Basketball Game Pro | A new SFX library available now!

[Kostas Loukovikas]

Hello everyone,

For those who are heading for game productions, audio books, commercials or any audiovisual projects here's Basketball Game Pro, a sound library thematically centered around a real basketball match, containing several versions of game air horns, crowd applause, attack, defense, fault, score and lost opportunities ambiences, referee whistles, crowd boos & yells and a short warm up game ambience.

The library is divided into 11 folders of 59 audio files in stereo .wav format and is delivered at 24bit/96kHz, in an easily downloadable .zip file. You can also try it out first by subscribing and downloading a free lite version.

Hope you find it useful!

Find out more:
http://www.soundexmachina.com/basketball-game-sfx

 

[Kostas Loukovikas]

Happy New Year to everyone!

That’s great Kim, sounds like an interesting Foley plan! We’re just getting into this art form, as well So far, we’ve only finished Foley for a couple of indie shorts, that they are going to be published soon, and looking for more. These two films were an excellent opportunity to begin learning more about the workflow, the props in order for the required sounds to be generated, the acoustics of our space, the recording levels, mic selection and placement, e.t.c.

Regarding the procedure we followed, first, we tried to learn the “character” of each person we were walking. Did they have a heavy step? Did they scuffed to a stop? Did they dragged their feet? Then, we took notes about what type of clothes our characters were wearing, on what surfaces they were on (dirt, pavement, grit e.t.c) and with what props the actors were interacting. After that, we looked into all footsteps, movements, and props across the timeline of the film and created the group of channels, in our DAW, for each of the above categories (footsteps, movements, props). This organizational thinking helped us save a lot of time placing the microphones, gathering up props, and getting a more consistent performance.

Mic-wise, we have a lot in the studio to choose from. We mainly used a Sennheiser MkH 8060 shotgun, Neumann U87, a Schertler contact mic and a couple of Oktava MK012’s (both with omni and cardioid capsules), which are very versatile, with a lovely sound. Here’s a list of microphones most foley artists use in their sessions:

Sennheiser mkh416, mkh8060.
Neumann kmr81, 82
Røde NT1-A
Røde NTG3
Neumann U87
Neumann KM194 for close mic’ing
AKG C414 for distant mic’ing
Neumann KMR 81 I mt
Neumann TLM 103
Neumann KM 184 (nice for bassy footsteps)
Oktava mk-012, Audix SCX1/HC
AKG 414
MKH 406T
DPA 4017b mic
Sanken CS3,
Schoeps Cmit5U

Having a decent, acoustically treated, Foley room at our disposal, the next step is now to build solid pits with various surfaces like gravel, rubble or sand, plus a second, functional location in order to collect as many props as we can.

Here’s a great site you can check out, that provides tips and ideas on how to create your own sound effects: http://www.epicsound.com/sfx/

For mastering classic and cutting-edge Foley techniques, this book seems ideal: https://books.google.gr/books?id=eSNFAwAAQBAJ&dq=Marco+Ciorba+foley&hl=el

Last, a great source of knowledge is this podcast, where Foley artist John Roesch, who created sound effects for over 500 films, talks with post-production legends: http://therightscuff.com/

I hope you found all these useful. Τhere is so much more you can tell about Foley. We’re on a learning curve, experimenting and familiarized with all the above thoughts and techniques.

Hopefully next year we’ll manage to create a little Foley showreel and share it with you all

Cheers and happy foleying

 

[Kostas Loukovikas]

We’re currently working on Cubase 9.5 Also, Reaper from Cockos Incorporated offers all of the features of powerhouse digital audio workstations at a fraction of the cost, as well as Logic X, which is great for editing sounds or sound design. And there is, of course, Pro Tools

Actually, we need any DAW that supports a good variety of video formats and an ease-of-use of track markers to drop notes of the things we see in the video timeline.

What are you using, Kim?