Posts

Recording Fireworks

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Field recording is fun but also challenging. A while back I posted a comparison of microphones and stereo techniques . I thought I would add some details about the day I recorded that material which was on new years eve when I decided to give it a go to record some isolated fireworks going off. I purchased an assortment of about $400 worth of consumer rockets and shells. Scouting Location The day before recording I needed to find a location. Setting off fireworks in Sweden is restricted to new years eve unless you have specific permissions so I wanted to take advantage of that and record it when most people were expecting fireworks to go off. I had purchased a fair amount of fireworks that would take some time to set off, I expected it would take a couple of hours or so I wanted to find a place that was far away enough from residential areas but still accessible by car. {readmore} I knew of a location a kilometer or so away from the main road, pretty far away from any residential housi...
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Sennheiser ORTF and Schoeps M/S Comparison

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I have become somewhat comfortable with different stereo techniques even though I still have very much to learn and even more to master. I took the opportunity to purchase a variety of fireworks and rigged an array of microphones in a somewhat remote location while it was still daylight on new years eve. In total I brought 10 microphones that I placed in different stereo and mono configurations ranging from a fairly close distance of 25 meters, to a remote distance of 100 meters. It will likely come a time when I write a full post about the fireworks field recording session but for now I'd like to focus on two pair of microphones in particular; a pair of Sennheiser MKH 8040 cardioid microphones arranged in the ORTF ( Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française ) stereo configuration, and a mid-side (M/S) setup consisting of a Schoeps CCM41 supercardioid and a Schoeps CCM8 figure 8 microphone. ORTF Most of my stereo recordings so far have been ORTF recordings which is probably the...
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Sound Recording Room - Sound Absorption

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It's been nearly a year since I built my sound recording room / foley room in the garage. Now that I've launched the new web site, the USFX 1.3 update, and 4 sound design packs, I finally found time to edit some video footage I shot during the room build process to compare the effectiveness of different steps in treating the room to absorb sounds and make it as close to a dead room as I could. There is a short version of the video which just contains the hand clap comparison for each step. If you want more detail of what, how, and why - check out the full video below. I hope you find it useful if you are considering building a sound recording or foley room. If you are just here for curiosity of what goes into recording dry sounds I hope you find it interesting. Give me a shout if you have any questions =) Want to find out more? I also posted "making of" blog posts for the build of the room: Making of the Sound Recording Room Part 1 Making of the Sound Recording Room ...
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Universal Sound FX in Unity Asset Store updated to 1.3

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Version 1.3 of Universal Sound FX has been updated in the Unity Asset Store (Direct Link to Asset) . The asset store version contains .WAV-files within an asset package and in addition to the embedded meta tags the keywords are also added as Unity labels enabling you to quickly search for sounds from within Unity (see screenshot below): [caption id="attachment_63" align="alignnone" width="840"] Unity Asset Store Labels[/caption] The same short term 150% discount is offered on the Asset Store version.
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Video: Pitch Shifting and Microphone Specs

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The other day I broke a laptop monitor in half and I recorded it using four very different microphones with different specifications. I recorded the sounds with a sampling rate of 192 kHz and loaded the sounds into Izotope RX5 to show the spectrogram and pitch down the sounds two octaves. This video demonstrates how different the sounds are when pitched down since some of the microphones capture audio well beyond what the human ear can hear - yet when you pitch the sound down those inaudible frequencies are brought into our range of hearing: Microphones Used: Sanken CO-100K (20 - 100'000 Hz) Sennheiser MKH 8040 (30 - 50'000 Hz) Rode NTG3 (40 - 20'000 Hz) Schoeps CCM41 (40 - 20'000 Hz) Recorder: Sound Devices 788T Software Used: Izotope RX5
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New Year = New Stuff

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With the new year I am happy to announce some major stuff I've been working on for the past few months! First of all - I just launched a brand new site. It is a total redesign from the ground up and with the new look I've also added a lot of content: The main product Universal Sound FX (USFX) was just updated with 669 new sound effects bringing the total to no less than 4253 high quality sound effects. The price of this sound pack increased from $30 to $40, but I am celebrating this new year, new site launch, and new content by offering a 50% new year discount until 9th January 2016 ! So, for $20 you get over 4250 sound effects, mastered and edited to be game-ready, for royalty free use in your awesome games that you make! " Sound Design Packs" are a new addition to this site. They are different from the game-ready packs in such a way that the quality of audio is even higher and the sounds are mostly unprocessed for other sound designers to use when creating sounds...
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Powerboat passing by to game-loop audio

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This year I went to the Nynäs Offshore Race which takes place only a 30 minute walk from my home in Nynäshamn. I brought my new "field recording kit" that may not be the most portable setup in the world, but it gives me the best option for recording directional spot mono audio using a Rode NTG3 shotgun microhpone and environmental ambiences and stereo effects with a pair of Sennheiser MKH 8040 micorphones. The mics are housed in wind-protecting Rode and Rycote blimps with dead kittens (those huge furry things to block most of the wind.) I record the 3 channels of audio into a Sound Devices 633 field mixer at 192 kHz 24 bit audio. I recorded quite a few powerboats as the passed by - but getting usable game audio is quite tricky. I'll tell you why: First of all, there is a PA system with an announcer that feels obligated to speak non-stop which is great for the audience but terrible for someone who wants to capture the boats and nothing else. I had to find a spot close eno...
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