Making Sound Clip as Loud as Possible
 

What can I do aside from boosting an audio clip's levels to make it as loud as possible? Say I want a gunshot to be extremely loud and shock the audience. What can I do in mixing? Any ideas? Thanks.

It's all about the dynamic range of your soundtrack. There can be no loud if there is no quiet.

Hi Will, I am sure some of the experts can chime in, but I would think, raising the level of say a mic close to the gunshot versus the other sounds being lowered if you wished to go the mixing route(I must admit I am a novice, but this is sort of just common sense thought to me).

I would think though, that doing it in post and isolating the sound and boosting its amplitude, but not to the point of distortion would be better... If it were me, I would probably record the gunshot separately with a very near mic so it would be really loud for shock value, and then in post or the editor, simply drop it on the timeline. You should then be able to adjust it to fit your needs I would think. If need be, you could boost it a little in an audio editor also(once again, just my thought process as a novice...)?

Damon

As previously stated...you want things to get quiet before the shot to enhance the contrast. You want the listener to almost lean in to hear and then... baammm!

I would also want to enhance certain low frequencies so that the listener could also "Feel" the shot. Make it fat.

energy of sound is contained easily into high frequency than low.
so make it sound like a "clap" more than a "boom". Loudspeaker from TV set are anyway more effective in medium/high range than in low.
Dynamic also is the key. You need to keep sounds preceding the shot with low dynamic (and preferrably medium level).
low dynamic can be obtained by cutting high frequencies or using compressor or limiters.
if you ask , dynamic is the amount of modulation of a signal, while level is the average between the lowest and highest level. So you can have a high level audio with poor dynamic (modulation) or medium audio level with high modulation.
This trick is often overused in advertising for voice (especially radio) , at the point it is now regulated to avoid transmission problems.

Waves Ultramaximizer does a fine job of making a normalized file sound louder.

Use compression to make it sound right (Waves Ultramaximizer is one).

See this article:
http://www.dv.com/columns/columns_it...cleId=19202270
registration may be required.

His book (audio post production for digital video) I'm pretty sure has some good info on doing this.

Gunshots are very brief, I doubt compression is going to help, in fact it could well work against the aim here. A better approach to making impulse sounds like gunshots or things crashing onto the floor scary is to turn everything else down, i.e. leave enough headroom.
An old trick in horror movies is to get the dialogue down so everyone is straining to listen or turned their TVs up, and then the gunshot or something metallic hits the floor or the unseen cat lets out a wail. Gets 'em every time.
Also if you can get a good gunshot sound helps too, so your audience hears the bullet zing past.

Thanks for your help guys.

I made a before and after using Waves Ultramaximizer. Files are posted below

OK...here are the files. Both are nomalized to .2 db below digital 0.

Compression helps bring out the tail end of the gunshot sound... all that roar that comes after the initial bit/impulse. Glenn has a good example in his two clips (and I'm not just complimenting him because he has the same name as me! honest...).

To me the first one sounds like a far away gunshot, after the compression has stretched it out it becomes a small explosion. Both are loud but neither sound close by and I think that is the trick to making an FX sound loud, it has to sound close if you want your audience it jump.
Not the fault of the compression, the original FX sounds like it was recorded from a good distance from the gun and probably not in front of it either. Which is interesting because in my brief look for good gunshot FXs they all seem to have this same problem. I've heard very realistic gunshots used in Hollywood productions and I think they're recorded with a stereo mic close to the path of the bullet. I guess those guys can afford to loose the odd mic or two.
Our perception of how close a sound is has as much to do with its spectrum as it's volume, muffled sounds seem further away even if they're quieter than less muffled sounds. Both of those sounds seem far away, the quiet snap of dry twig would sound closer and depending on the scene more troubling than the distant booms.

If the Gunshot were in the initial recording phase, I'd definitely want to close mic it at the Hammer, at the barrell and also have a few versions with the mic at selected distances (also use different mics). The acoustic environment would effect any distant mic sounds. A plethera of mic techniques would give you something to work with when it comes to mix time.

We don't really have any information on how this gunshot was recorded or what kind of gun is used. We also don't know who the audience is...film or video? And we don't know if it's a closeup shot for how "close" it needs to sound to match the image. All we know is that it needs to be exaggerated and sudden. It needs to be punched up w/ a little EQ and a little compression. It can't be thin or toyish.

To trick the audience even more, you can slowly ramp the volume down over several seconds to get quieter (not too quiet though)...their ears will adapt to the new volumes slowly, then BANG!

The clip I posted is just an example of how to make an audio file that is normalized, sound louder. The effect I chose is just for demonstration. It is not meant to be used in his film. My library has dozens of shot effects, I loaded one at random. This was just to show that whichever effect Will chooses can be dynamicaly enhanced.

If Will does not have access to this or a simular plug-in, he could zoom in on the waveform and lower the gain on the peak spike, them normalize. This will make the effect louder, especially when combined with the other editing tips provided in other posts.

I believe a huge part of it is how long it takes the first "echo" (if you can call it that?) to reach your ear. The sound from the gun will bounce off the ground and then into your ear/mic. There's a slight delay between that and direct sound.

Good point. Here is an interesting real Hollywood Gun recording. Luckily the Papararzzi was not hit as the bullet zips past his head.


http://www.tmz.com/2007/06/15/shots-...kathy-griffin/

"Hollywood" gunshots are built from a number of different layered sound effects in addition to the original gun sound. No amount of normalizing or compression/limiting can get you there.

Regards,

Ty Ford

this is just an explanation for why any hollywood gunshots sound like atomic bombs. artistically speaking, guns usually sounds bad.
any cop shooting on a car would in reality just make a Bang and a small hole in a car. Mr Arnold when shooting in a movie makes KABOOM and makes the car to explode with huge flames. That's Hollywood and the way we like it.
In the fact, normalizing a sound usually has two effects.
1) it increase general volume
2) it increase dynamic
For sure, if you start with a bad sample, it will not sounds better by just normalizing it.
you can filter it , squeezing energy where it will be audible (removing very high and low frequencies), adding a little echo and making it "clean" so the waves are more efficient at moving air.
You can find on the web many samples that could perfectly fit your needs, if they are sampled with sufficient quality.