They include Ken Johnson, Charles Maynes, Rob Nokes (who taught me), Frank Bry, Watson Wu, and Chuck Russom (among others).īelow is a compilation of links you can explore, together with a description of what you’ll find there. So, when a reader asked me for advice about recording guns, I turned to the masters. There are other recordists far more skilled at recording gun sound effects than I am. However, I prefer to record atmospheres than specific sound effects, so I’m not a gun expert by any means. I’ve tried a few tricks to get around these challenges. Loud, isolated blasts don’t have that advantage. Nuances are often found in subtler areas, or when clips alter from one moment to the next over time. They have many voices, of course, but generally fewer than the dynamic found in animals or people.Īnother reason is that finding character in very loud, short sounds isn’t easy. They’re inert, metal subjects with a fixed expression. One reason is that machines always have less dynamic voices than living subjects. Pulling distinctiveness from guns is admittedly quite hard. Fifty gun shot clips are no better than one, really, if they are all indistinguishable. It’s common for gun recordings to suffer from a troublesome problem: all the gun shots sound identical. Instead, the real trick is finding distinctiveness in gun recordings. You can eventually figure out microphone placement and levels with trial and error. In my opinion, the trickiest part of recording weapons isn’t the technical aspect. Why Recording Gun Sound Clips is Challenging A field recordist needs to balance these elements, not only in the field, but in mastering, later. Capturing loud sounds is understandably challenging, but this is complicated further by the dynamic of the sounds: the blast occurs at the same time as subtler movements, as well as the metallic voices of the gun itself as it fires the shot and ejects the shell.

Part of the reason is because they are incredibly loud. Guns are one of the trickiest categories of sound effects to capture. Gun recordings are also popular for another reason: they’re challenging to record well. When you add in Foley handling, you’ll find that a gun can have as many voices as any sports car. A recordist can explore an endless supply of clips: handguns, rifles, machine guns, or artillery, each modified by ammunition, environment, and more. Just like learning about car makes, custom versions, and differences between yearly models, guns are incredibly nuanced and diverse. There are dozens of reasons gun sound effects attract field recordists.

Gun sound effects free