The Boom Box Post blog provides insights into the creative sound design process of Boom Box Post's owners and employees.
March marks 1 full year of lockdown and WFH for most of the world, including the Boom Box Post team. It took some creativity and planning, but over this past tremulous year our team was able to virtually come together for some team building fun! Take a look at some of the activities we held to help us stay connected.
In past blog posts, we have mentioned different ways to optimize Kontakt, or other samplers, to digitally walk foley for our shows and how advantageous it has been in animation. It often involved pulling walk cycles into Pro Tools and cutting up small samples then exporting the samples and pulling them into Kontakt. This method, although convenient, is not the only way to create footstep samples. In this blog post, I will do my best to give instructions on how to create samples without having to cut up the original audio file in Pro Tools; and instead splice or split the original audio file within Kontakt then mapping it to your desired keys, keeping the source file intact! Woohoo, get excited!
As a mixer, I see all kinds of issues cropping up that originated in sound editorial. And with my background in sound editorial, I’ve surely committed every one of them myself at some point. Here’s a list of some common problems we see on the mix stage. Avoiding these problems will not only make your work easier to handle and more professionally presented, it will hopefully save you a snarky email or comment from a mixer!
One of our sound effects editors, Ben, was faced with a unique challenge recently. He needed to create 8-bit video game style sound design for one of our shows. Now if you don’t know what 8-bit video games are, check out this example I grabbed from Youtube showing a few popular games under this genre. It makes me want to play some video games right now... that is besides the point, though, so let’s dive right into what he created!
I was recently asked about some of the information in my Top 10 Internet Resources for Sound Designers post, and looking back, I realized that this was a really great post that deserved updating! The original was written in 2015, and although some of the suggestions are still valid, many of them have disappeared (silent tear shed here for Designing Sound) or been surpassed by new online resources. Who knew so much could change in five and half years on the internet??? (That’s a joke. Five and a half years is like 100 years in terms of the internet.)
We have done a couple of blog posts in the past spotlighting our favorite audio tools. So for this installment of “BBP’s Favorites”, I asked our team which plugins they couldn’t live without. Whether it’s a stock plugins or third party, if you don’t already utilize these picks hopefully our love for them can convince you to!
When I think of risers, stingers, and cinematic hits, I think of horror movies! They’re placed at just the right moments to make me jump out of my seat or hide behind a friend. I’m gonna get nightmares just thinking about it! Whether you know it or not, these risers, stingers, and hits can also be used in other genres. Here at Boom Box, we use them in the animated shows we work on! One of our editors, Greg, designed some cool ones which you can check out below along with how he went about making them.
This is a module from Izotope RX that I’ve used quite a bit! De-bleed works just like its name. It reduces the unwanted sound that bleeds into an open mic. In one of the shows I worked on, they recast one of the lead characters after they did the production shooting which means I needed to remove his voice underneath any other dialogue so I can replace with ADR in there. De-bleed performs a great job in this situation!
In my opinion, creature vocals are crucial to sound design. Nobody wants to see a gigantic dragon on screen and then it sounds lame… It should stand out and fit the part! So, where do you start when you want to design a ferocious dragon? There is no right or wrong way, but Jessey can give you some insight on how she designs her dragon vocals!
2020 may be over, but we aren’t out of the woods yet. After the year we all had, don’t you think it’s important we start taking better care of ourselves? If so, check out these 5 work from home tips to help you start 2021 stress-free!
Those who are reading this are probably also ready for 2020 to be over. It has been quite a year in many aspects. Putting aside all of the craziness of the world, we thought it would be nice to give you an inside look on audio skills we have improved upon or learned in 2020 and individual goals that we have for 2021!
This year was unlike any other, and while 2020 had many lows, there is a lot we are thankful for this year! We are honored to have been nominated for 3 Daytime Emmy Awards, 4 MPSE Awards, and begin work on 7 new series! We are very lucky to have had such a busy year full of so many exciting projects, but like the rest of the world we are ready to move onto 2021 and leave 2020 behind us. We hope you have a safe holiday and happy new year!
The art of foley is an amazing magic trick that can really bring a production to life. If your project has the budget for custom foley, I would highly recommend taking advantage of skilled professionals to help bring this element of your soundtrack to life. That said, not everyone has the money and access to a professional foley team. Never fear! You can be your own foley team with incredible results. All from the comfort of your home, at little to no cost.
This year to bring some holiday spirit in our work from home lives, we decided to do a signature cocktail contest! Those at Boom Box who wanted to participate were allowed to make ANY drink of their choice and we would vote. All they had to do was post a picture/video for us and how they made it. If you are looking for some holiday drinks to whip out this year, look no more! We have some GREAT ones for you.
If you’re a sound editor, then you know how important having a good sound library is. Not only is it important to have a well rounded library but it is also necessary to continue adding to it. I’d like to introduce you to a fantastic web based sound library called Soundsnap. This website is great for editors of all experience levels and since we’re getting close to the holidays, it could be a great gift! Check it out below.
We released two new custom libraries this week: Squish Splat Ooze & the 1966 Ford Mustang, and to celebrate we made our entire Boom Box Library store 25% off. Today only, we’re giving out a Cyber Monday code to get an EXTRA 20% off on top of that. Just add CYBERMONDAY during checkout.
We are extremely proud to announce the release of our second Boom Box Library this year: The Squish Splat Ooze SFX Library!
The Squish Splat Ooze Sound Effects Library contains a wide variety of gelatinous liquid sound effect recordings. We used a combination of the Sennheiser MKH 8040 & MKH30 with a mid-side configuration to capture the sounds of flarp, JELL-O, bubbling liquid, mac and cheese, mud, and slime. Recorded sounds include include drops, slaps, impacts, squeezes, steady movements, and more recorded with a variety of thick viscous liquids.
We are extremely proud to announce the release of our newest Boom Box Library: The 1966 Ford Mustang!
To create this library, we recorded a vintage 1966 Ford Mustang GT model. This model boasts a v8 engine (225 hp, 168 kW, 228 PS "289"), grille-mounted fog lamps, disc brakes, reverse lights, and a hard top. The 1966 GT interior includes an instrument panel with a speedometer, fuel gauge, temperature gauge, oil pressure gauge and ampmeter in five round dials.
During the recording session, we placed five different microphones at key locations on the car and recorded accelerating, decelerating, driving steadies, idling, and revs simultaneous with them all. Then, we recorded pass-bys of various speeds, pull aways, pull in and stops, doors, ignition, levers, switches, windows, and more using three different shotgun microphones. All takes were recorded at the high sample rate of 96 kHz.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year again and we want to start off the season with our holiday gift guide! Considering this year is unlike any other, we have a great mixture of audio, work from home, and 2020 escapism gifts that even Scrooge himself wouldn’t bah-humbug!
The latest gear and hottest plugins are regularly trendy topics of discussion in the sound community. But for this week’s blog post, I’m going old-school and throwing it all the way back to good ol’ PHASING! (Hold for applause)
Now, I bet you are thinking to yourself, “What is phasing exactly?” or perhaps “How does it apply in the real world?”, and most importantly “Do I even need to know this?!” Well, you’re about to find out…
