Create your own sound effects, with household items and a couple of clicks.
Processing his recordings in Adobe Premiere Pro (but really, any decent audio software will do), MAKE. ART. NOW‘s Josh Yeo has some fun with random (and increasingly brutal?) sound effects:
… and then takes us through his workflow of building the sound design for a video sequence:
We’re mainly interested in just the first three-and-a-half minutes of this next video. While Andrew Huang‘s tricks (particularly warp) are more specific to Albeton Live, certain tricks such as envelopes, pitch-shifting and time-stretching can also be found in most decent audio apps:
“Here’s a short guide to a neat trick I use in my editing all the time,” reveals Joe Walker, editor of Dune (2021) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017): “freezing musical chords and extending notes using Metasynth. Includes some secret sounds from Sicario (2015)”:
How about making an explosion using just the mic on your phone? Although coming from a computer game background, the sound elements Marshall McGee identifies – transient, body and tail – which go into making a “satisfying” sound can be applied to any world of sound, including film and music:
Want more from Marshall? Here he explores sound design for Anime and Games:
Get Inspired
Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola‘s epic films are what they are because of sound designers Walter Murch and Ben Burtt – so learn to see with your ears:
Here’s how professionals create the smaller, but no less important, sound effects known as foley – and some tutorials for how to create your own:
Related Posts:
Audio School: Loudness, Explained How to understand, measure, and even out the sound in your video project.
Film School: Advanced Audio in Premiere Pro Improve the quality and workflow of sound in your video post production.
Audio School: Sound Design: Anime & Games Where the sounds that create worlds can come from.
Audio School: Recreate Environmental Sounds Using Synthesis A master class in how everything we hear is made of soundwaves - and how you can modify them to echo the world.
Film School: Mixing Audio in Premiere Pro A roundup of tutorials on improving the sound in your video editing.
Film School: Sound Design Film students should ask: "What do your ears see?"
Audio School: Sound Design: Foley A guide to creating sound effects for your film.
Film School: Fix It In Post Ways to work with less-than-ideal footage in your edit.