Blog
February 6th, 2024
Spent some time working on lightsaber "clashing" sounds to use in a sound replacement project of the battle between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader from episode 6 of the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. The creation of the clashing sounds was done using sounds from an electric guitar including pick scraping, knocking on pickups, various tremolo bar sounds, and deadened harmonics. Each sound was put through various forms of digital processing including distortion, chorus, flange, and EQ. No two clashing sounds are exactly alike, as the levels of distortion and EQ was changed for each clip of audio using audiosuite plugins.
February 12th, 2024
Today I used the doppler effect in order to create the "woosh" sound that lightsabers create whenever they're waved around. The doppler effect is best done with some sort of shotgun microphone. After the lightsaber "hum" sound effect has been panned to one side, the microphone can be waved in front of the monitor in order to create the effect. BE WARNED that if you plan on doing this you should turn your pre-amp down very low and work your way up to find the perfect level for the perfect effect.
February 18th, 2024
Today's focus was the smaller sounds of rocks splitting and falling. At various points throughout the scene, small rocks are sliced in half, lightsabers clash with the environment inadvertently, and both characters use the force to interact with rocks. A great way to create these rock effects with a guitar is to knock straight on the pickups. Once the recorded sound is in your DAW of choice throw an eq on it to accentuate the high-mid range. This is what takes it from sounding like someone knocking on a pickup to a rock splitting or falling to the ground. Sometimes recordings of knocking on the pickups can come out a bit "boomy", so apply a high-pass filter as needed.
February 21st, 2024
With the smaller rock sounds done, I moved onto the larger ones. A good example of one of these sounds is when Obi-Wan uses the force to tip over the huge rock but Darth Vader catches it. Throughout the time when Obi-Wan is attempting to bring the rock down on Darth Vader, I put many "small rock" sounds to give the idea that the rock is crumbling a bit. Although, the beginning needed a louder crack, something to make the audio match the scale of the rock on screen. To get this sound, I layered many instances of me knocking on pickups on top of each other, then I pitched them all to different notes. Lastly, each layer is a little bit offset. I think the offsetting of the recordings is the most important part. Offsetting the recordings makes it sound believable for the situation taking place on screen (rock crumbling, becoming unstable) and takes it from sounding like an impact to sounding like a massive rock has started crumbling.
Making the Darth Vader breathing effect was one of the most frustrating parts of the time I spent working on the sound design in the scene. I went through many drafts, with all of them having some sort of aspect that was ruining the sound at large. In these drafts, I could often make out a breathing sound, but it was included in a package deal with other sounds I didn't want! After some hours of experimentation, I discovered a possible avenue I could go down. I took two different "rumbling" sounds which I recorded by slowly pressing down and letting up on the tremolo bar. On the first clip of audio I used the Vari-Fi audiosuite plugin to shape the audio and make it seem like it's almost fading away. Both clips have had tremendous cuts done to their low and high ranges, and additions have been made to the mid range. Using the Mtransformer plugin, I added some air to the sound, and this is what really brought it to life. Lastly, I made a tasteful crossfade between the clips to make them sound like a continuous sound, and it was completed.
February 24th, 2024
Tutorials
In this section I've included some videos touching on how I arrived at some of the sound effects used.
Final Product
If you're interested in checking out the fully guitar sound-designed scene, click the link below!
Want to try but don't have a guitar?
Head to the link below to download all the raw sounds I used for the sound replacement