Ah, first feedback reveals I hit the reality problem with my #SoundDesign for a theater play.
Things sound too much like they do sound in reality. Not like they sound in the cliché in your head.
It's not my main field of expertise, I must admit.
I guess I will have to use samples + things that are not at all what people believe they are hearing.
In particular I am struggling with a bunker door that doesn't sound like a bunker door, yet it was exactly a… pretty tough steel door in reality.
Like people knocking onto it from the outside, and opening/closing sounds.
@nielso I remember in the beginning seeing these videos of sound effects for movies build up from 10-20 tracks for one sound.
That was kind of soothing when I couldn’t get my real sounds working.
What do you think the sound needs to better meet the expectation?
Good question! I sort of asked the director the same. I asked him what the steel door in his mind would sound like.
Because apparently, he also had the idea that you just record the real thing. (Which isn't always wrong, but doesn't work out for everything.)
I guess I'll have to watch some corresponding movie sequences for this.
@nielso if you would like a perspective, I’ll gladly chime in with my experiences.
Is it right that they will play it site-specific?
@chrisorstedt @nielso to me, in theatre, it’s most often about the room/space and how the sound is played back.
It’s really hard to make a meaningful door sound, which is placed in the audio-space as the entrance is in the physical space. Like a classic door sound center on stereo-speakers, with the entrance being slightly to the left in the back of the stage.
I sometimes solve it by finding a way the actors can make the sound. Knocking on a nearby door, stamping the floor or similiar.
I agree on the space thing and that would have been my approach to match the effects' feel to the space, yet I think other™ people™ are demanding e.g. more reverb already, and that won't fit…
… yet, this is not a professional theater, and so is my pay for this job, so perhaps I need to make a cut at some point.
Actually I don't lack low end, it's decently heavy stuff, but I'm not sure if people commenting are using their iPhones to check the FX sounds or at least some sort of speakers.
PA will be some very old d&b speakers in a stereo position. It's what's installed in the venue. I never heard it, when I'm at the venue with other projects, I always bring my own system.
I'm also a bit unhappy about the fact that the knocking on that §$%& door now is requested to be slower, when actually it was done by the actors, yet the director didn't have time on that day to come over…
… but well, rest of the week is gonna be event tech life on the fast lane, so we'll see.
Perhaps I'll have to find somebody who has some large sheets of metal. And I guess I'll do quite some browsing of CC0 samples on Freesound.
Thanks for the valuable conversation.
@nielso @chrisorstedt from what you are writing, it actually seems more like a communication and expectation issue, than an issue of the sound you have found.
I sometimes make a small collection of sounds, which I just proces very quickly, and let people choose a number. Like “I like #3”-ish, and then just go with that, to avoid conversations which doesn’t really make sense if people have different wishes and different perspectives.
In that sense, browsing sounds seem perfect.
Nielso
Morten Mosgaard
Christopher_Ørstedt
tildesounds