Unlimited access to a large echoey warehouse. - Social Sound Design

Unlimited access to a large echoey warehouse.

2011-08-10T20:27:33Z

I walked into a building a friend of mine owns and it's huge - large concrete building which used to house a custom wood mill and shop. The large center room is at least 4 stories high and about a basketball court's width. The concrete interior creates an amazing decay which preserves all of the low end of a sound set off inside it.

I'm thinking of worldizing with my pair of Genelec speakers and making some great effects but I don't know where to start - it's like getting to a music or movie store and suddenly forgetting all of those movies you told yourself you would buy.

I'm going to bring along some transient material but does anyone have any suggestions or even want to send me a sound of theirs for me to play back and re-record inside the space?

Let me know!

Thanks -

Answer by Jay Jennings for Unlimited access to a large echoey warehouse.

2011-08-10T20:34:10Z

First thing I would do is create an impulse response. That way you'll always have access to that location through Altiverb, TLSpace, etc. (Or at least a pretty close facsimile to that space).

After that, it's anything goes. Drop some metal, squeak some hinges, pop some balloons, scream your lungs out.

Answer by Stavrosound for Unlimited access to a large echoey warehouse.

2011-08-10T20:49:03Z

Play with what Richard King did - play with an outboard LFO hooked up to a PA system (e.g. your Genelecs) and record it interacting with the space (in Richard King's case it was a sound stage on the Warners lot). That's how they created some of that money LFE goodness for Inception.

Answer by ChrisSound for Unlimited access to a large echoey warehouse.

2011-08-10T23:32:15Z

You could play with a feedback loop. Maybe a reversed feedback loop, play with downward expansion.

Answer by Steve Urban for Unlimited access to a large echoey warehouse.

2011-08-11T04:00:31Z

Check out the last question / soundcloud file here. That should give you some inspiration.

EDIT

Just had a thought as I was drifting off to sleep. How can you take advantage of the height of the space? Not sure if you can get up to the top, or how good a result you'd even get, but what about unfurling a really long piece of fabric, shaking waves into it, dropping it into a pile, etc.? Dry, wet, different fabrics (try the discount bin at the local fabric store.)

Could be really cool, or it could sound like really bad foley, not sure.

This also makes me think: giant slinky.

Ok, brain expunged, sleep now.

Answer by Iain McGregor for Unlimited access to a large echoey warehouse.

2011-08-11T09:52:03Z

Capture the impulse response from different locations within the space, vary the mic and the loudspeaker position. There is no single IR for any room.

I like placing the mic and speaker in different corners as well as in the middle of the room away from all the surfaces.

Try and borrow 2 really tall lighting stands so that you can vary the positions as much as possible, such as loudspeaker reflecting off floor and mic in air and vice versa.

You can have a lot of fun, and you will have plenty of options to play around with once you import the files into the convolution reverb.

Answer by Kurt Human for Unlimited access to a large echoey warehouse.

2011-08-11T10:04:24Z

Hey! If you do happen to do some IRs in that building, would you mind selling the IRs ?