BOOM ONE UPDATE
A burning inferno of sound
The latest BOOM ONE update has arrived and it’s hotter than ever. This month, our sound designers went to the extreme and played with fire in all kinds of ways, from burning torches, lighting gasoline, and even breathing fire. They also hit the studios to design hard-hitting sounds in innovative and power-producing ways, to bring you top and unique synthetic sounds to further round out your library.
The pack includes 186 fire sounds, 171 designed sounds, and 256 additional sounds of various subjects. The Designed sounds are made to smack you in the face and include blasts, braams, impacts, particles, textures, whooshes, and abstract sounds.
Our fire recording teams, led by Anuka Kipshidze and Tamta Mandzulashvili, found safe places to record the fire sounds and set to work.
BRAINSTORMING
The two teams knew they wanted to get fire sounds, but they first had to think of an approach to capture the fire. Different materials combust and burn in different ways. “The most interesting thing was to think about different experiments – like mixing various materials – and their implementation; getting different sounds while each sound was unexpected and unique,” Tamta said.
Because of the dangers of playing with fire, they decided to do most of the sounds outside. “For my team’s session, I chose a place where it would be safe to make a large fire and try experiments,” said Anuka. “We also used the interior for a few different fire sounds.”
After having thought about the location, came the materials. Get some gasoline, make some torches, and bring in a firebreather!
RECORDING
Choosing the microphones and dealing with the set up proved to have some challenges. You have to be close up, but not too close. “We wanted to record the sound more closely,” Anuka says, “but since it was fire, we had to keep our distance. The location of the microphone depends on the performance, as always, especially when dealing with flammable substances or water.”
The teams settled on using the Sanken CO 100k and Sanken CMS 50, along with a hand-held Sony PCM D100. “The Sanken microphones give more opportunities to get a good sound range, quality, and so on,” Tamta says. “With the hand-held I got a more distant sound of the same sounds. All together sounded very good… Audio materials are crisp and clear, which is great.”
BREATHING FIRE
They brought in an actor, Michèl (Mikheil Zakaidze), who did various performances with fire. “A few years ago, I worked in a theater where one of the performances was a fire show,” Anuka said. “I’ve always wanted to record this, so I’m glad that BOOM was interested in the sounds of fire and I jumped at the chance.”
“The fire show has its accessories,” Anuka explained, “which are metal and vary in size and shape. Special parts, which are covered with a cloth, allow us to hang the lamp and keep it out longer, so it doesn’t burn out while spinning. They used kerosene and gasoline to fuel the fire.
“It included the sounds of small and large flames moving, as well as the sounds of a flash, like an explosion but not too big. We had a fire going in some large iron pot that was uncovered and was open, and we poured a little gasoline into it, and it caused a sudden ignition, which had an interesting sound.”
They were recording in an outside area to minimize the danger, but still managed a bit of an accident. “It was night and we were recording small fast flaming sounds and the grass caught fire! We quickly doused it and nobody was hurt.”
BOOM ONE
If you’re a BOOM ONE subscriber, you can look forward to adding these new sounds to your collection this month. And if you’re not a member yet, this is a great time to join and start exploring the vast and constantly expanding library of sound effects that BOOM ONE has to offer. Check out more info on the main BOOM ONE product page.
