Happy designing,
- David Filskov
Sound Designer, Epic Sound
Get some of the larger fan types into your studio and record different speeds and power up/downs, close miked. You’ll have to add some distortion and remove some of the lower end depending on the type of fan used.
- Jonathan vd Wijngaarden
A good one for alien egg sacks contracting and expanding is breathing softly into a styrofoam cup while pressing it in and out.
- Pedro Seminario
Certain kinds of canned dog food make useful sounds as the food comes out of the can. The chunky stuff isn’t so good, but the tightly packed all-one-mass kind makes gushy sucking sounds when the air on the outside of the can is sucked into the can to replace the exiting glob of dog food. This sound can be used as an element in certain kinds of monster vocalizations, alien pod embryo expulsions, etc.
- Ashley Walker
Use a thin bamboo stick, such as the type used to hold up plants in a garden. Whip it past the microphone.
- Adam Johnson
I used an umbrella opening and closing rapidly for the sound of bats flying one time… turned out great. I think I had to filter out some of the low frequency material, though.
-Tim Clarke
I know how to make a nice sound of blood and guts being torn out. Just make a milk pulp and put it into your mouth, and they try to say “Ghhhh”. Mix it with the end section of any splash water sample or add a sample where you’re moving out your hand from the barrel of water :)
- Adam
For the blood sound I use the sound of a sponge that I squeeze into water (with a hydrophone) to make the air come out, then I pitch down a bit. I would also add white noise under it to give it a bit of high.
- Rodrigue Amyot
Try putting a microphone into your mouth. You will get a nice low end sounding like blood. You will have to try to avoid making clicking sounds with your mouth.
- Morten Green
Now I’ve heard, (and I’m not saying it’s true but…) if you get a water melon, stick cream crackers to it (Jacob’s or Sainsbury’s own) and then whack it with a hammer/axe it sounds very much like you would expect a similar type blow to the head. You can then bury the water melon under the patio and no-one need ever know.
- Nick Arundel
Rolled up newspapers being hit with a (soft wooden) stick are meant to be good for body and face hits.
- Paul Arnold, Gordon Hall
Hitting real meat, use a baseball bat to hit leather jacket wrapped around baseball gloves, add breaking of chicken bones.
- Ben Burtt
A regular old bull whip crack is good for those over-the-top Street Fighter type punches.
- Don Diekneite
I’ve used the newspaper rolled up approach in the past and it’s hard to get a satisfying sound out of it. One of my favourites is wet mud, jump up and down, hit it with a bat, add some foliage for extra texture. Rotten fruit is always good for flesh squishes. The other day I was blending some carrots with a hand blender which created a wonderful consistency, simply pulling out the blender made some lovely squish noises.
- Paul Weir
If you need some great fight sounds to work from, this close combat effect library is worth checking out.
I personally like putting things in (cooked) whole chickens and then beating the chicken with a sledge hammer or other bludgeoning device.
- Billiam Baker
This technique can yield not only bone breaks but also a variety of flesh ripping sfx: Get yourself to the fish market and buy some King Crab legs, the bigger the better. Just experiment with breaking, twisting, smashing, tearing etc and you will start to hear the possibilities. It’s a great combination of the hard shell breaking with a bit of fleshy sound mixed in. I would suggest a cheap pair of leather gardening gloves as well since the crab legs are a bit prickly in spots and can be hard on the hands without protection.
- Seph Lawrence
Celery/Carrots/Little Gem Lettuce – try freezing them too. Jacob’s melon – melon with jacob’s cream crackers glued on it. Thin triple sheet plywood left to soak outside in the rain then dried in the sun and torn apart, snapped. Real Bones? Dog Chews? Branch snap + filter?
- Ben Minto
In addition to your regular mic, try using a contact mic on a slightly resonant surface, such as plywood, and crunch things with your boot. Use the contact mic material for the thick, heavy sweetener. Make sure the crunching items are hard enough to transmit vibration to the plywood. Walnuts have worked well for me.
- Kristoffer Larson
Raw corn. Get it with as much of the leafy stuff still on it as possible – good fresh corn. Works great for wet solid punches.
- Coll Anderson
I used acorns, small apples and walnuts on wooden parquet surface. Worked nice.
- Alexey Menshikov
Chris Sweetman told me a good technique for getting a really effective bone breaking noise. Chicken bones in a polystyrene cup, break and snap them together.
- Patrick Phelan
Crushing plastic drinks machine cups are meant to be good for bones breaking.
- Paul Arnold
Dried sunflower stalks.
-Charles Maynes
If you’ve ever wondered how to get the really over the top punch sound-effect like from old kung fu films– Beat the mess out a piece of celery with chopsticks or something similar (close mic’d) and compress it. Whip it good.
- Caleb Moore
Car rolling downhill on gravel without engine running – record the wheel friction.
- Ben Burtt
Put a nail end-to-end in-between your thumb and index-finger and then throw it as hard as you can past the mics. The nail spins and creates a good raw sound to start the design with. Then just apply your favorite effect to give it the bullet sense of speed you desire.
- Magnus Walterstad
A source of bys is to fire washers or pennies from a slingshot. For impacts, fire different objects into the hillside. Different objects each have their own aerodynamic properties that contribute to the zip sound.
- Marc Farley
Muskets work well because of their cylinder shapes that make them tumble and whistle by… they are also sub sonic.
- Scott Gershin
You can also try subsonic ammo when recording bys/riccos/impacts. There’s no sonic boom.
