In this edition of Sunday Sound Effects Round Up we hear about what Paul Baxter has been up to with fire, Watson Wu has been playing with a Yamaha dirt bike, WW Audio has released  Sounds Of Amsterdam collection, Badlands Sound has released Above and Below Traffic ambiences, RZ Post release a Macaw mini library and we hear from Paul Weir about Procedural Audio in game sound.

Grabbing The Opportunity To Record Sounds

I spotted this on Linked In and thought I would share it with you. Audio Director & Sound Designer Paul Baxter explains...

SFX libraries have their place, but there's nothing like the real thing. I recently had the opportunity to record a controlled burn for a Fire Safety sound design project. Using my digital recorder with a stereo microphone and a shotgun microphone, I was able to capture the real devastation of a bushfire in spectacular digital quality with some interesting perspectives, which helped me create some really stylised sound design.

Watson Wu Releases Bike Sound Library On A Sound Effect

The Yamaha YZ250 Dirt Bike SFX library from Watson Wu is a new sound library of recordings of this 2004 motorcycle with a 250cc 2 stroke engine. Files are divided into external static sounds, external following sounds, foley sounds, and onboard sounds. 

The onboard sounds are captured from the driver's point of view. The external static recordings are from a fixed stereo microphone and the external following recorings are from an MS Stereo Shotgun mic following the travelling dirt bike.

• Type: Dirt Bike sound effects/recordings
• Specs: 50 files • 50 sounds • 24 bit / 96 kHz • 1.18 GB • Includes metadata 
• Duration: Approx. 35 minutes total
• Price: $162 inc VAT

WW Audio Release Sounds And Ambiences Of Amsterdam Library

This library available from A Sound Effect captures the sounds of the beautiful city of Amsterdam. With crowds, transport, water and general ambiences. From the busy street to the quiet park, from the red light district to the outdoor café, it's intended to have the user to get a true taste of the Dutch capital.

• Type: Amsterdam city sound effects/recordings
• Specs: 35 files • 35 sounds • 24 Bit / 96 kHz • 4.6 GB • Includes metadata 
• Duration: Approx. 135 minutes total
• Price: $37.80 inc vat

Badlands Sound Release Above And Below Traffic Ambience Library

Above & Below from Badlands Sound available through A Sound Effect puts traffic ambience in a new perspective: This library features 70+ minutes of traffic ambience above and below bridges, hills, underpass, overpass, buildings, walkway bridges, and more. Recorded in 96 kHz / 24 bit – All files last five minutes and thirty seconds each.

• Type: Traffic sound effects / recordings
• Specs: 13 files • 13+ sounds • 24 bit / 96kHz • 2.48 GB • Includes metadata 
• Duration: Approx. 70 minutes total
• Price: $18 inc vat.

RZ Post Releases Macaw Mini Library

There is not much to say about this library but if you need recordings of a Macaw then this is the library for you and the good news is it isn't going to break the bank.

• 9 Recordings 
• 24 Bit  / 48kHz
• Price: $5.99 CAD

Behind the Sound of ‘No Man’s Sky‘ - A Q&A with Paul Weir on Procedural Audio

What goes into creating the sound for such a vast game as No Man’s Sky? Anne-Sophie Mongeau’s had an in-depth talk with Paul Weir, audio director on the game for the A Sound Effect blog.

From the beginning, I aimed to keep the ambiences as natural as possible, using lots of original recordings of weather effects and nature sounds. It was a sensible decision to use Wwise and drive the ambiences using the state and switch systems. The advantage of this approach is that you can relatively easily construct an expandable infrastructure into which you can add layers of sound design that respond to the game state.

Very little of the audio is procedurally created, only the creature vocals and background fauna. At the moment it’s too expensive and risky to widely use this approach, although there are several tools in development that may help with this. Procedural audio is just one more option amongst more traditional approaches and the best approach as always is to use whatever combination best works for a particular project.

You can read the full interview on the A Sound Effect blog.