Hit me baby one more time

[Jag88]

Hey all!
Great to see this forum here.

OK, anybody have tips and tricks for fight scenes sound effects?
Punches, kicks, hits, dislocations, body throws, slaps, bones breaking, skulls cracking etc?

Any favorite fight scenes in particular you might recommend referencing?

Let's get it on!

Thanks!
JA

[Steven1145]

You talking to me??

[Jag88]

Ha ha!

The Sound Ideas ' face, punch' tracks sound so cheesy sometimes.
I've been adding in a touch of sub bass, the occasional wood breaking, with a foley body drop or kick to a cushion.

Anyone else?

Thanks!

JA

[somedude74]

Originally Posted by Jag88

Hey all!
Great to see this forum here.

OK, anybody have tips and tricks for fight scenes sound effects?
Punches, kicks, hits, dislocations, body throws, slaps, bones breaking, skulls cracking etc?

Any favorite fight scenes in particular you might recommend referencing?

Let's get it on!

Thanks!
JA

Close mic yourself breaking a stick of celery in half -- good bone crunching fun.

[ClaySchmitt]

Watch ragging bull for some references. Break celery or chew some lifesaver type candy for bones breaking. Punch a slab of meat, hit yourself, swing a huge piece of wood in front a microphone for the whoosh of the fist.

I get the most success from making a composite effect of all of these techniques. Punch yourself in the chest and slap your arm and then make a composite effect of both of them.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by ClaySchmitt

Watch ragging bull for some references. Break celery or chew some lifesaver type candy for bones breaking. Punch a slab of meat, hit yourself, swing a huge piece of wood in front a microphone for the whoosh of the fist.

I get the most success from making a composite effect of all of these techniques. Punch yourself in the chest and slap your arm and then make a composite effect of both of them.

Noob question Clay.....what do you mean by composite?

Kind Regards,

Matt

[Jag88]

I very recently picked up the 'Boom Tracks' SFX series.
I wish I had gotten it sooner!

Nice low freq body hits and impacts to add just enough oomph to those punches and kicks.

JA

[smsjr]

Matt, think of it as layers. You build layers of sound that when combined form a whole, which is often more effective than just a single effect.

Steve

[introvert]

YouTube - Black Belt Jones - Fun With Sound

First of all, watch that. Thanks to my buddy Ed for posting that on the VGM.

Anyway, yeah, layer stuff up. I haven't really had the chance to do much in the way of body impacts, but I would take a number of those things and stack em up in a multitrack.

I don't know how others work, but this is how I generally create more complex effects (hoping this will be of use to those asking about compositing):

I create a new session in Cubase SX (my DAW of choice, you pick yours) for each type of effect. So for this, I would create a "punches" session, or something similar. I'll create eight mono audio tracks and start gathering source material. Sometimes I rip stuff off a DVD (i.e. Raging Bull) and drop it on a reference stereo track at the top so I can listen to something if I'm trying to get in that neighborhood.

Anyway, I gather my source and start layering and mixing and matching things. When things start to fit together, I'll begin drawing volume, pan or whatever other curves I need to make things fit. Sometimes I'll want to accentuate certain parts of a sound while reducing others... so I either do it on the clip or I automate it. Often I will make edits to the clips and just bounce them on the spot if I'm happy with them, I've always been a "print it and go" type. Too many options leads to deadlines missed.

After that, sometimes I sub it through a compressor to kind of gel things together, and then I export the sound effect and move on to wherever else I need to go with it (in my case, it's often scripting it into a game, but I could drop it in a folder of effects to use for a linear mix if I were doing that sort of thing).

Below is a screenshot of a smoke grenade I built last week for a project I'm working on:



the top track you see is, I think, a grenade burst. I EQ'd it a bit and dipped the volume after the attack.

The second track you see is just the transient clip off a small explosion sound

The third is a basketball bounce

The fourth is a burst of air from a pneumatic device

The fifth is another explosion that I liked the overall character of, so I EQ'd a bit and made it fit

The sixth and seventh are just bits of dirt debris

Hope this is of help to someone...

[big country]

what the hell does that sound like ?









don't worry the flashy stuff is free!

[introvert]

A smoke grenade. A sizable explosion with a puff of smoke and some debris to go with it. I'd post a WAV, but it would be a violation of my NDA. Sorry =/

Maybe I should make something new and post it just so people can hear the thing.

[jude]

i used to beat the crap out of lettuce and the side of a beef. that or me and the other foley artist would smack each other around