- Peter Zinda
When doing some Foley work for Acclaim several years ago Andrew Brock and I were able to get some really nice sounding ricochets and whiz-bys with a sling shot and large coins, screws, etc. What we found to work best were large, heavy duty, metal washers with large holes in the middle. Ones about the size of silver dollars. We used several mics including a stereo mic in a line spaced five to ten feet apart and sent the projectiles right down past them all. Practice before hand to make sure you don’t send on of these into your mic. If I remember we pitched these up a bit but Andy did all the post work so he would know for sure.
- Clark Crawford
Get recording some lighter motorcycles and mopeds as they drive by. Filter the recordings, pitch them up so they lose their engine kinda feel and add some cool doppler effects to it (pitch bending and volume ramping it).
- Jonathan vd Wijngaarden
Record the spout of a ’70s coffee percolator.
- Brian Chamberlin
For the archers radio series – the sound of a calf being born was created by dropping an object (forget now – probably a dead sheep or something) and a bucket of equal parts yoghurt and 1/4″ tape (unwound off its spool) simultaneously onto a bed of hay.
- Ben Minto
A scrap yard – heaven with a sledge hammer.
- Mark Estdale
Actual car crashes sound lots different than swinging & smashing cars with hammers & such, because of the mass involved. When you run a 1 ton object into a concrete wall, the huge energy dispersion that takes place actually does translate into the audio, most notably in the initial transient. There’s not a ton of debris flying around in an actual wreck. We had to Foley the debris ourselves, and we did it on-site, using all kinds of car parts dropped from various heights onto various surfaces.
Most times, a lower speed collision will actually sound more violent than a high speed collision, because you can hear the car material “crumple” a bit, whereas in a high speed (70 mph +), the car gets pancaked so fast, that you get a big ol’ transient, but not a lot of “detail”, if you will.
Anyway, if I were trying to Foley an actual crash on a budget, I’d figure out a way to smash something with a lot of mass into an actual junked out car. Maybe just dropping a wrecking ball on it might do the trick, if you can talk the junkyard guy into it!
- Mike Carviezel
For recordings of metal breaking, bending and being smashed, this sound library will get you started.
If you need a car engine sound, buzz into a brass mouthpiece – (tuba/baritone) or bassoon reeds – and pitch shift it down.
-Ellen Lurie
If you need actual car recordings, here’s a selection of car sound effect libraries.
For a Lamborghini sweetener sound effect, take a half liter empty beer can. Squish the can together at about 3/4, closest to the drinking opening side. Hum, sing, mimic a car into the drinking opening. Experiment with the depth of the squish to get the best metallic resonation.
Spice up the rev’s with some lion roars blended in at a subtle level.
See and hear an example here.
- Giel van Geloven
On one film a while back we had tried to get a clean “school bus” horn with no luck, there was always too much BG (it was supposed to be in the country). I finally handed a super clean one to the editor who liked it a lot and we ended up using it. I made it on a DX100 using a squarish wave.
- Scott Koué
Car horns are normally tuned to minor and major 3rds as opposed to 5ths. Sometimes the overtones ring out a 5th, but it’s the rare occasion that I actually hear an intentional P5. I’m plagued with perfect pitch and often find myself analyzing this kind of thing while sitting in traffic. :)
- Jamey Scott
One thing I learned about horns from my mentor (Dane Davis – who told me he learned it from Walter Murch), is that they should never (I know never say never) be static in pitch. Cars move, people move. Horns really characterize the Doppler effect because of their pitched nature. So, even your head moving around will vary the pitch of a horn (in fact it helps us localize where it is). It’s up to your tastes how to use this, but static horns by their nature aren¹t threatening. Even though it’s a traffic jam, see if the scene allows you to make the horns move in menacing ways. You can use Doppler plugs like Waves Doppler and GRM Doppler, or you can record cars that are still and move the mics in interesting ways too (I learned that from another mentor, John Fasal). If your horns are too pure, try using a pitch/amp modulator with the sawtooth setting and then try your pitching. I like mondo mod for this.
- Andrew Lackey
I found that using my own mouth sound effects (saying stuff like “blink” and “squish”) and then dsp’ing them or putting them through a harmonizer was always neat and appropriate.
- Ellen Lurie
If you’re looking for some real recordings, here’s a library of car horn sound effects.
I found that using my own mouth sound effects (saying stuff like “blink” and “squish”) and then dsp’ing them or putting them through a harmonizer was always neat and appropriate.
- Ellen Lurie
A bunch of keys for chainmail movement.
- Patrick Phelan
I’ve been designing creature SFX recently, and after the first few creatures, found myself returning to the same elements (snake hisses, walrus roars, tiger gurgles, etc).
Don’t be afraid to try playing with inorganic things too, like old hinges, dragging metal, hydraulic pumps/pistons, old engines, etc.
Rubbing a plastic surface that has a lot of little ridges (e.g. a placemat) can produce a nice high-pitch, easily ‘performable’ sound. Rubbing quarters on a wooden table can yield some slick, insect-like skittering, as can running one of those dog-tag style metal ball necklaces along a plastic container.
In terms of adding a surreal or unique quality to the sound post-recording, I’ve been getting good results with Rovee, various Chorus or Harominzer effects, ReaPitch, Reaper’s time-stretch (alt-click-drag), and U-he Uhbik-G.
- Jonathan Alfred Eric Grover
Record a bamboo or similar plant (it’ll need to have somewhat dry leaves) being continuously stroked and shaken. Then layer these recordings and use them for the for sound of crops swaying in the wind. For added realism, add some wind ambience as well, and whenever there’s a stronger gust of wind, time the rattling of the bamboo with this to give the effect of the wind picking up in the crops.
