BOOM ONE UPDATE
Brewing a new stew of sounds for BOOM ONE’s fourth update
March has sped on by and it’s time to fire off another round of brand-new sounds for BOOM ONE’s constantly expanding library. This pack comes locked and loaded with 632 total files for a total of 3812 sounds. The upload is decanted into three distinct groups: bullet impacts, alchemy laboratory experiments, and a mélange of other sounds typically found useful in modern multimedia projects.
BULLET IMPACTS
There are many libraries with weapons sounds – we have more than a few ourselves! But there are only few libraries that include bullet impact sounds. The shooter side is well-covered, but in movies, games, and more, sounds for those getting shot at are suppressed. “Gun impacts are very often underrepresented in gun libraries,” our recordist Wieland Müller says. “There are some specific libraries that do focus on gun impacts, but there are only a very few of those. So, we wanted to also have impact recordings for BOOM ONE. Almost every First Person Shooter, war movie, or similar media has the need for them. Since it’s very much needed on the sound market, we thought it would make a great addition to our catalog.”
Using various caliber weapons (0.22, .223, 7.62 mm, 9 mm), we recorded the impacts on a myriad of surfaces, like mud, wood, car doors, metal and concrete plates, water, wood boards, and trees. And in addition to that, we covered Foley impact sounds for cloth, gravel, dirt, glass, gore, grass, water splashes, and additional debris. That just about covers everything you would need to model a real-life situation.
There were of course, some issues in recording gun impact sounds. It’s not like you can just stand there with a mic while someone is shooting at you! “Usually when we record audio, we can stay at the recorder to listen to the live audio. This wasn’t the case here,” Wieland explains. “We had to stand behind the shooter, so we had to set up all the recorders and microphones and had to leave the equipment by itself. We had to rely on our good gaining and mic positioning to be sure to record interesting bullet impact sound material.”
Wieland set up multiple different microphones, from mono and stereo to 3D, to be able to choose from what sounded best. “In this case one MS Stereo Microphone and one XY microphone were the best sounding microphones, so that’s what’s available in this library,” he said.
ALCHEMY ELEMENTAL LAB
From Harry Potter to Breaking Bad, the world of cinema and serials is rich with laboratory experiments and alchemical studies. Think of all the bubbling, boiling, and sliming of your classic mad scientist scenes and you’ll see how this upload really strikes gold. It is a solid foundation for any big picture, video game, or augmented reality experience that needs sound effects for magical explosions, fantasy-style potions, or authentic alchemy work.
Magical sounds are a unique design challenge, which our recordists Fabio Coressel and Eric Buschendorf really found interesting. “You bring sounds to life that would never exist in the real world, but with the twist that it should always sound ‘real’,” Fabio said.
Fabio and Eric went to work setting up test tubes and chemical combinations with their carefully aimed Sennheiser MKH 8050, Sennheiser Ambeo, Sanken CMS-50 (MS), Sanken CO-100K, LOM Geofon and Organic Audio Hydrophone, using basic XY and MS setups. For the quieter sounds, they found that an XY-Setup worked much better and for louder noises the opposite. With the watery sounds, they preferred the Sennheiser Ambeo. Fabio explains: “It’s a total game changer… it literally sounds like the water is flowing around your head – it’s very immersive. For chemical reactions, we used the Sanken CMS-50 MS with a Rycote Windshield to be able to follow the source.”
The more magical effects took a bit more experimenting. Eric said, “It’s all about unique organic textures. Blubbery water movement caught with a hydrophone or scraping dirt on resonant metal signs recorded with a contact mic. So everything that is not typically audible for our ears. Why? Because magic isn’t real, and therefore you have to come up with some crazy recording techniques.”
Fabio and Eric had a lot of fun tapping into their inner-alchemists and getting as creative as possible with these recordings. “We really enjoyed playing around with different chemicals and trying to figure out how to get the most magical and fantasy-like sound out of them,” said Fabio.
Eric explained the Char Howl Sounds as an example: “They were created with isopropyl alcohol. We filled the jar only a little bit with that, sprinkled some onto the lid and ignited all of it at once which created a really magical flame combustion sound. Sound explorations like this made the process of creating this package so fascinating and satisfying.”
BOOM ONE
Don’t have BOOM ONE? Get access to these incredible clock and nautical sounds, along with thousands more in addition to monthly updates of new inspiring sounds. Learn more about this constantly expanding subscription plan on the main BOOM ONE product page.
