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We take you through our process for recording custom dirt bike sound effects for the short film Salt Water town.
November 23, 2021
When it comes to crafting compelling and immersive soundscapes for narrative drama projects, there is nothing we like more than getting out in the field and recording our own custom sound effects. In this article we will take you through our process for recording custom dirt bike sound effects for the short film Salt Water town, and share with you some tips and techniques to implement in your own custom recording sessions.
Project: Salt Water Town
Director: Dan Thorburn
Cast: Owen Teale, Tom Glynn-Carney
We recently completed full audio post production on the short film Salt Water Town, which contains several scenes featuring dirt bikes. Rather than pulling sounds from a library we felt that a bespoke approach would deliver a much more compelling result, and so, we embarked on a journey up to Yorkshire to conduct a recording session at a private dirt track with the KTM 250 Enduro 2 stroke 250cc motorcycle and a professional rider.
This session included a large potion of the 344 Audio team with Alex, Ryan and Prestin all lending a hand towards capturing these sounds. Having multiple team members on hand not only made the process more efficient from a workflow standpoint, but also allowed us to capture various perspectives at once, something that was very important for the film as there was a range of different shots featuring the dirt bikes, from close ups to super wides and establishing shots.
The team were hard at work capturing sounds from various perspectives.
During the recording we had an iPad on hand for real time play back. We used this to listen through the recordings as we were making them and make small adjustments along the way to achieve the desired sound. We were also leaning heavily on the experience of the motorcycle rider, as they had a strong input in terms of how the bike should sound during different speeds and ranges of motion, as the engine sounds different depending on the gear configuration, and rpm. This was a huge help, given the fact that we were trying to achieve the most authentic sound possible.
"As rising sea levels loom across the coast of Wales, a father and son clash over the future of their failing caravan park "
Salt Water Town is a short drama directed by Dan Thorburn, starring Owen Teale of Game of Thrones fame, and Tom Glynn-Carney who is most known for his performance in Dunkirk. The story follows a father & son who operate a caravan park on the coast in wales, and must confront their collective futures.
The bleak & weather-beaten welsh coast is the perfect backdrop for the drama to play out, and alongside the aforementioned dirt bike scenes, there were several key moments in the script that let us get creative and really flex our sound design muscles.
Actors Owen Teale and Tom Glynn-Carney who play father and son in Salt Water Town.
As always at 344 Audio, we strive to maximise the value that we can extract from all of our endeavours, and so we have compiled the dirt bike recordings into a sound effects library which is available for purchase on the 344 audio store.
You can find the library on our store via this link.
Check out some audio excerpts of our dirt bike recordings in this short clip.
This library contains an extensive selection of recordings taken from our dirt bike session including pass-bys at multiple perspectives, idling and close up engine sounds and auxiliary effects such as the helmet being taken on and off, sound of changing gears, operation levers and switches on the handlebars etc.
All sounds have been carefully edited and mixed for maximum cinematic impact, meaning that you can drop them straight into your timeline and get creative with minimal fuss.
We hope you enjoyed checking out this article!
We can officially celebrate achieving the milestone of 45 sound effect library releases on the 344 Audio store.
November 23, 2021
344 Audio has undergone numerous changes over the past 18 months including a new premises of operations, new additions to the team, and new creative partnerships. Throughout these changes, we have remained firmly committed to maintaining the same quality of audio craftsmanship that we are known for and continuing to expand our offering of products and services.
In the daily hustle and commotion of running an audio post-production company, it can be difficult to find the time to look back on your body of work and reflect upon how things have unfolded. It is however extremely beneficial to recognise when a significant goal has been met, and we believe strongly in the importance of marking the achievement of key milestones with celebration and giving yourself adequate credit for a job well done.
It is with great pleasure that we can officially celebrate achieving the milestone of 45 sound effect library releases on the 344 Audio store! We are forever thankful to our team of audio craftsmen, whose tireless work and attention to detail have made this achievement possible. 45 libraries is truly a heroic number to have reached and we are all thrilled to have reached this milestone.
Our next goal is to have reached 100 store product releases by the end of 2021. This is an ambitious target to reach and one that will require a lot of work to do to achieve, but we are all hungry and determined to make this goal a reality.
In the process of reaching 45 libraries, we have been taken to some wild and varied places, creatively speaking, which inevitably leads to some fun and memorable moments for the team whilst working on them.