- David Filskov
You can try regular gravel, bird seed, rock salt or whatever. I’ve slowly dumped it onto a large sheet of butchers paper taped down tightly over a piece of carpet, then loaded the sound into my sampler and sped it up.
- Bob Kessler
Try kitty litter.
- Jerome Boiteau
1/2 speed toilet flushing with plate reverb.
- Paul Davies
Shake a wet mop for a very effective dog shaking itself dry effect. Don’t do it inside though, you tend to get water all over the place and a very unhappy wife.
- Martin Severn
A very basic approach to a dragon roar would be to experiment with a pitched-down human scream (add treble when pitch-shifting), combined with roars from animals such as walruses, lions etc (you can experiment with the pitch on these ones as well).
- David Filskov
I used a plastic patio table, dragged it long and short across the cement, played with the EQ and pitch and got some very interesting roars.
- Miguel Hilao
To get you started with your dragon sound design, you’ll find a sound library with creature sound effects here.
Plastic bags, polythene etc. – great for driving on gravel.
- Mark Estdale
Flour – great for walking/driving on snow.
- Mark Estdale
Wooden cracking (slowed down).
- Paul Arnold
Rubbing on an inflated balloon.
- Ben Burtt
For seismic sounds: Slowed down metal creaks, ice cracking slowed down.
- Mike Rooke
If you need shaking and rattling sounds for an earthquake sound effect, here’s a sfx library for that.
Not so much for the “kkzzr” but more for the “crkck”, try sticking various long strands of industrial strength packing tape to a firmly mounted window, and experiment with pulling it off in a way that causes a krk-krk-krk-krk stuttering effect. (The window amplifies the effect nicely).
- Paul Gorman
1. high-pass a noise generator @ 8K and attach a random LFO to amplitude. 2. high-pass a recording of sizzling bacon. 3. record the sound of shooting a spray gun at a hot iron for sizzle fx. 4. sequence random splotches of high-passed turntable scratches. 5. twist up cellophane and high pass it. 6. scratch up nylon material and record it close mic’d. eq to taste.
- Jamey Scott
Processing styrofoam creaks and crunches.
- Charles Deenen
Do you have an Ionic Breeze or equivalent air purifier? Try letting it go for 4-6 weeks without cleaning, and you’ll start getting some really nasty arcing from all the dust accumulation on the plates and wires. If you have a high-res mic (50k freq-response) and a 96k recorder, you can pitch it down an octave or 2 for some really big arcs and zaps.
- Chris Clanin
Try (squeezing) some steel wool. Also you can try steel wool soaked in some salt water… Just a little.
- Coll Anderson
Whip a porcelain sink or bath tub with a small metal chain (like the one attached to the sink plug). Then add distortion to the recording.
- David Filskov
Train wheels on track.
- Paul Arnold
BE *VERY* CAREFUL WITH THESE!
Electrical hum / buzzing effect can be created with an electric condenser where the diaphragm has been removed exposing the FET.
- Mike Rooke
If you take the hot lead of a line (or mic) in (bare wire works best but tip of a 1/4″ works also) and touch it lightly to various metal surfaces you can get some great arc sounds. Of course they are completely dry so you should put some reverb on them.
- Scott Koué
Electric welding works well too.
- Manuel Laval
If you need some sounds to work from, you can give Dave Fienup’s Sci-Fi electric library a try.
Umbrellas (avoid the metal frame clashing) or a leather jacket are alright for making the sound of elephants waving their ears :)
- David Filskov
Closing a filing cabinet in conjunction with a hotel reception bell works well.
- Keith Law
A lion roar with flange can beef it up.
- Paul Arnold
Smashing rubbish.
- Paul Arnold
If you hit a large cardboard box filled with rubbish with a hammer and then slow the sound down and increase the low end, you can create a very interesting and quite effective explosion and debris sound.
- Thomas Harris
Breaking matches or the air bubbles in plastic wrapping sounds like the louder pops from (undried?) firewood.
- David Filskov
Crisp (potato chip) packets very slowly compressed with hands make a convincing crackling of fire.
- Tim Wright
I often gently wriggle a piece of foil to make the warm crackling sound of a fire.
- Joel Botham
Close mike on a running tap (faucet). Fingers in the water stream or adjusting the flow can add nice movement to the sound.
- Paul Davies
Heavily wet some newspaper, place the microphone just a feet or two above it, and move the wet paper with your hand. You can use a hi-pass filter to get rid of some of the lows.
- Eric Dillen
If you break up the gray powdery stuff found on sparklers into a fine powder, you can lay them in a line and set it off like a fuse – and it sounds exactly like one too.
- Arif Selcuk Bor
For a recent project we had to create the sound of a giant snowball rolling over ice. It turned out that the sound of a car rolling over gravel, with some subtle EQ, did the trick nicely.
- Scott Cairns
For the sound of breaking glass, use metal wind chimes and lay them on a surface. Throw or move a small bottle over them and it sounds like glass being broken.
- Ray Moore
If you need glass recordings, here are several sound libraries with glass breaking sfx.
Wet wash leather – fantastic for gore and squidge.
- Mark Estdale
Fruits! Especially tomatoes (for splatters) and potatoes (for wet crunchy sounds). Another classic is making a goo with eggs and dip rags and paper towels into them and play.
- Gustaf Grefberg
For the sound of growing plant tentacles or roots crawling up walls and grasping objects, try squeezing some raw vegetables – like iceberg salat, green peppers or asparagus. Also perhaps stirring in some pasta sauce and add some whooshes if they grow fast.
- David Filskov
A good emergency replacement if you don’t have a starting pistol: Briefcase catches being closed slowly, again close miked.
