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We take you behind the scenes of our new sound effects library British Soldier Voices.
November 23, 2021
In this article, we take you behind the scenes of our new sound effects library British Soldier Voices. This library was a challenge both from a creative and logistical standpoint, with over 800 lines of dialogue and voice clips that needed to be recorded and edited.
We began production of this library with a research phase looking at the genuine commands and terminology that British Forces use when deployed on operations. We spoke to various members of the armed forces who consulted on the operational language that is used in conflicts. This was a very interesting process, as it opened our eyes to the communication difficulties that soldiers face when operating in chaotic and noisy environments. Most of the commands are born out of practicality as communication needs to be clear and direct, with little chance of words being miss-heard as something else. We were also given lots of slang phrases that are specific to the British military which gives this library a further level of realism and depth.
Using this research we then scripted over 800 lines of combat dialogue and military commands. These included generic terms such as "Move out" and "Cover me" as well as phrases from the NATO phonetic alphabet and contextual lines to represent a soldier interacting with pieces of equipment. We added in some of our own phrases that were inspired by contemporary video games and cinematic representations of special forces units.
Once we had our lines scripted, it was then time to proceed with the recording process. Our Lead Audio Craftsman Alex Gregson jumped in the booth to give us his best special forces rendition and he absolutely smashed it! Most lines were recorded at 3 different intensities (Whisper, Talk, Shout) to reflect the different combat scenarios an operator might face.
Each line has been meticulously edited and carefully balanced to ensure consistency, whilst retaining the initial intensity of the performance (whispered, talking, shouting). The library contains both processed and dry versions of each file. For the dry sounds, we used minimal processing to achieve a natural and honest sound, whilst for the processed sounds we used a combination of filtering and lo-fi effects to represent dialogue being heard through radio communications. We then applied extensive metadata to make navigating the files and finding the exact sound you need as streamlined as possible.
British Soldier Voices is ideal for sound designers and audio professionals who are working on military/police inspired projects and would be especially useful for American/Canadian sound designers who are in need of authentic British voices. The library contains plenty of content that is applicable to historical military contexts such as ww1/ww2, so it has much more to offer than just sounds from a modern military setting.
This library would also be great for game audio professionals, as we have structured the library in a way that gives maximum creative options for programmers. This includes numerous 1-word phrases that can be combined to create endless variations of military dialogue, perfect for ambient and non-specific effects as well as direct action and character moments.
We hope you enjoyed this article. This library has involved every member of the 344 Audio team and has been a truly collaborative effort. We are very proud of the final result and we cant wait to see the library being used in your projects!
Get the library here!
Diversity Sound Effects Library offers up a collection from a vast category of general use sound files with very detailed, edited and carefully assigned metadata keywords for fast file searching.
November 23, 2021
Company: The Sound Pack Tree
Product: Diversity: General Sound FX Library
Price: €365.00 (Usually €495.00)
Our Rating: 4.7/5
Diversity Sound Effects Library offers up a collection from a vast category of general use sound files with very detailed, edited and carefully assigned metadata keywords for fast file searching. Providing an easy workflow for post-production and game audio Sound Designers.
Diversity is a consistent collection of 10,000 split files (or 3649 files in the combined version) of Sound Effects, each of the download options provides a runtime of 42 hours. The library is only available via download. As the title of this library suggests, there is a diverse range of general sound effects, and a wide range of categories, including common sounds, rarities and practical material for use in different projects.
The sound files are recorded, edited and arranged in the folder at a very high standard, focusing on delivering a fast search function. Using the detailed description added to each file, with rich metadata keywords, searches will provide not only the specific sound you are looking for but also other sounds that will suit the theme.
The quality of this sound library is very consistent and delivers recordings which are rich in frequency content (the main reason why the Sound Designer chose to record with the Sanken CO-100k microphone). This microphone has a frequency response from 20Hz to 100kHz, which means that in some cases, we can afford to time stretch or pitch shift whilst maintaining the quality of the effects. The impacts category is a particular favorite, as it provides well-designed sounds, making it usable without further processing. The wide dynamic range of the library provides room for layering and creating the perfect elements for your project.
