Tips on Editing Sound Effects for a Sound Effect Library
Once you have recorded a large amount of material intended to be used as sound effects, the next step in creating a sound effect library is to edit this raw audio. You will need an audio editing software that will allow you to cut, fade in/out, normalize, and eq your tracks. There are many professional digital audio workstations (DAWs) out there for purchase and also several useful freewares easily found on the internet.
The first step in editing your sounds is to import all of the various raw .wav recordings into your software. This can be done one at a time but for efficiency I usually import 40 audio tracks at once and then solo each track, in other words muting all but one tracks. Once you’ve imported all of your tracks and you are ready to edit and bounce your edits down to completed sound effects. These following tips should help ease your experience and provide the best sound effects possible.
1. Use normalization on each recorded sample first. Normalization increases the amplitude of each .wav file, in other works amps the volume as loud as can be.
2. Secondly, some frequencies may affect the quality of your sound effect and you should use eq to eradicate these sonic culprits. A great sounding bird chirp, for example, may be compromised by an offending air conditioner. But, by cutting all frequencies below 2,000 Hz you can get rid of the AC and keep the lovely bird sound.
3. When your sound is normalized and cleaned up with eq find a clean beginning point to the sound and either create a fade-out or more desirably let the natural reverb ring out for 1-2 seconds.
5. Mix down a 48k 24bit stereo .wav file to be used for video productions. Such 48k 24bit stereo files earn the most money as they are valued by video editors and producers for their higher quality.
5. By creating multiple versions of each recording you will increase the number of your products and thus the value of your library. For example, if you have a sequence of 20 firework explosions, create sound effects for one explosion, two explosions, five explosions etc while cutting and switching the order of explosions each time. Using this method, you can readily get 50 or more products from this one recording of fireworks.
6. Increase your content holdings even further by using pitch shift. For example, a person’s laugh can be pitch shifted down to create a deep giant’s laugh or pitch shifted up to create a little child’s laugh.
A little knowledge of the ins and outs of audio editing combined with the above tips will allow you to easily create professional sounding effects that can be licensed time and time again by multi-media editors and producers.
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