filmmakers, I can shape sounds and make choices that stand the test of time. I look to find a singular sound signature that creates a connection to the visuals.

You can read the article in full on the A Sound Effect blog.

Tokyo Ambisonics from Pro Sound Effects

Featuring 3.5+ hours of immersive city ambiences in B-format, Tokyo Ambisonics includes "virtual mic" software allowing sound editors to tweak perspective of the recordings in real-time. 

Recorded in 24-bit/96kHz with a SoundField SPS200 mic by Masato Ushijima, Tokyo Ambisonics was captured at diverse locations throughout the city including the Yamanote Line railway, Shuto Expressway, Keihin Industrial Region, Daiba Bayside Park & more. The library contains sounds that are unique to Tokyo in addition to some more general-purpose urban ambiences.

This library is also ideal for use in VR audio and 360 video projects. Equip your personal library for the future of immersive media. Grab Tokyo Ambisonics at $69 (reg. $99) through November 30, or download the free sampler and try it out yourself first.

Airborne Sound Release Fairground Sounds Library

The Fairgrounds collection gathers the thrills and excitement of amusement parks, funfairs, festivals, and carnivals. This sound library explores fairgrounds from the midway with chaotic games and twirling rides and a lively children’s funfair to bustling exhibition halls and thriving food buildings, and more.

You’ll hear shrieks of terror on swirling rides and yelps of joy in the games midway. Throngs compete at BB gun, crown and anchor, bingo, and plate breaker games. There are crowd ambiences on bumper cars, a Ferris wheel, and The Zipper. Hear barkers beckon, salesmen peddle goods, and crowds delight in thriving festival atmospheres.

There are 72 sound clips recorded at 96kHz, 24-bit stereo WAV files and will need 4.47 gigabytes and Fairgrounds is priced at $49.

Squeaks And Creaks 2 From RDGsoundFX

I spotted a tweet from Red Libraries pointing to this library from RDGsoundFX. Squeaks and Creaks 2 features recordings of different objects that squeak, creak, and make tons of other cool noises.

This library was recorded with Barcus Berry Contact Mics, a Sony PCM D-100, and a Rode NTG-3. All sounds in this collection are in stereo 24bit 192kHz Broadcast Wave format. There are 162 multi-take files, 1000+ Sounds and is priced at $50.