The WAV files are delivered as a mixture of mono and stereo audio within a 24bit 96kHz format. By having all files in the same format, it helps to speed up the searching process. Many of the files are loopable. This offers a smooth transition between loop iterations, saving time and avoiding clicks and pops. Randomly browsing into the library content, we projected ourselves into various places, constantly finding interesting sounds that are a perfect match to the environment we wanted to build.
The effort and time spent building this library is shown visually with the titles of the audio files. It is clear that the content within Diversity was recorded in different corners of the world. On top of that, it includes many of the common sounds you expect to hear: traffic, trains, restaurants, churches, and halls. With this product, you'll also get recordings from the surroundings of the cities: villages, forests, waterfalls, jungles, oceans, birds, insects, animals. Everything is captured, edited and delivered to a high-quality standard and is ready to be used in a project.
The Sound Designer focused more on the use of workflow, rather than delivering a ‘’massive chunk of sounds’’. The loopable aspect of many of the effects is appealing to the general user. The whole library itself, either in the combined or split version, comes in at 71 GB. It seems that the designer has chosen the most useful sounds for each category. We would describe his work as ’’strong essences in small packages’’ rather than including lots of content of variable quality.
In the following section, we listened to the sounds of each category to share our very first impressions:
Unreal Machine I: Absolutely fabulous sonic characteristics for each sound, giving the feeling of a futuristic era.
Money: There are many different coins recorded in this category, vast amounts of sounds and none are similar to each other. It seems that someone exchanged a lot of coins for this category! More sounds of paper notes could've been added.
Construction & Tools: Good sounds for construction ambience, the number of hand tools and power tools included show the effort that was put into this category. These sounds could be used in a project with close-up footage of a handyman working.
Marbles: The sound of childhood.
Letters: From paper to paperless, from pencil to marker, these sounds cover the entire letter industry. This category brings out the classic use of paper letters, there are very detailed sounds of each individual item used for writing, even taking into consideration the surface when writing a letter. This section also includes recordings of more modern technologies such as keyboards.
Dropping Things: Sounds of dropping items. Adding some bigger sized items would make this a perfect sound category.
Footsteps Loops II: Clean and very versatile selection of footstep sounds.
Futuristic Doors: The name of the category says it all. A really good selection of sounds, perfect for futuristic films… Star Wars, here we come.
Shepard Ambiences: A Shepard Tone is an audio phenomenon that creates the impression of endless rising or falling. This sound category delivers amazing sounds for creating tension and illusion in the picture.
Sonic Seaside: This category covers the natural side of audio at a seaside location. The sounds within are fascinating and are useful in many projects, such as movies, games and commercials. Paddling sounds are the ones that attracted our attention.
The Household Pack: A huge selection of sounds that can be used in various types of projects. Clean and very natural recordings.
The Nature Pack: Covered all aspects of the rural side of nature, but is missing wild animal sounds.
The Sci-Fi Pack: Amazing for game audio projects. There was a massive effort put into this category, judging by the number of sounds. We can really appreciate the control over the high frequencies in this section.
The Whooshes & Impacts Pack: Useful sounds for creating a moment you would want the audience to focus on.
This Library Sucks! : Creative sounds that can challenge your imagination.
Trains: From the outside to the inside of a train, all aspects of train sounds have been captured.
Unreal Ambience: Mystery and science-fiction is the predominant inspiration for these sounds. Accompanied by glitches, this creates a totally different environment than which we live in.
The concept of this library is to have lots of ticking clock sounds of various shapes, sizes, and materials.
November 23, 2021
We are excited to announce that we have begun work on the new sound effects library for the 344 Audio online store! The library is called Tick Tock and is based around ticking clock and timepiece sound effects.
