Often it's easier and quicker to record your own Foley sounds than to try to find the right sound effects library, buy it, download/ship it, etc.

So, what mics are recommended?

I've been playing with these combinations:

1) For soft sounds, like eating, rubbing against something, and breathing, I prefer a large diaphragm condenser. The only issue is to record in a very quiet space. Get the mic close to the subject.

2) For foot steps, I prefer using a hypercardiod indoors and a shotgun outdoors. Just aim the mic at the feet as they run, jump or walk. Video mics work well because the distance from the mic is measured in feet - just like when recording dialog.

3) For percussive sounds like splintering wood, hitting your palm, smacking a baggie filled with water, a dynamic mic like an SM57 works well. My son plays in an Emo band (lots of double kicks) and recently got a Sennheiser e902 bass drum mic, which is all bass and treble with almost no mids. Recording percussive hits with the SM57 and e902 and mixing to taste gives amazing and flexible results. We're curious to take these mics to a shooting range to record some gunshots!

4) For recording an acoustic space or the noise of being outdoors, I prefer an omni. A cheap option is the Behringer ECM8000. It doesn't have much dynamic range, but it's a reference mic, so it's flat as a frozen lake. Expect to apply EQ to get the right contour.

Anybody else have suggestions for Foley mics and recording techniques? We've been having as much fun with sound design as filming these days. Knowing the actual sounds behind a punch or bone break can be a crack up!

From what I understand, a lot of foley artists also use contact mics when they want a huge, close sound. A contact mic on a head of lettuce as you break it open will sound bone-crunchingly brutal. :)

I recommend "the music of sound," a great blog from NZ sound designer Tim Prebble ( http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0695670/ )

Here are four posts about the foley for "Black Sheep," which have some really great details in terms of technique and gear:

http://substation.co.nz/blog/?p=39

http://substation.co.nz/blog/?p=40

http://substation.co.nz/blog/?p=41

http://substation.co.nz/blog/?p=42

Also, don't miss "Wooshes 101," his awesome post about the use and misuse of Wooshes:

http://substation.co.nz/blog/?p=179

Fun stuff :)

Thanks Ben!

Very fun stuff. The whooshes thing was especially good.

I've got some Radio Shack piezos already. I'll have to attach one to a head of lettuce and see what happens. (I built a MIDI drumset with piezos using a Pearl Rhythm Traveler drumset and an Alesis DM5 drum module, and I have some spare sensors. Never thought about recording them directly.)

I interviewed a foley guy who was doing work on movies and TV. He was using one Sennheiser 416 in his acoustically treated foley works. Sounded great.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Uh, same here. I sat in on a session, and they were using Neumann short shotgun on everything. Room treated really well, not dead sounding, but quiet with a bit of life.
Looked in the smaller room and it was a Senn MKH60.

Brooks,

The 81 or 82? I haven't heard them yet, but I have used the Neumann RSM 191. Man is that a sweet mic! We did some studio work with the RSM 191 and my pants were wet for weeks afterwards! (For our international readers who may not be familiar with American jargon; wet pants indicate an extreme positive response.)

Regards,

Ty Ford

It was the 81. And sounded fine. They were doing Men in Trees in Burbank
Just 2 guys and 1 mixer and a lot of junk! Had the TV monitors mounted in boxes to reduce the 15k sound. Very interesting what is actually used to make the sounds.

About the RSM191...... Is there some way I can justify the price, or get it home without anyone noticing?

"Hey, what's in the bag?" oh, nothing.

Yep, that 15,750 Hz can be annoying.

Justification for the RSM 191....tell 'em about wet pants. :)

Regards,

Ty Ford

I interviewed a foley guy who was doing work on movies and TV. He was using one Sennheiser 416 in his acoustically treated foley works. Sounded great.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Ty, you're freaking me out man. This is the second thread where I've seen you mention the 416 positively!

I don't know what to say.

Then my job here is done! :)

HNY,

Ty Ford

How about gunshot recording? If you're using the 416, I assume that you'd want to keep some distance from the subject (and not in front either!).

Also, reverberation is critical for making things sound huge, so unless you're using a convolution reverb, I'd think that you'd want something with a wider pattern than a 416 for recording shots and explosions.