Some of our highlights and favourite moments from creating our first 45 sound effects libraries include:
Geese – The team took to the parks and waterways of greater Manchester to record Geese in their full range of natural behaviors. While this sounds simple enough on the face of things, it was actually a marathon undertaking, and we have all probably gained a degree in geese behavior from completing this library.
Zombie Specimens – Alex and Jack channeled their inner monster to create this frightening collection of Zombie vocalisations.
Sprint car racing – This library featured a unique set of recordings captured on location at a sprint car racing track in Canada. These vehicles are very unique and have a raw, ferocious sound to them which was a joy to put together into a library.
Sci-Fi voices – This library again featured the vocal talents of our team but in a more light-hearted fashion than Zombie specimens. Special highlights here included Alex’s performance as a robot police officer and Jack's comedic performance of a helper robot sidekick.
The Burger Kitchen – We love to get our hands dirty and The Burger Kitchen took this to a new level. We spent a day chopping and slicing various food ingredients and recording a range of sizzling burger cooking sound effects.
Ultimate chess SFX – Inspired by The Queens Gambit, In what Is likely THE definitive Chess sound effects library on the market, we meticulously recorded a beautiful wooden chess set, capturing all the sounds you could expect to find during an intense game of chess.
Geophonic Design – We love any library that gets us out of the studio and recording sounds in the real world. Geophonic Design made use of our Geofon seismic microphone, normally used to record earthquakes. We took this out and recorded a ton of super low-frequency sounds which we used to create an array of otherworldly ambiences.
In addition to the previously mentioned projects we have also had the pleasure of working alongside many talented practitioners within our industry, so we would like to take a moment to shine some light on their fantastic contributions as well.
With special thanks to
Glithedtones - https://glitchedtones.com/
Georgi Valchev of West Wolf Audio - https://www.asoundeffect.com/sounddesigner/west-wolf/
Rob Pepper of Effectsworks - http://effectsworks.com/
Matías Cerviño - https://www.facebook.com/matiascsfxl
We hope you enjoyed checking out this article!
In this article, we will explain our process for creating this library and share with you some of the lessons we learned along the way that can be applied to future projects.
November 23, 2021
Making a sound effects library is an immensely fun experience. It forces you to think creatively and explore objects and sounds that we are used to hearing every day in much greater detail than we normally would do.
However, how do you approach the task when the subject you are recording is not an inanimate object but rather a living, breathing creature? This was the challenge we faced when setting out to record our Geese sound effects library.
In this article, we will explain our process for creating this library and share with you some of the lessons we learned along the way that can be applied to future projects.
The planning stage is an important part of any sound effects library, as it allows you to sketch out your visions for the library and exactly how you will go about recording them.
Typically this involves deciding upon a concept for the library, which sound sources you will be recording, and the desired aesthetic you want to achieve with the final product. You will also plan out how the recording will take place. Will the library require outdoor field recording sessions or can we capture all of the material we need inside a studio environment?
With Geese being wild animals, however, the planning process would be a little different, as we would have minimal control over the Geese' behavior and had to factor in the time of day we would be recording in, weather conditions, and the level of human background noise.
Additional factors that we had to consider when recording included:
The recording process for this library would require multiple recording sessions in order for us to capture the wide range of material that we needed. Our home city of Manchester has a large canal system that attracts geese to its waters, but we would also be making use of nearby wetland areas, and other bodies of water such as rivers, reservoirs, and small lakes.
Our initial plan was to use a 2-person team using boom poles, with one person capturing sounds more up close and the other hanging back to capture ambiences. This approach proved to be unsuccessful, as the geese were discouraged by the boom pole and likely felt threatened by our presence. It was clear to us at this point that we would have to modify our approach to something more discrete.
This is one of the main things we learned about recording animals compared to objects or people. You have to take the time to learn their behaviour and work around them, rather than expecting them to react how you would like them to.
It would take a couple more sessions with lots of trial and error before we felt like we had an approach that was effective and would yield quality results. The change that made the biggest difference was abandoning the boom poles for the more discrete SONY PCM D-100, as this could be operated without the Geese noticing and they could remain at ease. We kept the 2-person team but only used 1 person for recording, with the other acting as more of an assistant, reading the behavior of the geese and trying to move them where we wanted them to go.
Once we had a better understanding of the animals and were able to be amongst them, we then switched our focus to capture as much of their natural behaviour as possible, and highlight the different personalities of the Geese.
