Sound design questions (gunshots)

[Jason Sanders]

Ok im noob when it comes to this. I downloaded a gunshot sounds from soundsnap and they sound tiny and weak. Can anyone give me some pointers or tutorials on tweaking these to sound big and loud. I have adobe audition. ANy help want be great.


thanks
Jason

 

[10s]

You'll probably want the sound of a rifle or cannon, seriously. Pistols sound pretty wimpy. You can take the sound in Audition and lower the pitch, that should thicken it up. You could also double or triple the sound so what we end up hearing is a composite of many recordings. And then you can go to a gun range and record sounds. I did that a few years back and there happened to be a guy shooting a reproduction 52 cal. Sharps Buffalo rifle --- sounded like a cannon!

try lowering the pitch 1st.

 

[stuckfootage]

Try adding a little reverb or delay, something appropriate to the location.
For example, a courtyard or a lot surrounded by buildings might be a 100ms delay.
Inside a parking garage would be a long reverb, say 4 seconds.
Outdoors might be a couple of longish echoes.

Another trick to beef up sound effects is to find a really pure low sound,
like a synth bass, cut it to be super short, like 200 ms,
and then mix it in at a low level with each sound effect.
If you can just barely hear it, it can add some weight to the effect.

You could also try compressing it if it has a long tail that needs to be heard.

Finally, if you want to make something really loud in a mix,
you might have to make other sounds quieter.

 

[robertwerden]

In real life, when a gun is close to you, the sound is deafening. I always hated gun shots that did not overwhelm your senses. Make it as loud as you can. If you want to simulate what a real gun sounds like, why not goto a shooting range and listen to them. A small 9mm will make your ears ring. That is something I like as well. Rarely do you get the ear ringing sound simulated in a film. In the season 2 finale of LOST Mr. Echo blows up some TNT to try and blast through the hatch door. Charlie is in the tunnel running from the blast and when it goes off the shot of him walking around directly after the blast they dulled all ambient sound and put a ring tone to show what he had heard and the damage to his ears.

 

[Noiz2]

A film is not real life. Put a sound on there loud enough to make the audiences ears ring and you will get people walking out, then calling lawyers.

But more to the point, how to get that BIG Hollywood gunshot. First most gunshots that you can find are recorded pretty clean. When people hear things louder than the hearing can take your ear distorts. So one "trick" is to "gain" the gunshot to something like +5 dB. Now you can't actually get over 0 (digital world) so it will clip the sharp part of the shot and it will have more impact and sound a lot louder. Second layer it up. In a "big" movie it is pretty rare to use the "correct" sound for the gun. So get some BIG guns and stick them on other tracks and align them with your "real" shot. Pitching down usually isn't great on gunshots because it tends to soften them and you want them harder and bigger. And the last thing is feel free to add sweeteners. If your close to the gun add some mechanical noise. Not loud enough to really "hear" it but it will thicken the sound. Also you can add all kinds of other stuff. A little whoosh out the barrel, a good hard metal hit on hammer down or on the shot, etc. Canons are probably too big but howitzers are nice an big. Also muskets have a nice pop.