Huge sounding gunshots are the result of sound design, unless you own a Desert Eagle. (Ka-BOOOOOM)

I recorded a battery of German weaponry earlier this year with a cmc641 at about 4-8 feet. No problem, but you do have to have a few test shots to get you record levels right.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Huge sounding gunshots are the result of sound design...Sound design, as in combining many sounds, applying EQ, applying convolution reverb ...or all of the above and more. Do you have anything more specific?

Sound design, as in combining many sounds, applying EQ, applying convolution reverb ...or all of the above and more. Do you have anything more specific?

Yes... a real gunshot sounds pretty whimpy. We're so use to hearing these mini explosions when a gun is fired, but they sound more like pops when recorded. I was at a post production sound seminar with Kelley Baker, and he talked a bit about gunshots in particular and how he added all sorts of stuff to make a gunshot sound.

Wayne

Hello Jon,

What gunshots you hear on TV and in the movies are ALWAYS composited; EQ, thunder claps, howitzers, nuclear explosions and other assorted proprietary stuff people banged on to build up the sound.

The average 9 mm or .38, in reality, sounds like, pek, pek, pek or kek, kek, kek. Even mid bore rifles don't have a very big sound.

I see a lot of fascination attached to the word "convolution" as attached to reverb. YAWN! It's a buzz word that has captured the imagination of too many people. Sure there's a place for reverb, but I have two very nice reverb plugins that aren't "convolution" that work just fine.

Reverb doesn't make things sound bigger. It may make them sound as though they are in a bigger space, but in doing so, it makes them sound farther away, especially in a dense mix.

Regards,

Ty

PS: 1401!!!! Yayyy!

I used to work at the Naval Weapons Lab in the early 60's. We were routinely firing 5 inch and larger guns and occasionally we'd run a proof test of a 16 inch naval rifle. I think we had 500 or 700 pounds of propellent in the gun along with a 2000 pound projectile.

Didn't need any help getting a big bang. No help whatsoever! You could probably have recorded it from a mile away.

They had a bunch of old barrels sitting out in a field in storage and I remember putting a 9mm pistol inside and firing through the 16 inch barrel. Very satisfactory noise indeed!!!!

I see a lot of fascination attached to the word "convolution" as attached to reverb. YAWN! It's a buzz word that has captured the imagination of too many people. Sure there's a place for reverb, but I have two very nice reverb plugins that aren't "convolution" that work just fine.

Whoa. Ty. I couldn't disagree more.

My background is as a composer using orchestral instruments. We use sample players to playback individual notes from sampled instruments. Typically, they are recorded dry, and reverb is applied later. (Some are recorded in concert halls and such, but there are drawbacks to this approach that are out of scope.)

Going from worst to best:

* A real orchestra recorded in a real space offers wonderful complexity and detailed spatial information.
* Individually recorded dry instruments with each instrument processed with a subtly different impulse (convolution reverb) can also provide complexity and spatial information.
* Individually recorded dry instruments with each instrument processed with different reverb settings can provide spatial information, but only if applied with expert care given to different right/left pre-delays and phasing. A simple reverb will not provide the complexity of a good impulse.
* Combining dry instruments and adding reverb afterwards can sound muddy and does not produce a realistic soundstage.
* Dry instruments sound thin and wimpy.

Reverb doesn't make things sound bigger. It may make them sound as though they are in a bigger space, but in doing so, it makes them sound farther away, especially in a dense mix.

Again, I have to disagree. I have some dry tsaiko drum samples that sound absolutely wimpy. Process them with the right impulses and they sound huge and powerful.

If you prefer to use a standard reverb, make sure to add a lot of pre-delay to make the initial sound close, loud and dry, followed by the initial reflections and tails. It will still sound close, but will also have some mass behind it.

Consider a lightning strike. It's just an impulse. BAM! And it's super loud. But it's followed by reverberation through the hills that is complex and can actually drop and gain volume a second or more after the initial sound. The landscape provides that complexity that makes it sound huge and strong. Take a recording of lightning and do a fast fade after the initial hit and it will sound weak and stupid. Run it through a simple reverb without pre-delay and it will sound mushy. Add pre-delay and it starts to get there, but will sound simplistic. Run it through a convolution with a lightning impulse (or, should I say, a landscape impulse) and it will approximate lightning quite well.

