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 Features
Weapons Sound Effects Recording and Design for the Next Generation
 Compression and Ways To Do It
A compressor is a device or plugin which narrows the dynamic range of incoming audio. It will attempt to push-up (via it’s make-up gain) the lower level information, while it also is reducing the strongest moments of the incoming audio. It has a threshold control which will determine the area of signal amplitude it process. There is also a control for the “knee,” which is essentially how severe the peaks of the loud audio is going to be let through the processor.
Some compressors have unique curves which might be useful for special effects, where the amplitude range of the signal can arbitrarily attenuated. Much more time could be spent discussing types of compressors and their merits
Limiting
A close cousin to compression: basically, limiting is a simpler version of compression. The main purpose is to control peaks in the program material. There will tend to be threshold control which will determine when the limiter will affect the signal, and there is usually a makeup gain control. Limiters can be set to smash the audio pretty good, causing distortion as well. Whether the distortion is artful is of course a subjective issue.
Tape Saturation
A la the SPL Fatso or plugins such as the McDSP plugin “Analog Channel,” which models analog tape compression. The Nagra IV was mentioned earlier as a revered machine to capture sound effects with. These plugins and devices attempt mimic the way analog tale would provide compression to a signal.
Tube Saturation
Tube electronics can add subtle harmonic distortion which, to use a popular phrase, “warms up” a digital recording, making it sound more “analog.” What happens with both of these effects is that the transient “edges,” which are difficult for some speakers to reproduce, are smoothed out so the sound quality might be less sharp, and more pleasing to the ear. There are software tools for this as well
Distortion
Distortion is just that, it is the signal getting mangled by a the effects of overdriving the circuits it is traveling through. Many times, distortion implies danger and out of control loudness - useful characters for something like a gunshot or explosion!
To accomplish this effect there are many choices, in forms ranging from guitar-oriented distortion boxes to plugins like the Sony “Inflator,” which adds varying amounts of distortion to give the impression of greater volume. Waveshaping plugins also fall in to this category of treatment.
Other Dynamic Treatments
Expansion
Expansion can sometimes come in handy if you are dealing with sounds that are unwanted, but the sound you want is living there too. Basically, an expander is the opposite of a compressor. There are many different plugins and hardware boxes that are available, and their basic use is to minimize low amplitude sound. A lot of times they can be useful for reducing the amount of reverb or ambience that might be in your source recordings.
Multi-Band Dynamics Processing
These, which are available as both hardware devices as well as computer plugins are extremely powerful, in the manner which they really can allow a very fine control of frequency ranges to be processed independently. An example would be applying limiting to the lower frequency range of a recording, with the higher frequencies expanded in order tighten up the ambience of the recording. Some examples of plugins for this would be the McDSP ML4000, the TC Master X, and Waves C4.
The Assemblage
The final part of the journey is assembling the components for your final sound. In many cases, you might end up with a number of audio tracks which make up your end sound. These could start with a good recording on a given weapon, then have a mechanism layer which might allow the metallic sounds of the device to be brought forward, followed by low and high elements which are added to taste, and possibly a layer which is a natural ambience.
Any sound that is going to be a “featured” sound -- in other words, a sound that is not a part of the background -- will likely require a a number elements, which in many cases will be quite musical in their character; the idea of a Low-Mid-High frequency division. Sometimes in the course of putting together your sound, it will be easy to over-emphasize one aspect of the sound over others - perhaps the clatter of the weapon, or the debris which might be thrown from the explosion.
All I can say about this is that this is the end of this article, and your artistic license gets to take it from here.
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