Yes you too can create your own sounds & record your own overdubs!

by Kevin Manthei - founder of Triumph Audio

All composers can create their own sounds & record live overdubs. So why aren't you?

Hey composers.  A fellow bedroom dwelling composer here.  I want to tell you some secrets that really aren’t all that secret.  YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN SOUNDS.  Yes you can.  Oh and one more thing…. YOU CAN RECORD YOURSELF PLAYING INSTRUMENTS.  

Ok now that we have taken care of the bold type let’s dive deeper into the subject at hand.

As a sample library developer and owner of Triumph Audio you may think well of course Kevin makes his own sounds he owns a sampling library!  While that is true my company only began 3 years ago.  But I have been creating sounds since I got started composing professionally in the 1990’s.  That is a long time ago - and it represents my entire career.  Let’s look at a few examples over the course of many years.

Back in the late 90’s I was visiting my parents in Minnesota and they lived next to a kid’s park.  They had one of those super old school metal slides.  The kind that if you went down on a hot day you would regret it. Remember those?  Well I sampled the heck out of that thing and those original sounds ended up all over my score for my first animated series - Invader Zim for Nickelodeon. 

Maybe your thinking I was sitting out there with some big crew, fancy mics, laptop, high end convertors, etc, right?  Nope.  I was on vacation and all I had was my camcorder.  Hey this is the 90’s so we still had camcorders.  So I just took a video (which was in strereo) of me banging on the slide and then transferred that audio when I got back home.  I cut it up in my DAW of choice and dropped those samples into Gigastudio at the time.  I have since converted them to Kontakt and in fact they are a small part of my found sound percussion library - Roadtrip Percussion. 

Speaking of Roadtrip Percussion I did a similar thing with my iPhone at the local park that had a cool set of xylophone and marimba type thingies.  There were kids running around playing and suffice it to say the playground was electric with noise and energy.  I used my memo app and recorded in mono and got a few hits of each note for some velocity layers and then cut those up and dropped them into Kontakt when I got back home.  Again just me and a simple recorder - not even my Tascam stereo handheld device, not even those cool ZOOM ones.  But you know what? It has character.  Oh and all of the kids screaming and running around sounds?  They make the patches sound so unique and almost ethereal when you add a little bit of verb. Speaking of character I have a story about a lone toy piano sitting in an Indiana Jones type warehouse.  Inside an old large antique warehouse I found a toy piano - it was a windy day and the warehouse was literally creaking from the wind.  I recorded that toy piano with my iPhone and it is now the library Gorilla Toy Piano and also part of the pristine recorded library Cinematic Toy Piano.  Character, character, character.  We don’t always have to pursue perfectly sterile pristine.

So now that we covered found sound let’s talk about manipulating sound.  Do you have a big reverb plugin like Blackhole or Valhalla’s Shimmer?  Nice!  Do you have some delays?  Maybe some SoundToys or other free plug ins?  Do you know how to transpose audio? To stretch it?  Can you combine some random pieces of audio you have recorded and stack it and try to make something strange and new?  These are some of the simple tricks you can try to take raw audio and make it something new.  In our sample libraries we like to explore the authentic side of the sound but then also go deep and explore the processed side.  Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty and to just take an hour or two and experiment with the sounds and instruments you have recorded. 

Let’s think of an example.  Grab that violin that you bought thinking you would try to learn how to play.  It’s ok, I can’t play either but that doesn’t stop me from making weird sounds.  Grab the bow and let’s bow it behind the bridge and make some longer creepy sounds.  Record yourself let’s say 10 times doing that sound.  Maybe stack them as you record or just do one long session.  Now switch roles and become the producer and mixer.  Start to manipulate the audio - maybe take two of the takes and stretch one so that they start and end at the same time.  Now turn on that saturation, big shimmer verb and a retro delay and listen to your masterpiece.  It’s that simple.  Record the final audio and that is the final wav that you can drop into Kontakt or into a simple sampler on your DAW.  Most DAW’s these days have simple samplers that allow you to just drop in a WAV file.  You also might just like using audio and export all of those ear candy sounds to a folder just waiting to go for your current or next project. 

Let’s finally talk about recording yourself playing instruments you don’t know how to play.  I have two rooms full of random instruments that I really have no business playing.  But you know what - I fool people all the time.  Just recording yourself playing some shakers over the top of your cue can make it pop that much more.  Some hand percussion, some preschool glockenspiel, a few bows on the cello, a few notes on the guitar and even a trumpet line can bring your music to life. 

I have talked to composers that are waiting for the perfect mic, the perfect instrument, the perfect talent and all get bogged down in the pursuit of perfection that they just don’t start.  Just start.  Grab a mic, throw it in front of the instrument and record.  It’s that simple.  There are so many great large condenser mics out there now that are in the under $200 range.  I actually have a few that were around $100 and they sound pretty darn good.  Not as great as my good mics but are the people listening to your music doing A/B tests?  Haha of course not. 

If you actually play an instrument make sure you always try to play those lines in if you compose for the instrument.  Get to be friends with young musicians that are excited to learn how to play for media composers and might be willing to give you some favors.  Reach out to fellow composers and musicians and barter for each other’s time and talents.  Don’t just sit in that room all alone.  Get some live music on your tracks and bring it to the next level.

So let’s wrap this up.
Make your own sounds - you can do it!
Record yourself on your music - it’s not that hard!

We of course create sounds too - check out our full line up here!