The concept of this library is to have lots of ticking clock sounds of various shapes, sizes, and materials. This meant some very fun experimentation during recording, in which we created clock-like effects from as many different sources as we could find.
Some of the objects in our studio used as source sound for the library.
Sound sources included many antiques that we have, including old clock mechanisms made from brass, a stamp iron, and a vintage metronome and lots more. It was surprising to us how many common objects can be used to create interesting tick tock effects, so once we started recording we couldn't stop until we had tried just about everything in our possession.
The library will consist of loopable 1-minute sounds that have been designed from abstract objects into clock-like effects. We look forward to releasing this library and sharing our work with you all.
If you enjoyed this article please check out our ultimate guide to audio post- production: https://www.344audio.com/post/the-ultimate-guide-to-audio-post-production-sound-design
We were lucky enough to be invited down to London for the Bafta awards 2020.
November 23, 2021
We were lucky enough to be invited down to London for the Bafta awards 2020. The awards ceremony took place in the iconic Royal Albert Hall, and recognised the outstanding achievements of filmmakers and creatives from the UK and worldwide.
It was a very special evening and we feel extremely honoured to be present at such a prestigious event. The Baftas are the biggest night in the UK film industry, so to be a part of it was a very joyous occasion for us indeed!
The big winner of the evening was of course 1917, which took home 7 awards, including the award for best sound. Hildur Guðnadóttir also made bafta history by becoming the first solo female to ever win in the best score category. It was also a great evening for Top Boy star Michael Ward, as he picked up the rising star award.
With the academy awards now just 2 weeks away, it will be interesting to see if 1917 will continue its domination in the big categories, or if it will face challenges from rival films such as The Irishman, or the dark-horse nominee Parasite.
The evening had a very cheerful atmosphere to it and felt like a fantastic celebration of the creative talent we have here in the UK and oversees. Hopefully, we will be the ones receiving an award in the not too distant future.
For this project, we oversaw all of the audio components within the film, including dialogue, foley, sound design, and mixing. We also mixed the score which was recorded with a live orchestra.
November 23, 2021
We are excited to announce that we have completed work on the upcoming period film Farewell Waltz. The film, helmed by writer/director Kaine Levy tells the turbulent love story of an impoverished Jamaican boy and a wealthy English girl on the eve of World War II. For this project, we oversaw all of the audio components within the film, including dialogue, foley, sound design, and mixing. We also mixed the score which was recorded with a live orchestra.
The main challenge of this project was creating a consistent sonic world that took the audience to the 1930s. This meant the careful selection of sound effects that felt at home within that time period, as well as precise editing to remove any sonic traces of the 21st century. This project required a lot of subtle details to really bring each scene to life and to achieve the tone that the director was after.
The film utilises the iconic speech from British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in which he announces that war has been declared against Germany. We were tasked with taking the original broadcast audio and cleaning it up to the standard you would expect of a modern film. This was achieved through the careful use of noise removal tools and dynamics processing. The end result sounds crisp & clear like a professional voice-over and sits perfectly within the film. We are extremely pleased with the way this turned out.
The film contains a truly superb musical score, written by Colombian composer Felipe Téllez. The score was recorded using a live orchestra in eastern Europe and mixed by 344 Audio in our Stephenson Suite. To keep things in line with the overall sonic vision for the film, we used harmonic processing such as tape saturation to add colour and give the score a more vintage feel. We were taking a pristine modern recording and "dirtying it up" to make it fit the time period of the film. This took some fine-tuning, but eventually, we were able to find the right balance that fits the story, whilst still showing off the music in its best light.
In conclusion, Farewell Waltz was an absolute joy to be involved with and we are extremely proud of what the team has achieved. You can find out more information on the film via the link here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11110828/
If you enjoyed this article please check out our ultimate guide to audio post- production: https://www.344audio.com/post/the-ultimate-guide-to-audio-post-production-sound-design