- Paul Davies
Haven’t tried but the sound of a Sony video camera tripod adaptor plate (VCT-U14) operated manually without a camera could sound like a semi-automatic pistol being cocked and released.
- Peter Roof
For the initial gun sound I actually used a real gun pulled out of a plastic holster fairly quickly. Then I added a small air blast created by an air compressor. Then for the rope flying through the air I used a short string and spun it quickly and then pitched it up, and finally for the impact I used two bricks for a quick debris impact and the sound of a metal shovel impact. Worked out nicely.
- Tino Hertz
In my sound effects research of the old radio days, I understand that to create heartbeats, they placed the arm of a record player on a towel or other kind of soft fabric – with the needle actually touching the cloth. Light taps on the fabric translated as low-end thumps when amplified through the record player. The “heartbeats” could then be performed as needed. I don’t know how “good” they sounded, but it’s certainly one method.
- Steve Lee
A buddy of mine created a very nice heartbeat using a large plastic trash can. The plastic popping in and out was very controllable and created two distinct in/out “pumping” sounds.
- Bob Kessler
Take a piece of fabric and hold it with a loose grip. Then quickly stretch the fabric for a pounding, heart-like sound.
- David Filskov
Bare your chest (!), position a microphone pointing at your shoulder region and then make a quick inward pull with your arms and hands and stop abruptly. Keeps you warm as well :)
- David Filskov
Any kind of thump run through a lowpass filter sequenced in a reasonably rhythmic sequence will give you the effect. It might be fun to throw in some “flushing blood” kind of liquid.
- Jamey Scott
Anyone try contact mics on a pulse point? This might work well if you also employ a BP cuff (don’t try it on the one in your neck :)
- David Steinwedel
I double the heartbeat with a kick drum. Filter anything below 60Hz, add an insane amount of mid frequency.
- Jerome Boiteau
Umbrellas might also be useful for an element in the sound of helicopter rotors (if you’re a very fast and steady flapper). Just shake the umbrella half opened (or almost open)… mix with lots of other stuff.
- David Filskov
Dust-Off or any air pressure sprayed at spinning ceiling fan.
- Felix Paden
Coconut halves.
- Paul Arnold
I once got a really good sound of a horse or other large animal running on dirt or gravel. I did it by beating two potatoes in a 3-beat rhythm in a pan filled with sand, rice, and crushed crackers. Pitch adjusted to suit.
- David Reino
For horse hooves, cup your hands and clap them against your thighs to the running horse rhythm. Works best when you’re wearing denim pants.
- Nina
If you need a sort of metal version of a wood door squeaking in pulses (ee-eh-eh-eh-eh–eh) – like a hull expanding / contracting – here’s a way: I’ve had some success by using a good wood squeak mixed with a the sound of a metal plate ringing after being hit.
But you need to use a volume envelope in some audio software and let the volume of the metal ringing rise an fall with each single squeak/pulse of the wood sound. That way the wood squeak will get a metal ring/feel.
- David Filskov
Cabbage, carrots and other vegetables.
- Mark Estdale
You might try freezing a home-made piezo mic inside a block of ice and plunking it in hot water.
- Scott Koué
Try dry ice against resonant metal combined with wood rips and styrofoam tears and rubs.
- Scott Gershin
Holding a homemade piezo mic in a bowl of soda pop and pouring in Pop Rocks candy worked perfectly.
- Sarah Weis
For the sound of breaking ice, try using a large piece of polystyrene. Give a twist so it slightly squeaks then make it snap. Then use the sound of a small metal money box dropping sharply on the ground and mix it with the other sound. With some EQ and reverb this sounds great.
- Stuart Spencer
For source sounds: Recordist Mikkel Nielsen has traveled to Sweden to record the sounds for his ice sound effect library.
To make a dramatic crackling sound of when something is frozen, try recording the bristles of a wire brush. A wide brush that has long stiff bristles works best.
Push the brush firmly against a metal object, such as a clothes washer/dryer, an oil tank or steel drum, and roll it very slowly so that the individual bristles flick off of the surface.
The metal acts as a resonator which gives it a louder, more metallic quality (I’m sure that other materials could be used as well). If possible, put the microphone inside the resonator. To finish it off, use a high pass filter to cut off all but the high end.
- Darren Blondin
Get yourself a Tile Cutter, the type with a sharp metal disc that is dragged across a tile. Smooth glazed tiles are best.. you get a great crunchy, squeaking sustained sound as you drag it across. You can get different effects by putting rock salt or the tiles or mute it with a sheet of paper.You can also get great sounds when you slowly split the tile and the glaze breaks first. It also works well for cracks propagating through ice or glass. I also got some good sounds sounds by rubbing the faces of two glazed tiles together, rotating at different speeds. Again a bit of chunky rock salt in there adds some nice texture :) I just went to a local hardware store and grabbed a load of different thicknesses and sizes out of their ‘odd and sods’ bin, only cost a few quid.
- Steven Taylor
Dropping stuff on sand can be good. Fine sand is better, but drop various size objects into about 6 inches deep of sand and you can get some good swooshes as the sand moves from the object impact. Not too heavy an object as you don’t want a big thunk. This can be mixed with other sounds to add to the icey feel.
- Stephan Schütze
For ‘Mission Backup Earth’ (Sci-fi series), an ice volcano was modeled using impulses from real ice cracking. A trash bag dropped with snow on the top simulating a large rock hitting the camera gave a nice thud followed by the snow / ice falling off the top hitting the floor.
The debris field of ice/rocks landing around the viewer was made using slowed down water droplets hitting a hot plate.
