Help recording quiet foley work

Basilosauridae

Basilosauridae

Member
Hey guys

I've posted here before about the fact that I do adult voice acting work. People often want SFX/foley work involved and for the most part I can figure it out or find something on a sound effect site. Things like creaky beds, ass smacking, etc

Sigh... you guys are going to love this lmao. I uh.... I need help recording some real... gushy sounds. That real WAP, macaroni in a pot sound.

I know how to make the sound with lube and my hands, thats not the problem. The problem is the background noise. Obviously when I'm doing voice, getting closer to the mic reduces the background noise to voice ratio, but I'm not sure how to do that when recording this quiet foley work? Like.... I can't get too close to the mic or lube is going to fly onto my mic, and even then, the sound is so quiet it doesn't overpower the background noise enough. I'm doing the sound like...2-3 inches away from the mic, so I'm not super far away.

I tried doing a noise reduction, but it made the gushy noise sound super weird. No matter how lightly I tried to apply the noise reduction it removed frequencies in the gushy sound that made it sound really echo-y, like I recorded it in a big empty tile room.

Any suggestions on how I can record this and reduce the background noise without it sounding strange?

Thank you to those who offer actual help, haters can hate all day while I make my coin B^)
 
I can only imagine the sound you're trying to get.

Would it be possible to simply cover the microphone with a handkerchief, or some old hosiery for protection? That might let you get even closer. What about a different consistency of material. Maybe something like petroleum jelly might give a little louder sound than baby oil. Maybe Jello? I'm trying to think of a thick rubbery substance you might be able to use.

Unfortunately, just going to a higher output mic like a condenser will boost the background noise along with the gush!

Is the background noise mostly heard before and after your sound? If you trim the wave file, would you hear the backgroun noise during the effect? I'm assuming that you are adding these as tracks in a multi track project. I don't remember what program you are using, but Audition comes to mind.
 
Can you find a closet or some other place that won't have as much background noise? Getting rid of the background noise is going to be the easiest solution.
 
TalismanRich said:
I can only imagine the sound you're trying to get.

Would it be possible to simply cover the microphone with a handkerchief, or some old hosiery for protection? That might let you get even closer. What about a different consistency of material. Maybe something like petroleum jelly might give a little louder sound than baby oil. Maybe Jello? I'm trying to think of a thick rubbery substance you might be able to use.

Unfortunately, just going to a higher output mic like a condenser will boost the background noise along with the gush!

Is the background noise mostly heard before and after your sound? If you trim the wave file, would you hear the backgroun noise during the effect? I'm assuming that you are adding these as tracks in a multi track project. I don't remember what program you are using, but Audition comes to mind.
Click to expand...
Hmm I didn't think about covering the mic. I'll see if that helps.

The background noise can be heard during the sound since the sound is pretty quiet. I don't like room noise in my audio if I'm not editing for ACX or something similar that requires a noise floor, so running a quick de-noise takes the background noise out of my vocal track, but then when I added the gushy noise to my last project it was pretty noticeable that it went from having no background noise to some background noise while the clip was playing.
 
Farview said:
Can you find a closet or some other place that won't have as much background noise? Getting rid of the background noise is going to be the easiest solution.
Click to expand...
I am in a closet already, unfortunately I live in a teeny tiny little apartment so my recording space options are limited.
 
I smiled. My first audio for video job in the seventies when I was just 16! Back then I didn’t even know what Foley was. I ended up doing wildlife for international TV for a while.

don’t forget lube is a real actively modern invention and too thick for what you want. There is also the important fact that reality rarely click in the head as realistic. Look at the waveform for your ass slap and you’ll see it’s a click, do again reality needs the image and sound to kind of glue. The noise we had to do 45 years ago was best done by closing your teeth, slightly opening your lips and then pinching your cheek and pulling. It’s a suck airstream do you can go very close in to a mic. You can add water to your mouth and you have great control.
incidentally it is best to do this session on your own. With even just two people, you will laugh. It’s actually a great party game gather a group and try to do the noise. Somebody always laughs then everyone laughs.

what you need is a very close perspective so you have loud clean audio. Then you have reverb and EQ to make it sit properly.
The slap by the way is usually a cupped hand on the forearm recorded from above so the hand prevents the direct wave from the slap which is too strong. Again closer perspective. Forget reality. Recreate the sound people think activities make. Forget creaks they always sound wrong but add in little things that could happen. Look at the headboard. Does it move? If it does could it touch the wall? If so a little knock on each big movement but way, way down in the mix. Maybe add in very low level noise you would normally strive to remove. Traffic, aircraft distant church bells. Very, very quiet. Worst for realism are of course the grunts and groans and people noise. Ironically I was doing this before I was doing it, if you get what I mean. All our stuff was mute 16mm film going to video for the first time on Phillips format. A 30 minute tape was nearly a weeks wages for me at the time. Mind you, so was a pocket calculator!
 
I am with Rob on maybe finding a different object to record that gives you a believable sound rather than an ACTUAL sound... so many sound effects start there and have remained there to this day. (Fist strikes, gun shots, etc)

A second tact you might take (if your mic has a low noise floor and the room is just too noisy) is to amplify the sound of what you are doing to a point it is a little over loud, so that when you reduce the sound level in the track the noise floor goes down with it.

You can use a condom ( no lubricant or powder on it...) or a homemade panty hose pop/splatter screen to cover a mic placed in harm's way and run it through an amplified full range speaker (like a studio monitor) and set up a mic near the speaker.

Let us know how it turns out!
 
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