Alex discussing our recording techniques for capturing the most natural behaviour of the geese.
Some Geese for example were more aggressive and territorial. Once we had gotten to know who was who, we would see two of the more aggressive geese moving into the same area and we could anticipate that there would be some kind of noisy altercation and we had to move swiftly into position to capture it. Other animals were more relaxed and had a less aggressive temperament., These were better suited to recording more close-up sounds, or sounds of the Geese co-operating with each other, swimming together, etc. Overall it was a really fun experience for us to learn the way these animals behave and show off all of their individual sonic personalities in the best light.
Some of the Geese sounds we captured include:
The editing process for this library was fairly extensive, given the amount of material we captured. The main challenge would be sorting through all of the varied recordings, separating them out into different categories of sounds, and then selecting the best material from within these.
We would have to be quite brutal in deciding which content made the cut, and this came down to having a clear vision in mind for exactly what we want the library to be, and what it would contain. In the end, we felt it was necessary to complete multiple passes on the recordings to ensure the highest level of quality, and this involved pretty much the entire team at 344 Audio.
All in all, while this library presented a unique challenge we all found the experience to be very enjoyable and creatively rewarding. It's not often that you get to spend so much time with an animal that is commonly viewed as less-than-spectacular, so you really gain a fresh appreciation and understanding of these animals.
There are of course a few lessons learned from the process that we will carry forward to future projects when recording animals or something similar, so follow these tips for a successful time recording your local wildlife.
We hope you enjoyed checking out this article!
We were pleased to go live on Instagram to discuss our upcoming project BARBARA 'A Batgirl Fan Film' which is the sequel to Batman: Knightmare from B Square Productions.
November 23, 2021
Are you interested in how a Composer and Sound Designer discuss a project in pre-production?
Here's a video of Alex Gregson, lead audio craftsman at 344 Audio, and Sean Sumwalt, music composer discussing the pre-production stages of a project.
We were pleased to go live on Instagram to discuss our upcoming project BARBARA 'A Batgirl Fan Film' which is the sequel to Batman: Knightmare from B Square Productions. The film is directed by Brian Bowles, unfortunately, due to some technical difficulties, he could join the live discussion.
Alex and Sean shared their approaches to the previous batman film and how they worked remotely in terms of sound design and music. They have also shared how they are going to use different techniques to bring the soundscape to the next level. A lot of viewers joined for the live session and commented that it was really helpful and informative for beginners and other people who like to know the stages of production in a film.
We are excited to join this action-packed project in bringing sound to life.
Stay tuned for more details about our upcoming projects. Thanks for reading.
344 Audio will helm sound design once more with Alex Gregson as lead sound designer, bringing next level sound design.
November 23, 2021
Here at 344 Audio, we are forever grateful to be in regular collaborations with talented filmmakers from around the globe, and we do everything we can to champion them and get the word out about their work.
We are pleased to share with you all the exciting news that the sequel to Batman: Knightmare from B Squared productions is now in the development stage, and they are accepting donations towards their crowdfunding campaign.
The sequel, titled BARBARA 'A Batgirl Fan Film' follows Barbara Gordon on her journey into the depths of Gotham's underworld as her crime fighting alter ego Batgirl. Award-winning director Brian Bowles is back at the helm once again, and will also be reprising his role as the deliciously evil Joker.
Here is the films official description form the Indiegogo crowdfunding page:
BARBARA is a tragic, action packed psychological thriller. This fan film takes a look into what happened before Barbara/Batgirl became Oracle. Batgirl's emotions and physicality will swing all over the place as an ominous mood of what is to come lurks throughout the film.
We love the sound of this story, and cant wait to be involved in bringing it to life though our sonic creations. The first film Batman: Knightmare contained many epic sound design moments, and the team here at 344 Audio are all salivating at the chance to dive back into the murky world of Gotham city and flex our creative muscles once again.
The crowdfunding campaign has a target of $10,000 and they are already making large strides towards smashing their target! Their target budget will allow for a more ambitious film than seen in Knightmare, with a wider range of characters, locations whilst maintaining the same level of high production quality.
As taken from the crowdfunding page, the funding will be used for the following:
If you like the sound of this project then please head on over to the fundraising page on Indiegogo and consider donating generously: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/barbara-a-batgirl-fan-film#/
Thanks for checking out this article!