- Mike Rooke
For more subtle “Bloke examining innards of alien” effect, close-up mic work on your mouth, open and close mouth slowly whilst slowly taking tongue away from roof of mouth – sounds creepy as hell.
- Tim Wright
Try using a pocket fan with nylon fabric or sticky tape on the wings. Bring it close to your fingers and record the flapping sound. Modulate al gusto. Find a fan with extra-quiet motor. You can also get the type with soft fabric type propellers – those are perfect. Post-process with pitch ‘n time.
- Frank Kruse
Air line in mouth.
-Mark Estdale
Another great way to do a jet sound effect is to record a hoover – EQ to desired effect. If you have a hoover that you can adjust the power on, you can even create a sound similar to the jet powering up and powering down. Also, use a blow torch to create an after burner sound.
- Thomas Harris
For real jet aircraft recordings, these jet sfx libraries will get you started.
What you need: Glass of water, your lips, and your forearm. Take a sip of water and wet your lips. Then, make out with the underside of your forearm, the part with very little hair–letting your mouth make sloppy kissing sounds.
- Mary Schoals
Bubbling sound from a hot radiator tank on a car.
- Paul Arnold
If a scene features the talent using a finger to look out of metal blinds, the sound could be created by using a tape measure. Pull the tape measure out and fold it over itself. Use your own finger to create the effect.
- Tim Pryor
A metal squeak – depending on the type of sound you want – can be made by taking a metal plate and sliding it sideways over a flat surface – like a table or a door. The plate will make a sort of whining sound – especially if its whole border/edge can slide sideways.
For a howling sound, the lid/plate should be positioned standing – like a door – and then moved like a broom as if it was meant to wipe something off the floor/surface.
For the metal plate, use a metal box lid or similar.
- David Filskov
For the sound of an Arrow Flyby or Meteor Trail, simply hold some tight plastic using grips (not hands) over a sink of water and set fire to the plastic – let the plastic melt and the drips sound very interesting. Be careful with the fire, and be sure to wear a mask as not to breathe in burning plastic fumes.
- Ray Moore
Roller coaster.
- Ben Burtt
Try lightly shaking some bushes
- Andrew Scott
Snow blower dragged over ice for metal sounds. Local bus for the engine drone.
- Mike Rooke
Get a stick of bamboo or other light wood and move it quickly to and fro in front of the mic. Swish it back and forth as fast as you can without hitting the mic or yourself. You will probably need to speed up and pitch-shift the audio once it’s in your DAW, but that should give you the sound of the star flying through the air.
For the impact, take a hatchet or sharp knife and strike into several objects: A fruit (I used an apple), a piece of wood (Hitting a real tree or a stump is better, but you may have to deal with background noise), and concrete (to get a metallic ring).
Layer these to make a strong sounding impact.
-Thomas Sulkoske
Take a microphone and place a windjammer on top of it. The very furry ones do a great job ;)
Then what I did was to record myself rubbing my hand softly on the windjammer just over the microphone membrane. The closer your hand is to the actual microphone the brighter the sound will be.
Then play around and a little EQ’ing and reverb helps a lot!
- Sebastian Stern
Need some ocean and water sounds to get you started? Here’s a selection of ocean sound effects.
For a cool outer space depth charge explosion, use a screwdriver and run it down the low E string of a guitar. EQ the sound so the high end is more prominent at the start of the overall sound, then gradually (about 2 seconds in) EQ the low end to be more prominent and the high ends fade off.
Then take a recording of an explosion (made earlier by hitting a cardboard box) – no debris is best -, increase the low end of the sound to the extent you really only get a large boom with very little actual crack. Add some reverb and also a little delay to the guitar sound only and you end up with a very massive, over-the-top depth charge sound.
- Thomas Harris
Drag some cinderblocks or rocks or bricks across a wood floor, add some creaks and bumps, add some metallic jingles.
- Bob Kessler
Put some dishwashing detergent on a rubber doctor’s glove, add some water, and squeeze and fiddle with it.
- Durk Kooistra
I like to think of such sounds as having two general components: a ‘defining’ one, and an ‘impact’ one. The defining one is what sounds up front and tells the listener what the sound is, especially if combined with picture.
The impact one can be anything at all, designed only to pump up the sound to hyper-real. For defining sounds, simply record what things really are: For a face slap for example, record a real slap, hand clap, slap on thigh, etc.
For a body kick, record a fist on chest thud, etc. For impact sounds, anything goes. A broomstick whacked really hard and flat onto a couch or mattress makes a great beefing-up component for a body hit.
Other purely impact sounds: kick drum, fist-pound on closet door (tapered), car door slam (tapered), kicked or stick-hit cardboard box, leather belt snap, whip crack, etc.
In my opinion, especially what I’m loosely calling the “impact” component can and often should be gain-maximized and mixed with the “defining” so that the defining is still the part that gives the information as to what the sound is.
- Clint Bajakian
The tried and true is doing the Rocky – Punching some steak or other large animal part – Dismembering carcasses can be helpful too – though awfully unpleasant.
- Charles Maynes
Try simply clapping or hitting your palm (with varying force – lightly too) close to a mic, add treble and then distort it (try both analogue dist and ordinary digital clipping).
- David Filskov
We stuffed a couple of oven ready chickens with celery, carrots, and nuts, and beat it with a cricket bat. Results were very good. Lots of compression was added to bring down the slap, and bring out the crunch.
- Garry Taylor
For a cheesy, “old-school” punching sound, I had success with:
• Whip a fuzzy blanket in front of a microphone
• Compress the crap out of it until it starts to distort a bit
• Adjust EQ as you see fit. Some high mids did it for us.
