Recording - December 2010 - 42

Recording SFX—A Career Option?
Interviews by Lorenz Rychner

Three sound designers weigh in from the far corners of the globe
Three sound designers from different parts of the world share a curiosity about sounds and a talent for capturing unusual audio. They support each other in mutual friendship as each sells his products on his own website. If you have been thinking about using your gear to chase unusual sounds and selling them online, read what these pros have to say.—LzR

How do you assess what the needs of the industry are? Tim Prebble: My decisions on developing the sound libraries come from two sources; firstly they are informed by my experience in 20 years of sound design work in the film industry, secondly they are fed by opportunities and access to interesting sound sources, whether it’s an interesting machine, location, prop, animal, etc., which can involve a lot of research. Michael Raphael: I am ultimately driven by my own curiosity. I spend a tremendous amount of time trying to ferret out unusual sounds, which often ends up with a ton of failed experiments, but some amazing successes

crop up as well. I’ve been working in media production for over 10 years, and film/radio/games companies all want high-quality recordings from which they can build new sounds. That means finding sources that can be recorded cleanly and can be used for many projects. Chuck Russom: New, unique, and interesting sounds are always needed. The most important skills a soundeffects recordist needs are a good ear and imagination; those will lead you to interesting things to record. Any special equipment? CR: The majority of sound-effects recording is done outside of the studio,

so you need equipment that is rugged, can handle the elements and some abuse, and can also be run on battery power. Wind is also a major issue when you are outdoors, so you need some specialized windscreens. MR: 99.9% of the equipment I use has to be portable, low-noise, and use power efficiently. I often use a Sound Devices hard-disk recorder and a mix of Schoeps, Sennheiser, Sanken, and DPA mics. I’m using the same gear that classical engineers use, but instead of the mics mounted on stages or in a Decca Tree they are in Zeppelins for wind protection. Any special skills? TP: An appreciation for the context in which the sounds will be used is crucial. If you are a musician or music engineer then you know how music samples are used, but film-sound design is a very different context. There is also a performance aspect to capturing sounds; e.g. I play double bass but I can also extract a huge range of performances from inanimate nonmusical objects. Having an open mind and being prepared to experiment exhaustively is very important. What might appear as an annoying door creak when captured and processed may become an element for a ship’s hull. Or a metal gate may be used as an element for a horror film sting. MR: Patience and an open mind. I recently recorded a large series of amateur rockets and I battled wind, smoke from igniters, and serious SPL. Finding solutions for recording unusual sound sources takes problem solving and a lot of patience. In addition to the sound I had to work with a crowd of people who were there to launch their rockets and have fun. I had to explain that I needed quiet before, during, and after every launch in order for my sounds to be useable. Before going to the launch site I communicated with the rocketry club’s president and explained what I needed and reiterated what I was looking for throughout the day I was recording.

Michael Raphael (Rabbit Ears Audio) with a pair of Schoeps mics in Mid-Side configuration (MK4 Mid, MK8 Side) in a Rycote Zeppelin, capturing the noises of breaking ice and the ship’s horn on a freezing day at Lake Superior near Duluth, MN. It was all tracked to a Sound Devices 744T mobile recorder. Photo by Johnny Vince Evans.

RECORDING DECEMBER 2010

Recording - December 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - December 2010