This past week when Doomicane Sandy was heading up the Eastern coast, I took the opportunity to go to a local park here in the middle of North Carolina to try to record some cool wind and tree creaks.
While I debatably got some decent wind sounds I wasn't able to grab the creaking sounds I wanted. But I was able to get some wood creaks I didn't know I needed.
Bike ramp?
I had decided to walk along the bike trail rather than the pedestrian trail to minimize encountering anyone while recording. About halfway through the bike trail I came across this wooden ramp-thingy off to the side.
I thought to myself: "Hey, this will probably get some good hollow wooden footsteps". So with my blimp-encased NTG-3 in hand, I walked up the ramp only to discover it wasn't fixed in place!
The structure had more in common with a see-saw than a ramp, balanced right in the middle with a fulcrum. So as I would walk back and forth along the planks the whole ramp would rock back and forth and make some fantastic creaking sounds!
Standing in the middle, above the fulcrum I shifted my weight back and forth and was able to get some pretty cool creaks and slams out of this unexpected treasure. Fortunately the wind was fairly calm while recording the ramp, (much to my dismay for the intended purpose of my trip!) Funnily enough; the day after I recorded this I had a time-sensitive project pop up with a specific need for such wooden, creaking slam sounds!
While I wasn't able to get very much in the way of wind and tree creaks, I sure as hell got something better.
Downloading the track above for free allows you to use it royalty free in any capacity commercial or otherwise as long as you do not sell the file as a SFX library sound. This sound will also be available on Freesound.org once it has been through the approval process.
Recently we purchased a scale from IKEA, when we finally got around to using it we realized that it must be off, as I do not weigh 240 lbs. As we did not have a receipt, or the desire to drive 2 hours to return a $10 scale the only course of action left to me was to take the damn thing apart and record its insides. (What else?)
I recorded and edited together around 7 and a half minutes of various configurations and performances of me making some sort of repetitive, engine-like sound. I can foresee myself using these sounds for an old-timey engine or car and as such I tried to get some sort of acceleration and deceleration sounds into there as well, just in case
Please download it (as it is free, like all of my Bandcamp stuff) and skip around the file and listen to some variations, I tried to vary the performances as much as I could within reason to ensure a useful recording to someone.
Not much going on inside.
Do let me know if you use it in your projects, I would love to hear how it gets used!
So I put together this thing in Construct 2 and I thought I would share what I have done so far. First off I'll break down what is going on:
-You touch small shapes to unlock big shapes and then drag those big shapes onto the grid to play back a sound loop.
Screenshot of the Construct Audio App
I have a bit of experience with interactiveaudio scenes. It is definitely one of the things I love to have fun with. In this case I wanted to steer the app's function into a Buddha Machine direction. The Buddha Machine plays back a selectable sound loop that can be adjusted in volume as well as pitch.
Much like the Buddha Machine I did not want to make a music creation app, I wanted to make a music playback app. The ability to slightly tweak what you listen to but still have the artists full vision come through is more interesting to me than giving a user a bunch of sound loops or instruments and hope they don't get bored.
So far I have implemented a very simple interaction mechanic of touching objects to unlock other objects that can then be manipulated. I am a bit at the mercy of Construct 2 and what visual scripting actions it has avaliable to me (which are in fariness, pretty extensive). I plan on adding more depth, loops and mechanics as I iterate on this little project. I hope to add more visual effects and prettyness once I have a clear vision worth bothering Vanessa Nichols about.
The biggest roadblack in fleshing this project out is the lack of HTML5 audio functions. It is well-known that HTML5 audio is rather atrocious. For example: Construct 2 only allows you to import .wav audio files which it then turns into .ogg and .m4a files so that the audio can be played back on the myriad of browsers with different file support. This adds a bit of file bloat, a criticism which is only mitigated by how seamless the workflow in Construct 2 is to deal with audio files. Unfortunately some HTML5 audio functions like reverse-playback arent currently supported in Construct 2 which would be rather useful, at least in my case.
Why am I doing this in HTML5 at all? Because the visual scripting is super-easy to use, it is reasonably priced, and it just works. As much as I would like to learn how to fully program HTML5 or to hire a programmer I can't afford to do so with a project like this, even if it is something I really love to make. I think Construct 2 will get me to where I need to go.
Please let me know what you think of the project, if it makes sense, if it just plain doesn't work, or if you have a super-cool idear. My Twitter is @KomradeJack