- Chris
If you put a sparkler and melt it into a styrofoam cup sideways so that the mouth of it is facing towards you, the sound is very alike to that of radio static. Depending on how close/far the mic is you get interesting nuances, with of course the closer it is the more fuse-like it sounds.
- Arif Selcuk Bor
Plastic bags, polythene etc. – great for rain on gravel.
- Mark Estdale
Pitched-up chickens.
- Ben Burtt
Up-pitched kittens. Especially the screechy ones.
- Gustaf Grefberg
A good Foley artist I worked with had a good technique for achieving the sound of someone ripping a small alien’s body (a monkey like voodoo creature) in half- eww!. She took a cabbage and a large machete and when the picture hit the cue (chop/ splurt). Mixed with some squishy splats and a bit more crunch it made a great effect.
- Burke Trieschmann
Evenly distribute kitty litter into a shallow plastic container and drag a rock no bigger than your fist, from one side of the performance area to the other. (About 45 to 315 degrees with a cardioid microphone, start fast and gradually slow down.)
- Ryan Vincent Jaeger
If you want to simulate the roar of an animal, an angry tiger or lion for example, take a corrugated cardboard box, place two condenser mics (one outside the box, recording overall and the second facing the surface from the inside, to catch the resonance of the space), take a pen and start drawing the surface of the box!
You’ll notice that depending on how you pressure the pen, the roar becomes more severe, more intense. Of course, you can experiment and change any of the variables mentioned it above, as for example: The size of the box, mic types and placement, writing tool (pen, pencil, marker ) e.t.c. Here’s an example.
- Kostas Loukovikas
A cell phone in vibration mode can serve as a nice base for a more subtle robotic servo sound. Record a cell phone’s long vibration tone once at close distance. EQ the sound to compensate for the proximity effect. It can be layered with higher pitched versions of itself.
- Tim Pryor
Chalk squeak on a blackboard.
- Paul Arnold
Twist a pencil between the keys on a standard PC keyboard (slowly) for a “Rope with Heavy weight swinging” effect.
- Tim Wright
I heard that pouring a fizzy drink onto tarmac or any floor is supposed to be very good for sea, or that’s what they used in jaws anyway.
- Matt Sugden
To create a variety of sizzling and crackling sfx take some Alka Seltzer tablets and place them on top of a piece of dry ice. Pour various liquids like water or any carbonated beverage over the tablets and ice. Mic needs to be close.
Experiment with poking this concoction with a metal implement like a very large nail or small crow bar to get some nice little sizzly impacts. Wear eye protection.
- Seph Lawrence
Slide usual paper over abrasive paper at various speeds to achieve a nice variation of ski sounds.
- Ronny Pries
For skiing try rubbing a piece of 8.5×11 paper or whatever in circles on a desk.
- Vince Jaeger
Sand is good for snow, if you put on a ski glove and move your hand across the sand it can sound like skiing. You can apply weight and change direction suddenly to get the effect of turning on skis or a snowboard. This works much better with gloves moving on snow, but if there is no snow sand is ok. Both are much easier and safer than trying to ski with a microphone :)
- Stephan Schütze
Use a combination of flour and corn starch and take a block of wood (like about 8 inches of a white pine 1″x4″) and rub it around according to picture. You can do all moves this way including starts and stops and everything in between. Varying the mixture can make the snow sound more or less crunchy.
- Kini Kay
Simulate glides by recording foamed polystyrene scraped on concrete block.
- Adam Skorupa
Mushy/oily food, movement of wet sponge (on rubber).
- Ben Burtt
Train door opening, car boot opening.
- Paul Arnold
Put a piece of paper in an envelope and slide it out. I believe that’s what they used in Star Wars.
- Phlum
For the sound of a space ship hurling through space: Drive on the highway alongside a tractor trailer at high speed and have a friend record the sound of the truck next to you.
- Frank Z
Bar room brawl played backwards.
- Paul Arnold
For designed space ship sounds, this sfx library features a really good selection to work from.
Biting into an apple.
-Paul Arnold
Dolphin and sea-lion cries, other animal screams and human vocalizations. Perhaps run through a vocoder.
- Ben Burtt
Slide off top of a toilet tank.
- Ben Burtt
Rub two rough stones together – in a slow circular motion. Slow the sound down, enhance the bottom end. Gives you a real nice ancient tomb opening sound.
- Patrick Phelan
Big stone doors: Tape a mic to a brick (the physical contact is important). Heavily compress the mic and rub the brick against a paving stone. Sand and small gravel can be spread on the paving for variation. The result can be pitch shifted down to increase the perceived size of the door.
- Gordon Hall
Take a plank or another long object and swing it around rapidly as you would with a real blade. This produces a good swooshing sound – and if you layer in some ringing metallic elements (by hitting a metal object), it’s one way of creating a blade-sound. For lighter, thinner weapons, a bamboo stick or another elastic stick could come in handy.
- David Filskov
For source material, check out recordist David Fienup’s Blades sound effects library.
Get a spatula or some sort of large metal cooking tray, if possible steel. Put it on your kitchen surface and pull it off the surface – but make sure it’s sliding off in contact with the surface. This gives a brilliant recreation of wielding the sword.
- Kieran Hebden
Get a few day’s worth of stubble on your face. Go somewhere real quiet and record running your hand and arm under your chin – it mixes in nice with the hairs on your arm. Or as I just found out, get a mouse mat with a rubberized or cloth surface and rub that under your chin :-) To further this idea maybe put some shaving gel on and take a credit card and lightly rub it across? That way you get bristly with a bit of slime.
