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Dear All,

I'd like to share a win I had today in recording wind.

I took a Coleman camping air mattress, filled it brimming full of air, and let it deflate by opening it up and placing a 5 pound weight on top of it to keep a steady flow of air.

I got about a minute of time to work with a constant flow of air without any extraneous noise because it was inside my floating record room and it didn't require any fans or anything.

What I got was custom-made air flow sounds by using different objects to obstruct the air stream I created - paper, glass cups, my hands, etc. etc. etc. I then took this detailed wind and layered it on top of a wide ORTF recording of "air" in a forest or desert, and I got a realistic exactly-the-sound-I-had-pre-visualized-in-my-mind and it worked perfectly for the scene I needed an extra little something for. (and it didn't have any birds or cars or planes in it so it could be featured in the mix!)

This is probably also a cool way to create custom wooshes and pitched-down eerie wind sounds.

Thought I'd let you guys know - it works very well IMHO.

I also didn't know how else to tell you guys because I don't have a blog as I don't think a blog written by me would be that interesting...

Anyway, enjoy!

http://soundcloud.com/utopiarc/wind-sample-1

  • Ryan
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@Ryan - Thanks for sharing. Great technique. As Bruce said, any chance of posting some examples? – Colin Hunter Feb 5 2011 at 14:20
@Ryan, I've found SoundCloud to be a fast, easy and free way to post and share sounds. – Jay Jennings♦ Feb 5 2011 at 19:07
@Colin @Jay Check it out. Let me know what you think. – Utopia Feb 5 2011 at 22:53
@Ryan - Thanks for the tips, the sample sounds great! Much appreciated! – Andre Feldmann Feb 6 2011 at 9:24
@Andre Anytime. That's what SSD is for. ;-) – Utopia Feb 7 2011 at 23:01
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Ok, ok.

I finally worked out how to upload a file (my own wi-fi keeps giving me an error right at the end of uploading - does anyone else have this problem?). I had to go all the way to a coffee shop for you guys. I hope you're happy!

Here it is:

http://soundcloud.com/utopiarc/wind-sample-1

This was created using my camping mattress with an empty wooden kleenex box-frame (with the hole right next to the mattress opening so it created a whistle/acoustic guitar effect) and I varied the speed of the air flow with my hand on the mattress. The first one is the raw, the second one is a bit of processing I did for the final mix (it was also placed in on top of a wide stereo desert wind ambience).

Hope you guys enjoy. I think if I worked at it I could get a better recording - more desolate perhaps.

Mic used was a U87 about 2 inches above the hole of the mattress via a tube pre into Pro Tools at 192K.

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GREAT sample! Nicely recorded with tasty modulations. Do I hear a boutique library on the way?? – Jay Jennings♦ Feb 5 2011 at 23:13
What a neat technique. Nice work, and thanks a lot for sharing! – NoiseJockey Feb 6 2011 at 1:45
Thanks @Jay and @Nathan! That means a lot coming from you two. Gee, Jay, you think a library full of this would be valuable? – Utopia Feb 6 2011 at 1:47
Love the whistle you manage to get in there. Great work and thanks for sharing it. I hope the coffee was good. – Bruce Feb 6 2011 at 2:57
@Bruce No problem. Just trying to help ;-) – Utopia Feb 7 2011 at 23:01
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Can you post up some examples. I would love to hear them. Great work and thanks for sharing.

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Awesome samples! I think you could make some amazing breathing sounds with this technique also.

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