Tips for Recording a Sound Effect Library

June 18, 2008 – 5:20 am
by SFXsource

To create sound effects for a respectable sound effect library one needs an audio recorder of professional quality. A digital recorder the size of a small digital camera will run you between $150 and $400 and will give you the quality you need for sound effects worthy of purchase and licensing. Also, many new recorders run easily on battery power, come with an acceptable T shaped microphone, can store up to 4 gigs of info via a flash card, and utilize USB connection.

You must make sure that any recorder you purchase records up to at least a 48k sample rate .wav file because audio for video is prepared as 48k. Any 44.1k samples you have would work fine on a CD but for DVD usage they will have to be up-converted to 48k which can result in “aliases,” sort of sonic ghosts that compromise the quality of your recording. Also, 48k sound effects command a higher price on downloadable sites because their sound quality is simply better due to more samples per second of audio.

Two basic categories of sound effects to be recorded are “ambiences” and “hits.” Hits are single audio events like a burp, splash, or car horn. Ambiences are longer recordings generally between 30 seconds and 10 minutes that contain background sounds such as those found on city streets, in a hotel lobby, or a doctor’s office.

Any quality sound effect library needs both types of sound effects so you should be intent on recording both types. Ambiences are the easiest to obtain because they require only being at a location, standing there, and recording. Hits, though, need more planning because you often need to do foley to get what you need or wait around at various locations for the right moment, such as visiting a new mother and her newborn in order to capture that perfect baby cry.

Recording sounds is simply a matter of pressing record on your digital recorder. Although, it is advised to keep the following points in mind as you record since they will make your work more productive and fruitful.

2. Record all of your sounds as “hot” as you can, meaning as loud as possible without overloading the microphone. You need to pull back from your source if you notice a red LED light on your recorder which signals that your incoming signal is too hot. Capturing the strongest signal without distorting is the goal.

2. Purchase a 10dB pad that fits between your microphone and digital recorder will enable you to record sounds with high decibel levels, such as jet engines or weapons. The pad lowers the incoming signal by 10dB and can be found online for $20.

3. Keep background noise out of your recordings as much as possible without being obsessive about creating “the perfect” studio recording environment because positive and unexpected events can occur such as animal sounds or car noises. A good amount of background noise can be filtered out during editing and being to strict about your recording environment will slow your work down to a crawl.

4. Protect the microphone with a windscreen or simply keep your recorder out of the wind by using physical barriers such as trees, walls, or even your jacket, because wind hitting the microphone head will ruin your recording efforts. Sometimes wind noise can be cut out during editing with a high pass filter and cutting frequencies below 200-500 khz but for the most part wind will destroy your work.

5. Make sure that your recordings do not contain any live or amplified music from a third party. Your recordings will be useless if they include music from such sources. This music is copyrighted and without permission of the copyright owner it is illegal to use or license such recordings.

It is the hope of this author that the simple advice in this article will aid new sound effect artists in their efforts to create a worthy sound effect library. New articles on editing distinct sound effects from these recordings, categorizing these new sound effects, and licensing them are forthcoming.

About the Author:
SFXsource’s sound effects library which has a wide variety of sound effects types can be visited, auditioned, and downloaded at Download Sound Effects, and Free Sound Effects and Loops

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