- Dave Sullivan
Can you still find those squishy balls with gooey liquid inside where you live? Some company had produced a bunch in the shape of eyeballs, hearts, etc (until Tipper Gore or Pat Buchanan saw one and shut them down). I saw a knock-off version in China Town a few weekends ago so somebody is still making them. Might be a nice overlay to whatever you find to make the sliding tentacles.
- Atom Ellis
Having just eaten a bowl of macaroni and cheese shells, I have to say it’s the most convincing tentacle sound I’ve ever heard. It also made the bowl harder to finish :-)
Use the rounded shells specifically as they have little pockets for air and extra squishy sounds..u get that suction cup action going, literally.
Also, I was told that rubbing 2 nickels together with your thumb and forefinger and altering that is a great way to get a sort of creepy crawly sort of noise. It may not be slimy enough, but there are ways to goo it up I’m sure :-)
- Jay Semerad
Hard bristled brush and a wet sponge with scouring pad on one side scraped along something soft like a bath towel. You’ll be able to get nice long runs at this if you need looped sounds.
Also, for slimy – ‘washing hair’ at different tempos with varying amounts of shampoo is ok.
-Dave Sullivan
Very recently I had to create a skidding sound effect for a game where engine sounds would not be acceptable. What I did was I acquired a carpet tile and used my foot to add weight to it and dragged it across different surfaces – did the same with a 12″ x 12″ piece of metal and a small cardboard box, then got a balloon and dragged it over a surface to create a controllable squeal sound.
When in your sound editor, make a copy of the sound of the floor tile so you would have all effects; metal – cardboard – floor tile and balloon – plus an extra floor tile sound.
Add a gate to the extra floor tile sound so it increases and decreases in volume every half beat (or quicker whichever suits the size of the vehicle best). This decrease has to be sharp, but not to completely faded out, you still want to hear this sound just not as prominent as the original. EQ the master track to suit your needs. The balloon squeal sound should fade in over the overall sound and not be present throughout the entirety of the sound unless it suits the visuals. For more realistic sound the actual squeal should be just like a background sound to the overall effect (less is more) – add EQ and a little bit of reverb and voila, tire screech.
- Thomas Harris
Chop on chips. Pitch them down.
- Ellen Lurie
Processed bull whip cracks and monkey shrieks.
- Paul Arnold
Metal pressed against dry ice.
- Paul Arnold
Slide a straw up or down in a McDonald’s large drink plastic lid. Trying pitching it down, stretching it. And voilá! McZilla.
- Max Hodges
Certain kinds of canned dog food make useful sounds as the food comes out of the can. The chunky stuff isn’t so good, but the tightly packed all-one-mass kind makes gushy sucking sounds when the air on the outside of the can is sucked into the can to replace the exiting glob of dog food. This sound can be used as an element in certain kinds of monster vocalizations.
- Ashley Walker
If you need some sounds to work from, these sfx libraries can be a good starting point.
If you insert your wet hand into a wet cup, wiggling and moving your hand once it is inside, you’ll notice a certain similarity to a voice. With some practice you can make the cup “talk.” Your hand, or part of your hand, needs to nearly fill and cover the opening of the cup in order for this to work. Basically, your hand is like your tongue, and the cup is like your mouth and part of your throat.
- Ashley Walker
I made a great vomiting sound by taking a large bottle of commercial Italian dressing (chilled to make it more viscous) and a gallon juice bottle filled with water. Take the dressing (with the cap on and tip it quickly and hard for the stomach internal sound then in quick succession dump the water on whatever surface you want (sidewalk, toilet etc..) add a little “ughh” on top . You can easily do it all in one, works great! You can even do a few heaves before dumping the water for added realism.
- Genji Siraisi
Soak a sponge in water, give it a little squish to just prevent it from dripping.
Release the water in one big squish over preferred surface or into a toilet.
Mike it from the side, holding the spunge above the microphone level to prevent
picking up to much of the spunge squish itself.
Has a nice dripping tail to it, just like the real thing!
- Giel van Geloven
For grassy footsteps I have used newspaper in a plastic grocery bag and softly tapped the bag. It worked out pretty well.
- Spencer Johnson
Old cassette tape – unravel a few tapes and put the tape on different surfaces (carpet, stone etc) and walk on it. Also just rotating it between your hands.
- Mark Estdale
I think a wet sponge or rag with the right timing (heel / toes) will do the job.
- Manuel Laval
The best way I found to get the sound I wanted was to fill a 4×2 plastic case with earth and water. We actually made the footsteps with our hands in it.
- Jerome Boiteau
There are different kinds of grass – green grass and dry grass. People have already mentioned cassette tape for grass but I feel that this sounds exclusively like dry grass. For green grass I use military camouflage. Sounds great and doesn’t compress losing its depth and texture.
- Chris Piggins
To make sounds for footsteps and other movements of a man in a hazardous materials suit: Record, fairly closely, the sounds made by flexing an “accordion folder”. (Not sure what the proper name for these is. They’re meant to hold papers, the sides are creased like an accordion to allow the folder to expand when it is very full) Next record some squeaks of rubber-soled shoes on linoleum. Don’t walk, just kick your shoe into the linoleum for the squeaky sounds. Extract the bits you like and add the shoe squeaks into the accordion folder sounds for footsteps.
- Kurt Harland
I recorded myself messing about with a glossy-cardboard accordion folder… wish I knew the proper office-supply term for these things. Then I added just a few squeaks from rubber soles on linoleum.
Record yourself banging a boot or a heavy shoe against a heater. You can use a pair of boots to simulate a walking pattern.
