Sound Effects

B

Birdhouse

New member
OK I did this windmill sound in my studio tonight. It's for a production of Don Quixote here on Maui.
I used a beach chair for the flapping fabric sound of the sails a mechanical pencil sharpener for the gear noises along with my hand on the formica counter top in the studio.. which sounds like creaky wood... ummm let's see oh the wind is my breath blowing on the mic while rotating my head back and forth... oh and some blowing wind sounds from my mouth.

Keep it in your files for a sound effect if ya like.


...and let me know what you think. ;)
 
I do get the point, but it does sound like someone blowing into a mic to me ;) sorry.

Maybe cut some bass and boost some highs?
 
Halion said:
Maybe cut some bass and boost some highs?
Click to expand...


heheh it would be nice if it was that easy. Wind sound for a theatre needs a little bass in it. Too much highs and the wood creaking turns into the sounds of a fire. It's a delicate balance.
This will be played through six JBL cabinets with about 1000 watts of available power. We won't even come close to that but it's nice to have that headroom and large drivers/horns. The system is mono and the left and right speakers are about 65 feet apart with two set 80" off the floor on a wall shelf.

Sound effects are a good way to explore new ways of listening and engineering. It would be great if I could fly to Spain and record a few windmills however, lol. I actually read about the windmills in La Mancha before I started work on this. They are round, brick or stone and have cloth sails. I added a little plate reverb to the wood creak noises and sail cloth flapping. I figured that if you were standing 20 meters away from one you'd hear wind noise in your ears and a slight echo off the brick from the blades and wood rotating. The whoosh whoosh is of course the sail passing by. This sound needed to be accented so the listener gets the impression of a moving windmill, offstage, that Don Quixote attacks on horseback! The whole thing lasts ten seconds, the windmill survives but Don's blade gets bent to hell...

Two hours of work for ten seconds of sound. That's some kind wild ratio! Makes you appreciate Foley artists.


Anyway, something a bit different than mixing another track. If you get a chance to produce sound effects, I encourage you to give it a go!
 
Actually, I live right near some windmills :)

Would be a hastle but if you really want, I could do a recording for you?
 
Birdhouse said:
Sound effects are a good way to explore new ways of listening and engineering. - blah blah blah - Two hours of work for ten seconds of sound. That's some kind wild ratio! Makes you appreciate Foley artists.

Anyway, something a bit different than mixing another track. If you get a chance to produce sound effects, I encourage you to give it a go!
Click to expand...

I work for an online sound effects company. We try to get authentic sfx when we can but sometimes we do have to create our own. We use a lot of tricks that foley artists use when we have to.
 
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