BTW, here's a paper that I wrote for Tascam's GigaPulse product.
http://tascamgiga.com/details;9,7,48,17.html

All that said, I think we have different opinions here because of our different backgrounds. In production recording the goal is often to make the voice sound natural and uncolored. We don't want the voice to sound like it was recorded in a small bedroom, nor do we want it to sound like it was in Carnegie Hall. In music and sound effects we often want the result to be bigger than life.

Huge sounding gunshots are the result of sound design, unless you own a Desert Eagle. (Ka-BOOOOOM)

I recorded a battery of German weaponry earlier this year with a cmc641 at about 4-8 feet. No problem, but you do have to have a few test shots to get you record levels right.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Ty, I wanna be there the next time you do this. Only I want to build a trench and have some kinda bulletproof glass and have the guns just shoot right at us!

Ok, we don't have to go that far. But I seriously wanna be there.

I'm guessing this involves the pad. :)

Whoa. Ty. I couldn't disagree more.

My background is as a composer using orchestral instruments. We use sample players to playback individual notes from sampled instruments. Typically, they are recorded dry, and reverb is applied later. (Some are recorded in concert halls and such, but there are drawbacks to this approach that are out of scope.)

Going from worst to best:

* A real orchestra recorded in a real space offers wonderful complexity and detailed spatial information.
* Individually recorded dry instruments with each instrument processed with a subtly different impulse (convolution reverb) can also provide complexity and spatial information.
* Individually recorded dry instruments with each instrument processed with different reverb settings can provide spatial information, but only if applied with expert care given to different right/left pre-delays and phasing. A simple reverb will not provide the complexity of a good impulse.
* Combining dry instruments and adding reverb afterwards can sound muddy and does not produce a realistic soundstage.
* Dry instruments sound thin and wimpy.

>>>> "Dry instruments sound thin and whimpy?" Really! With all due respect that sounds like you have never heard really good instruments or you have a really bad reverb jones.

>>>I record and produce music for a living as well. Some of it recorded in large halls, most of it not. Examples are on my site on the sampler page. The reverb setting I use do create spatial info and I'm very careful with that. I don't have any particular affection for the sound the great orchestral concert halls of the world. I have heard fine recordings done in them. I'm not stunned by their reverbs. I do popular music, singer-songwriters, blues, jazz. I don't want my instruments to sound like they are on one of the great concert halls of the world. That would be way out of context.

>>>I've had the whole "orchestral space vs other space" conversation many times. When you're actually IN the room with a good performance, it kicks your butt. Capturing the full effect of that on a recording isn't really possible. That's the magic of being there.

>>>I'll give you this. If you're trying to replicate the space of big concert halls, fine, use convoluted reverbs, they still aren't the real thing. Next year when the marketing departments need a new spin and come out with a "new paradigm in reverb" saying Convolution Reverbs are passe, I'll still be making space happen around my client's voices and instruments with what sounds best.


Again, I have to disagree. I have some dry tsaiko drum samples that sound absolutely wimpy. Process them with the right impulses and they sound huge and powerful.

If you prefer to use a standard reverb, make sure to add a lot of pre-delay to make the initial sound close, loud and dry, followed by the initial reflections and tails. It will still sound close, but will also have some mass behind it.


>>>>I don't use reverbs in any standard way. My settings are my secret sauce. I know how to move waves of reflected sound; early, middle and late. I don't need convolution reverbs to do that. I can hear the effects.

>>>If you have a percussive strike in the clear, you can use reverb to make it sound as though it were in a big space. But that's not the same as making the source sound bigger.

Consider a lightning strike. It's just an impulse. BAM! And it's super loud. But it's followed by reverberation through the hills that is complex and can actually drop and gain volume a second or more after the initial sound. The landscape provides that complexity that makes it sound huge and strong. Take a recording of lightning and do a fast fade after the initial hit and it will sound weak and stupid. Run it through a simple reverb without pre-delay and it will sound mushy. Add pre-delay and it starts to get there, but will sound simplistic. Run it through a convolution with a lightning impulse (or, should I say, a landscape impulse) and it will approximate lightning quite well.

