» Audio

Building an IKEA Studio

Skevos Mavros — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 13:17:20 +0000

I’m currently building a small recording booth in my study using mostly IKEA furniture, so this article on MusicRadar How to Build Your Own Studio in 11 Easy Steps was a well-timed read for me (even if not all of their eleven steps seem that easy to me!). I like their idea of plonking a whole new pre-built building down and fitting it out from scratch, but that’s not an option for me right now, so I’m using one side of my study/granny flat, some large IKEA cupboards, and some padding from IKEA and Clarke Rubber. I’ll post photos of my progress as I go.

It’s not designed for music production, with sound proofing strong enough to acoustically isolate a drum kit. I just need the ability to record voice and Foley performances without the sound of my PC fan and hard drives chattering coming through onto the recordings.

It’s coming along, but it’s taking longer than I expected (of course) and the booth door is still going to be a challenge.

The Wilhelm Scream

Skevos Mavros — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:49:40 +0000

The Scream

Even as a kid, I knew there were sound effects out there that were being used over and over again in films. Certain rock-falling sounds, certain gunshot sounds, certain horror sound effects. Before I started to take a strong interest in post production I could tell that there were sound effects that “did the rounds” amongst sound mixers.

Tonight a student asked me about one of them and he reminded me that this one had a name – The Wilhelm Scream. For a history of the scream (”screams plural actually) read this brief history from HollywoodLostAndFound.net, where you’ll also find a list of films that it has appeared in. To hear a few different takes of the scream in medium quality, check out this freesound page. Anyone my age or younger who has watched (and rewatched) films edited and/or mixed by Ben Burtt will instantly recognise the scream(s), but I didn’t realise until tonight how far back its history went – all the way to 1951.

Now if I can just figure out a way to incorporate it into a future project, I’ll be happy.

Sound Effects

Skevos Mavros — Fri, 18 Jul 2003 14:54:57 +0000

Here are some sound effects I recorded recently which I’m making available as free downloads. They were recorded to a Panasonic SJ-MR220 MiniDisk recorder using a Sony ECM-MS907 stereo microphone and are free for you to use in almost any way you want, including commercial uses.

I recorded these effects because one night I was looking for high quality background sound effects and the only legal ones I could find on the internet were either poor quality or expensive.

There are almost no conditions on how you use these. You don’t even have to give me a credit in your production if you don’t wish to. I’m even happy for you to link to the files directly from your own site (but be aware that I may be moving and/or renaming the files over time, so linking to this page is probably safest). All I ask is that you not redistribute them as sound effects and please don’t claim to have recorded them yourself.

They are available as compressed audio files in 160kbps Ogg Vorbis format. I chose to use compression to save server space and download time, and I chose Ogg Vorbis because it’s a new(ish) compressed audio file format that is a great alternative to mp3. Ogg Vorbis is slightly higher quality than mp3 and is not encumbered with any tricky copyright/trademark issues. You can find out more about Ogg Vorbis at its website.

Chances are that if you have a recent piece of audio software then it supports Ogg. If not then you’ll want some software to convert from Ogg to whatever format you need. The good news is that free Ogg conversion software is available for almost every computer system on the planet. So go download some.

Lastly, to download the files you might have to right-click them (or command-click for those with a one-button mouse) and select the download option from the popup menu. All feedback on these files is greatfully received and there are more files to come.

Street Sound Effects

These clips are meant for background use, and are designed to loop seamlessly.

Street Valley Night

2:38, 3.10MB, stereo, 16bit, 48kHz, loopable

The sound of an inner city intersection in the early evening.

Taxi Night

1:29, 1.69MB, stereo, 16bit, 48kHz, loopable

A trip in a taxi at night, complete with taxi computer beeps.

Street Coorparoo Night

1:58, 2.26MB, stereo, 16bit, 48kHz, loopable

The sound of a suburb at night. Cars arriving home, car doors closing, a dog barking.

Phunny Phetish

Skevos Mavros — Sun, 27 Apr 2003 23:23:08 +0000

I’ve been online for a while, so I’ve seen a lot of what the net has to offer. I’ve come to accept that somewhere on the net there is a website for every interest, obsession, or fetish. But just when you think you’ve seen everything, along comes this specialised fetish site. Wow. There really is something for everyone online.

Which is not to say that I find the images there unnattractive, it’s just that, I mean… of all the technology devices to be turned on by, why this one? Maybe I don’t get it because I use these devices myself almost every day…