How to Record Your Own Sound Effects Pt 1 - My Sound Effects: The best downloads of studio quality free sound effects in .wav and .mp3 format on the internet.

How to Record Your Own Sound Effects Pt 1

Written by Cives Tuesday, 10 March 2009 04:02

In this segment of "How to Record Your Own Sound Effects", we will cover what equipment you will need and basic procedures for recording your own sound effects.

Post Audio Enviroment - Whether or not you are an "audio" person, you need some kind of post audio enviroment to edit and modify your sounds into specific effects (Although this falls under the purvue of Sound Design, we'll let it lie for now. In fact, if that's all you have, you can still record a large amount of effects right in your studio. The following is a list of some software out there you use to edit and process your sounds: Pro Tools, Sound Track Pro, Digital Performer, Nuendo, Cubase, Logic, Cakewalk, Acid Pro. Although you can use outboard gear to do this, if you learn the software enviroment, I think you will reap the benefits of efficiency, particularly with software like Nuendo which renders faster than real time. Note: Some software is exclusive to Mac OS so read the fine print before you purchase.
Portable Recorder - The obvious advantage is that you are able to record in various enviroments to get ambient sounds as well as unique sounds (I got the metrolink passing by last week) which you can then tweak in post to be many different things. I use a Marantz PMD671 recorder, but Sony, Fostex, and Tascam also make good ecorders. For the sake of portability, make sure you get the ones with the built in preamps and phantom power, as You'll want to use condendsors if you can.
Studio Mics and Shotgun Mics - In the studio enviroment, any decent condensor with a cardiod or omni pattern will work great. It's really more about your source sound than your mic at this point (assuming your mic isn't the one they use in drive throughs, unless you're going for that effect). In the field, shotgun mics are king as their narrow pickup pattern allows you to focus on what you want to record while negating the things you don't want to record. These can be fairly expensive, but they are worth their weight in gold when it comes to recording in the field. Don't scimp on this portion. I own a pair of Audio-Technica AT4073a.
Pair of Headphones - For the price, I find that Audio Technica make fairly accurate head phones. I paid $99 for mine. I've also had great success with Sony headphones, though those have been the pricier ones. The key here is to find a set of headphones that give you accurate monitoring and decent external sound isolation.
Boom Pole or short mic stand - Good Boom Poles are expensive. The nice ones have the advantage of being very quiet, particularly with handling noise. However ,unless you are on a movie set, you can get away with a short straight stand (6-8" tall) and steady hands. So unless you've been prescibed riddlin, cost savings would argue for option 2.
Mono or Stereo - Thought requiring the expense of another mic, another cable, and another stand or hardware adaptor, recording in stereo can really bring a sound effect or ambience alive. The unique phasing aspect of a stereo recording creates depth and dimension in your sound effect or ambience. For recording voice, I would choose mono, as that's usually pumped into the center channel, but for ambience and effects, stereo makes it sound like you're really there.
Be mindful of unwanted noise - Don't wear clothes that rustle or make lots o noise. Quiet shoes are a must, unless you're recording steps. Traffic noise and jet noise carry far. Utilize google maps to find a place that is far removed from these sounds if you're recording something quiet like park ambience or a stream.
Friction is your friend - Anything that makes noise via rubbing, grinding, scraping, in other words friction, can be very useful in post. You can take a train grinding noise and add a bit of pitch change, modulation, and verb, and end up with something very unique, not found anywhere in nature.

More about sound effects and sound design in the next segment.

Regards,
Chris Ives Del Aguila
MySoundFX

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 10 March 2009 04:30 )

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