BTW, here's a paper that I wrote for Tascam's GigaPulse product.
http://tascamgiga.com/details;9,7,48,17.html

>>>> Ah, so you're writing for Tascam. I saw and heard the first iterations of effects based on a gui that allowed placement of sources in a space years ago. It was an interesting approach and, perhaps, helpful for anyone who can't wrap their head around the math of delays and reverbs. In it's own way, BFD the drum program, offers a graphical approach to the placement of mics in a virtual room.

All that said, I think we have different opinions here because of our different backgrounds. In production recording the goal is often to make the voice sound natural and uncolored. We don't want the voice to sound like it was recorded in a small bedroom, nor do we want it to sound like it was in Carnegie Hall. In music and sound effects we often want the result to be bigger than life.[/QUOTE]


>>>It would be a mistake to presume that my sole pursuit was the making voice recordings. BTW, I think you're an obviously educated person who's very much 'in" to symphonic space and I think you made a nice case for Tascam's product. Can we agree on that?


>>>I forgot, this was about gunshots. {My apologies to the group for pulling WAY off topic}
Adding reverb to gun shots to make them bigger may make them sound as though they were fired in a larger space, provided the space is devoid enough of other sounds to allow you to hear the ring, but it won't make the gunshot itself sound more massive. That's a very important distinction. Reverb doesn't make the source sound bigger, it makes the space around the source bigger. To make the source bigger, especially gunshots, you need sound design.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Um, how's this?

Regards,

Ty Ford

Good response, Ty.

(Well, aside from the reverb jones thing :) )

BTW, I don't work for Tascam. I just wrote that one paper for them. (And I got nice sample library in exchange. But no royalties. Dangit.)

You are correct that with expert use of reverbs (initial, early, mid, tails, etc.) you can get the effects that you seek.

But "convolution" isn't just some marketing term. It's one of the two main methods of applying a digital filter or delay. Convolution is used for finite impulse (FIR) response filtering. Infinite impulse response (IIR) filters use feedback, require fewer operations, but can become unstable. Both are equally valid tools. Neither will go the way of the dodo.

You wrote:
> "Adding reverb to gun shots to make them bigger may make them sound as though they were fired in a larger space, provided the space is devoid enough of other sounds to allow you to hear the ring, but it won't make the gunshot itself sound more massive. That's a very important distinction. Reverb doesn't make the source sound bigger, it makes the space around the source bigger. To make the source bigger, especially gunshots, you need sound design."

Excellent summary.

While I agree with the distinction (big space vs. big source), I think there is a psycho-acoustical link between the two. Consider footsteps from a gigantic monster in a Hollywood movie. (Booooooom.) They tend to have long tails (the sounds, not necessarily the monsters.) I think the reason is that we expect huge (loud) sounds to echo from afar. If it doesn't echo, it must not have been loud.

I think the word "huge" can be taken two ways. One would be physically large. The other is loud and powerful. I've been using the second definition.

For physically large sounds, I agree that compositing is the way to go. If we just pitch things down, it doesn't do the trick. Compositing allows us to include humongous low frequencies as well as shattering high frequencies as needed.

Coincidentally, compositing can add the tails and resonance needed to make the overall sound loud and powerful. The lingering "boooom" and seconds worth of shattering glass speak to the space, rather than the initial explosion.

In my dry tsaiko drum example, I don't really have the option of compositing for each hit. I find reverb critical to making the tsaikos sound loud and powerful. Without a response from the space, I find that the hits just sound wimpy. (If I get a chance, I'll post some examples.)

accurate or not I still haven't heard anything sweeter or musical as my old 480L

I'm not sure what this thread is about. Anyway, here is a very nice (and affordable) convolution reverb plugin:
http://www.voxengo.com/product/pspace/

Also, here is an outstanding mastering limiter:
http://www.voxengo.com/product/elephant/

And this is a nice voice plugin:
http://www.voxengo.com/product/voxformer/

They also have some excellent free plugins that are useful and offer an opportunity to try out the technology. Audition, for example, will use vst plugins.