What's This Sound Effect?

adamr316

adamr316

Well-known member
I hear it all the time on reality shows. It sort of sounds like the sound this cello player did for me one time by running up the strings with their bow but it sounds like a higher octave string instrument. Kind of sounds like a door creaking opening but not.

Sound clip is attached, effect is at :03 . View attachment cliche sound.zip
 
Alex H. said:
It's a violin... more a part of the score than SFX editing.
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OK cool. I called it a sound effect because I hear it on Whale Wars, Kitchen Nightmares, and Big Brother ALL the time when something "dramatic" happens. Like the rattlesnake sound effect. Two overused sound effects in reality shows.
 
Actually, to me it sounds like a bowed cymbal. I used to do this all the time in the percussion department in college to get that desired effect for sound design project. You cake a violin bow and run it along the edge of the cymbal. It's amazing what certain things sound like when you take a violin bow to them.
 
davefisk said:
Actually, to me it sounds like a bowed cymbal.
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The slide tells me that it's a string... can't change the note on a cymbal, unless using pitch shift in post.

However, taking a violin bow to different objects is a great trick for horror/suspense effects. Also, dry ice on metal makes some really wicked sounds, and different kinds of metal objects get very different results. Lots of great ways to make chilling sounds.
 
You'd be surprised what you can get a cymbal or gong to do with a bow. You can change the pitch by the angle you have the bow because when you do that you change what part of the cymbal is vibrating. It's really weird. I'm not saying it's not a string sound, I'm just giving my opinion based on personal experience. It sounds too harsh to be a string sound to me. If you had to get that sound consistently out of a live performer, it would be hard to do with a cymbal, or any other percussion instrument. If you want something similar, but more eerie, mess around with a bow and cymbals, gongs, vibraphone, marimba, table leg...really anything that is solid and not too thick that can vibrate.
 
Actually I would put money on Davids suggestion, except that I would say scraped cymbal. I have recorded and used many a scraped cymbal and that is exactly what it sounds like. Actually it's one of many sounds you can get out of it. It also sounds a touch like dry Ice and metal, but my money is on the cymbal.

The scrape is done with the point of a drum stick and you push really hard on the center of the cymbal and work your way to the edge while holding the edge. So the pitch changes as you go and then at the last you let go so you get the ring out.

The catch/ disclaimer is that stuff is very manipulated these days. I've recorded a lot of "new music" and there is a huge variety of unexpected sounds you can get out of instruments but the metallic shimmer to me screams metal. The disclaimer part is that I have used convolution reverbs with IR's derived from metal scrapes to give all kinds of things a metallic sheen. So with enough manipulation I could be fooled.

My suggestion since this is interesting, is that people upload samples. Karlw, your a violinist so record something that sounds like the sample. My studio is still mostly in boxes but I should be able to find some cymbal scrapes and Dry Ice.
 
I have done lots of cymbal scrapes, and what Noiz describes is what I meant. I've bowed them too. They are similar, but a scraped cymbal usually gives you a higher pitched sound than a bowed cymbal. But, like he said, if it is used in music or sound design, it is usually a recording that has been manipulated. Having spent about 10 years performing in orchestras I can tell you scraping or bowing a cymbal is not something you can get a the same exact sound from for the exact same duration on each performance. Usually when I've seen it notated, it's given a duration and no specific pitch or pitch bending notated because the composer knows (or should know) that there are so many variables (size of cymbal. type of metal. thickness.) that you can't notate those sort of things.
 
My library is buried in a box but I found this video that demos some of the sounds. The one's I have recorded were just going out from the center but you can still hear the timberal changes in the video where he is just going around the cymbal in a more continuous way.
 
Alex H. said:
The slide tells me that it's a string... can't change the note on a cymbal, unless using pitch shift in post.
Click to expand...
It's not relevant to the original question, but I just thought I'd pipe in that you can change notes on cymbals and gongs by lifting them in and out of water while hitting/bowing/whatever. And it's pretty fun. :)

And another fun but now cliched sound in the same family is the ol' waterphone. Look it up on youtube if you don't know it.
 
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