It has been a fort-month since my last post! (Actually more, I just like the word fortnight)
I have certainly gone off the radar for the last year and change. Since my last post I have been involved with a number of different projects. Between developing audio for over 70 items at Kids ii and doing the sound design for a most awesome animation regarding a Norse Chicken God I have been keeping my nose to the grind stone pretty consistently. Also, on another note, since it is fall leaves have unrelentingly assaulted my porch and yard, the devastation is catastrophic….. or extremely crunchy and loud which walking to my front door from my car.
One of the more recent items that I worked was featured in the Bright Starts B.L.I. campaign. The item is called the Bright Starts 3 in 1 Step & Ride Lion. If you have ever tried to design lion/tiger/cougar or any feral beast of the wild sounds for children (emphasis on babies) you will know that coming up with a lion sound that everyone loves is nothing short of challenging. End result, after a slew of lion serenades I found a voice actress who nailed the lion sound perfectly. Check out the video below:
Below is a link to the trailer for the short film I worked on called The Ballad of Thundercluck the film is a narrative origins story of the chicken of Thor. I worked closely with the director Paul Allen Tillery to record vocals, mix the music and create the audio for the film over the last few years through concept to execution. I have had a lot of fun over the last few years bringing all sorts of sound elements together for the project; everything from Tuvan throat singing (practiced and executed by me while commuting in Atlanta traffic), many thunder storm recordings on my back porch and enough chicken clucks to create my own personal choir of cockerels. The project was funded on Kickstarter and is currently screening in a number of festivals the top of which being The Savannah Film Festival and SIGGRAPH. Check out the link below for a trailer:
I will post more soon, I promise. There is plenty I have done and love doing in my spare time that I will post and write about in detail. Anyways, it is late and I am delirious. Enjoy my grammatical errors.
Cheers,
Jim
So I have been gone for a while. Sorry for not updating; but this week I return to you with a new sound. One from beyond the stars in a jungle far away.
This is the crazy alien space monkey. They must invade planet earth to take our bananas, since their planet was deprived of bananas so long ago. If they are not stopped they will pillage every planet in the universe of their yellow potassium goodness. They must be stopped no matter the cost.
I am a nerd no doubt. Recently, I have been watching Star Wars The Clone Wars and really love the vocal effect used on a bounty hunter in the show called Cad Bane. It is very gruff and menacing while still human. An interesting tid bit I noticed was that in later episodes without the pipes on the side of hit neck his voice effect changed ever so slightly losing it’s synthetic edge and going almost completely organic in sound.
I drew from that as inspiration to create my own vocal modifier in Kyma, and recorded myself reading excerpts from The Rime of The Ancient Mariner. You know, cause it’s better than me babbling nonsensically for 30 seconds straight.
Of course I couldn’t help myself so I took the Wacomm pen tablet and set parameters for the effect so I could make performance changes while I was speaking. A few examples of the lines are below.
A few years ago I did research into Ben Burtt’s sound design for Walle. I found out that he used a sound tool called Kyma (By the company Symbolic Sound). Well that was about 3 years ago, and about a month ago I finally shelled out the dough to get it. So far I haven’t even scratched the surface but I have had a blast creating audio.
I created the sounds below by running a grannular synth through a Wacomm Pen Tablet to “draw” the sound out. These are just a few samples of my results.
So while I was home I played with the family dog; he loves his toy RC Car. So much to the point that he goes crazy when you tell him he has to wait while it zips around him. This was his response to said interaction.
Happy Holidays everyone, today’s sound comes to you from Pinetop Arizona. While running my holiday errands I stopped by a lake where a hungry gander was waiting for me. Of course I brought bread, feed him, tried not to get bitten and recorded his reaction to said feeding. Below is Gregory’s reaction (Gregory the Gander has a ring to it)
Further more. This is what Gregory would sound like if he was on Bath Salts.
So I decided to let my dog stay out of her crate for an evening while I went out. When I returned I found I was deprived of my running shoes, a vacuum cleaner and a tube of Christmas wrapping paper.
Talia (my dog) being in the picture is actually accidental, I was taking the photo of the equipment and she photo bombed it. Guess she wanted credit for her handy work.
While tending to my destroyed vacuum cleaner I found that it made a nifty sound without all of it’s components attached and I recorded the file below.
After playing around with the file a bit, pitching it in two directions and running it through some filters I came up with the following sound. Sounds like a piece of heavy machinery motor.
Remember when I said I would post articles that contained awesomeness. Well here is one of them from Steve Johnson, the sound designer for the video game Journey. He goes into detail on how he created the sounds for the game using simple found props. The article comes complete with nifty sound examples from Sound Cloud for almost every sound he discusses
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/179039/the_sound_design_of_journey.php
I decided to get some dry ice and play around with different metal objects being pressed against it; which makes an awesome sound (my dog hates it). Below is just a small example of what came from the session using bowls, forks, Tibetan Singing Bowls and pipes. Note: if you are listening with headphones you may want to turn this down a bit; since it is probable one of the more irritating things you will hear today….. unless you have a friend that listens to dubstep.
I came up with some cool sounds by pitching a few of the files. It sounds a bit like a freighter vessel being cracked in two. Also a nice scream at the end that is a little animal like.
Hi All,
My name is Jim Hunt. I am a Sound Designer working in Atlanta, Ga. I created this blog to share sounds I come up with, interviews and links relevant to the field that I find interesting and hopefully entertain those who drop by.
This is just something I came up with today. I recorded a remote control helicopter and ran it through a number of filters and phasers; this was the result. I will be updating the blog weekly with a new SFX or SFXs that I have come up with
Sound Of The Hunt 