Discover the latest industry news and audio post production.
World renowned Krotos Audio have just released their new 1.1 update to their weapon sound design solution Weaponiser, to include Round Robin triggering, Multi Mode EQ, Expanded Reverb and new Presets from respected industry Sound Designers.
November 23, 2021
Company: Krotos Audio
Product: Battle Bundle
Price: £454.80
Our Rating: 4.1/5
World renowned Krotos Audio have just released their new 1.1 update to their weapon sound design solution Weaponiser, to include Round Robin triggering, Multi Mode EQ, Expanded Reverb and new Presets from respected industry Sound Designers. This is a free update to all current users.
Alongside this, they have surprised us with their first Weaponiser library 'Battle Bundle'. This library aims to add a more varied offering to the Weaponiser lineup, by focusing on more hand to hand combat and sword fighting sound effects. It is one of the most comprehensive libraries of combat-related sounds ever recorded for TV, film and video games, including 5854 high-quality combat sounds – from sword attacks and rapiers to chainmail, shields, metal, hand-to-hand combat, body falls and impacts at 96/192kHz.
Even though the sound effects are developed with Weaponiser in mind, you can choose to extract the WAV files for use in general tracklay, which is a nice touch. The overall quality of the sound is fairly consistent, and is rather neutral and soft in some cases. This works very well when realism is the goal, but hyper real sounds will need some processing. They intend for you to combine sounds and layer them with the on board synthesis engine. This becomes more apparent when browsing through the 'Swords' folder', as there is a Sweetener section that is more distorted and processed for layering. The new Weaponiser update means that these sounds can be combined to generate thousands of assets with the new randomisation features.
We used the engine's sounds combined with our own library to generate some Sound Design for a new film which included baseball bat hits, scrapes and punches. The randomisation helped in this case, as a large variety in each hit was not needed or wanted by the Director, but subtle changes helped reduce the 'Machine Gun Effect'. This would work very well in a Game Audio workflow. The presets are rather nice and have good starting points to build sound cues that would otherwise need a Foley Artist to be completed within a reasonable time.
There are opportunities that were missed with the latest update. These would have heavily increased the potential of the Battle Bundle. First, the amount of samples allowed per bank really could be increased to at least 15+. In our experience, when working on fight scenes, this amount of variation is needed within the file to really make a dynamic and interesting scene with sound. Pitch variation is becoming more obselete by the day because of increased computing ability and hard drive space for samples. It would make Weaponiser not only a great asset creation tool, but a live triggered 'Sound Design Machine' with enough variation to cover even the most dynamic and drawn out battles.
The sounds were noticeably neutral, which was rather surprising on a first listen. Even when combined, I found that reaching for other sound libraries to layer was sometimes needed to achieve the full, compressed effects that many battles need to cut through music in the mix. The cost is quite significant here too, which I think could be justified more if the sounds had more range for this purpose. Perhaps the sweetener section needs to be much more extensive, and have the level of processing quality that will allow it to really punch through a mix.
This library has a large variety of sounds. If you have purchased many sword/battle libraries from other vendors, and you already own Weaponiser, you will mainly be benefiting from the presets in this product, which will certainly speed up Game Sound Design workflows.
This epic box of tricks from Articulated Sounds contains a detailed collection of designed & source sounds of organic elements, actions, characters, items, spells & atmospheres in the realm of Magic.
November 23, 2021
Company: Articulated Sounds
Product: Magic Elements Vol. 1
Price: $119
Our Rating: 4.8/5
This epic box of tricks from Articulated Sounds contains a detailed collection of designed & source sounds of organic elements, actions, characters, items, spells & atmospheres in the realm of Magic. The designed section includes 326 sounds, while the source folder offers 444 individual elements for tweaking, all extensively metadata tagged and at 24Bit 96kHz. A total file size of almost 7GB. There are also glued and separated versions included, for some Sound Designers who prefer each effect variation to be a separate file.
The branding for this product is simply mind blowing, it could rival that of a video game, and really gives an impression of how much time was spent crafting this magical library. Articulated clearly have the best branding in the sound effects industry.
As usual, the quality of effects here is wonderful. The sounds tend to work well in both magical scenarios, as well as the supernatural. We used them in a recent cinema commercial which was packed with superheroes, and files from multiple sections, including ice, earth and generic fit right into the mix. In one instance we used the ice effects to layer with design for a magical ink ball that was conjured up. The earth sounds are most practical, as they work well for earthquakes, or moments where you would like to let the audience know, the world is in trouble. There are plenty of variations which are crucial in a library like this.
One way that this library could have been improved is the variety on offer. Some more challenging elements like Water and 'Light Magic' would really give an extra flavour to the offering. We're sure that these are planned for Vol 2.
If you ever work with the supernatural, superhero, action or disaster movies, this library will surely compliment your palette. And it will do so with finesse, it has quality and quantity.
Get Magic Elements Vol. 1 Now!
We teamed up with YouTube sensation Kriscoart again to discuss Audio Post Production concepts for film.
November 23, 2021
We teamed up with YouTube sensation Kriscoart again to discuss Audio Post Production concepts for film. We completed multiple mix versions of the same film, demonstrating how sound can help shape a scene, or change it's direction entirely.
Furthermore, Kris watches the footage for the first time and gives his initial thoughts and ideas on how the story was different in both versions. Watch below.
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
With our new studio facility in full swing, we have been given some very exciting projects that are allowing us to try new ideas and flex our creative muscles. One of which was a recent campaign for Motorpoint which involved crafting custom sound effects and mix for a fun superhero themed commercial!
November 23, 2021
With our new studio facility in full swing, we have been given some very exciting projects that are allowing us to try new ideas and flex our creative muscles. One of which was a recent campaign for Motorpoint which involved crafting custom sound effects and mix for a fun superhero themed commercial!
Lately we’ve talked a lot about the importance of pre-production, and this happens to be the perfect example. We took a call with the director Phil Hawkins and other departments at Equinox TV to get a good sense of which direction the project needed to go. After the call, we got to work and began building all of the superhero sound effects from the ground up. Telekinesis Woman and X-Ray Man were two challenging sound cues to get right, but since it was so early into the process, we were able to get quick feedback from the director which ensured that everything ran smoothly from concept to delivery. After this point we continued tweaking to ensure that the designed elements blended seamlessly with picture cuts and new VFX drafts from Flipbook Studio.
Motorpoint commented on the commercial: 'We are extremely pleased with the final execution and excited to see its impact over the coming weeks'. The campaign has gone live in Cinemas, TV and VOD across the UK and we're very happy to be part of it.
We recently skyped with YouTube sensation Kris Truini from Kriscoart to discuss some general ideas for Cinematic Sound Design when working in Audio Post Production on your own films.
November 23, 2021
We recently skyped with YouTube sensation Kris Truini from Kriscoart to discuss some general ideas for Cinematic Sound Design when working in Audio Post Production on your own films.
If you enjoyed this video please check out our ultimate guide to audio post- production: https://www.344audio.com/post/the-ultimate-guide-to-audio-post-production-sound-design