- David Filskov
Put a sheet of new and straight aluminium foil on a pillow, and cover with a thin cotton sheet (e.g. kitchen towel or similar), then push on the surface using your hands to mimic the steps. You can overlay this with the sound of snapping twigs to add realism.
-Alessio Sapora
Photocopier sounds are good for robotic hydraulics/footsteps.
- Paul Arnold
Close mic a DVD player door closing, it will give you a motorised sound ending with a thud. You can then mix in the sounds of the surface the robot is walking on, e.g. cornstarch for snow etc.
- Ian Brooker
For robotic sounds, this sfx library features a wealth of recordings and designed robot sounds.
Lay a strip of carpet on top of some gravel, then pace over it to make a cool walking on snow effect.
- Martin Severn
Flour, great for walking/driving on snow.
- Mark Estdale
Salt in a bucket.
- Paul Arnold
Corn starch – for live shows I don’t even open the bag and wrap it in duct tape.
- Henry Howard
Also check out recordist Mikkel Nielsen’s sound library of real snow footstep recordings.
For something walking around in the swamps or wet mud, try: – A big heap of totally wet toilet-paper on your desk… – Mount the mic close up… – “walk” around on it with your fingers… splash away!! Then mix it with whatever Foley footsteps you want.
- Kim M. Jensen
One day I laid out a tarp in my iso booth and did a smash up session with lots of vegetables and melons. At one point, I filled up a bucket of sludge (I believe that would be called a sludgebucket) and abused the contents for a while. I use that stuff for muddy sludgey footsteps, not to mention parts of all kinds of hits, stabs etc. Could be just what you’re looking for. Word of advice though: Do not get rid of the results down the garbage disposal like I tried to do. Cost me $200 in plumbing cleanout :)
- Jamey Scott
I think a wet sponge or rag with the right timing (heel / toes) will do the job.
- Manuel Laval
The best way I found to get the sound I wanted was to fill a 4×2 plastic case with earth and water. We actually made the footsteps with our hands in it.
- Jerome Boiteau
Water through pipes.
- Paul Arnold
Just taking “bang” sounds and compressing them usually doesn’t give them a dangerous edge.. Get a “tone” in the sound.. Take one of the elements in the weapon sounds and do a pitch bend.. For a quicker pistol or machine gun, do quicker pitch downs, kind of like the HighQ synth percussion effect.. If you use processed weapon sounds in this element, it sounds realistic, too.. And if you have a bigger gun, cannon, etc, you can make it into a longer baaoooo, tone. That gives it volume, while the more aggressive HighQ effect gives it a feeling of something quickly leaving a gun barrel.
- Gustaf Grefberg
Emphasise details that you’d only hear if it were close up. e.g. some slight metallic rattle type Foley? And while low end is great and all, it’s more the mid-upper ‘crack’ that makes them seem more in-your-face. I just don’t think that gunshots have enough duration for the unsettling effects of this sort v. low-end to be registered by the listener, myself. Though I guess you could bring a loop of it in underneath a sustained burst of automatic fire.
- Lee Banyard
Reduce the overall mix so the gunshot sits onto of it rather than getting lost in it. Mix in some subtle high frequencies that descend in pitch rapidly at the start of the attack part of the sample. Get hold of some powerful wining hydraulics – with a fast discharge of air – “pssssst!” and mix this in. boost the bottom frequencies – but not too much or your explosions will sound weak in the mix. think about mixing in the mechanical sounds of the weapon too – click, shchlock, clack – sorta thing. Consider ‘pitch sliding’ the original sample slightly – make the attack slightly higher pitch and ramp it down quickly to the original pitch. Find a kick drum sample, and mix it into the attack part of the gunshot. Try not to compress them too much, or if you have to make sure you leave a quite a long (50ms maybe) attack. If there’s no initial transient, the gunshot will sound flat. It’s the very short loud initial hit that makes me jump every time.
- Patrick Phelan
Also remember to have all the frequency ranges covered. Bass for the thud, midrange for the actual shot itself, and the top end of the metallic sound, or something that has a bit of ‘bite’.
- Garry Taylor
You might try some ‘pre-sound’. Something that cues up expectation. maybe a hint of reverse reverb of the gunshot? Something subliminal where people get edgy, but they can’t put a finger on why…
- Tim
1. make a distorted square signal not longer than 0.04 sec and paste it at the very beginning of the sample. 2. mix in a short sample of high-tone ricochet sound (short one). Sometimes you will get nice effect thanks to that. 3. mix in high-tone laser (blaster) synthetic sound. It also helps sometimes. 4. mix in some metallic sound at the very beginning of the sample… i.e. “click” (from empty weapon) or some empty shell bounce-sound. Generally … to make my weapons more powerful I usually mix “base” sample with some high-tone/metallic short sounds.
- Adam Skorupa
Try turning a bicycle upside down (a touring model rather than a mountain bike… the tires are smoother). Spin the tire and press a piece of stretched silk/parachute-pants/winter-parka against it. Out comes wind in the form of a modulating white/pink noise. You could also run a white/pink noise signal through a low pass filter and automate the cutoff frequency (and resonance). The other method will probably yield results with more character and natural variation. Digital methods tends to sound static. (Lame pun intended…)
- Sam Watson
I was trying to take the air out of a large ziploc (laying flat on the counter) at home and noticed how much it sounded like the cold howling wind you hear in the winter. I can’t say how much of the bag was closed but you can always experiment.
- Chris Leblanc
A pair of leather gloves flapped about is a good substitute for wings flapping when a bird takes off.
- Garry Taylor
Leather/rubber gloves.
- Paul Arnold
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