What is this sound that I hear in numerous shows and movies?

[matamoris]

It's the metallic swell sound you hear in this example under the staccato strings.

https://youtu.be/l_Zh1CGAl04?t=6m10s

[goldenhelix]

I think it's a bowed cymbal.

[wagtunes]

It's not a bowed cymbal. That much I know. Sounds more synthetic than orchestral. At least it sounds like no orchestral instrument that I know. And if it is, it's heavily processed to make it unrecognizable.

[wagtunes]

Here's what a bowed cymbal sounds like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z63PqMreRGs

There is too much pitch and "synthiness" in the example the OP posted.

[pdxindy]

There is too much pitch and "synthiness" in the example the OP posted.

Plenty of bowed metal has pitch and 'synthiness' (based on my impression of what you mean by that)

[wagtunes]

There is too much pitch and "synthiness" in the example the OP posted.

Plenty of bowed metal has pitch and 'synthiness' (based on my impression of what you mean by that)

There is too much of it in the example posted. Listen to the video I posted.

If the OP posted what is in actuality a bowed cymbal, then it is heavily processed. It is not a clean signal.

[noiseboyuk]

That sound is the now legendary "Rusty Spoke" originally in Spectrasonics Distorted Reality series, and now a sound source in Omnisphere 2.

As to what it was originally - I too would guess some kind of bowed something.

[goldenhelix]

A bowed cymbal can sound like any number of things depending on different factors. I still think the sound in question is a bowed cymbal, possibly with a little processing (maybe time stretched) but I think you're overstating how much "synthiness" is in the sample in question. It simply has a lot of overtones which could be from the sound itself or maybe it is slightly overdriven.

It is a bowed metal object of some kind and you could get the same or similar sound from bowing the right cymbal. Looking through free sound archives I've found already a few that are incredibly close.

[wagtunes]

A bowed cymbal can sound like any number of things depending on different factors. I still think the sound in question is a bowed cymbal, possibly with a little processing (maybe time stretched) but I think you're overstating how much "synthiness" is in the sample in question. It simply has a lot of overtones which could be from the sound itself or maybe it is slightly overdriven.

It is a bowed metal object of some kind and you could get the same or similar sound from bowing the right cymbal. Looking through free sound archives I've found already a few that are incredibly close.

As I said, IF it's a bowed cymbal (and I'm not 100% convinced) it is heavily processed. As to what it's processed with, no clue.

Again, please listen to the video I posted. There is a "naturalness" to the sound that is NOT present in the example the OP posted. As crappy as my ears are I can't believe I'm the only one who hears it.

[wagtunes]

Okay, I listened to it again. Sounds like it's pitch shifted. Maybe time shifted as well. Can't really tell. But there is NO way that's a NATURAL bowed cymbal sound.

[goldenhelix]

A bowed cymbal can sound like any number of things depending on different factors. I still think the sound in question is a bowed cymbal, possibly with a little processing (maybe time stretched) but I think you're overstating how much "synthiness" is in the sample in question. It simply has a lot of overtones which could be from the sound itself or maybe it is slightly overdriven.

It is a bowed metal object of some kind and you could get the same or similar sound from bowing the right cymbal. Looking through free sound archives I've found already a few that are incredibly close.

As I said, IF it's a bowed cymbal (and I'm not 100% convinced) it is heavily processed. As to what it's processed with, no clue.

Again, please listen to the video I posted. There is a "naturalness" to the sound that is NOT present in the example the OP posted. As crappy as my ears are I can't believe I'm the only one who hears it.

I already acknowledged that it probably has some processing, so I'm not sure what you're asking of me...

If the above poster is right, and I believe they probably are the name "rusty spoke" indicates that it's probably someone scraping metal against or otherwise bowing the metal spoke of a wheel and then likely slowing it down to get that sound.

I think you're taking the sound of the video you posted as some be-all-end-all of what a bowed cymbal is capable of sounding like. As I said, you can find examples of bowed cymbals that are incredibly close to what the OP is asking for and would likely sound even closer if slowed down. Not all cymbals produce the same pitch and amount of harmonics, etc produced by the bowing process are dictated by various factors as well. The "processed" or "unnatural" sound sound you are referring to is likely more simple than I think you imagine and, as I said, probably the result of simply slowing down or time stretching the sample. I don't think it's more complicated than that.

[noiseboyuk]

I can't find Eric P (or anyone else) saying definitely how the sound was created. FWIW, here's Eric talking about it back in 2009 on the old Northern Sounds forum:

Yep...that's by far my most overused sound of all time. Even way more than Fantasia or Digital Native Dance or Soundtrack from the D-50.

Rusy Spoke/Oilcan Bow from DR1 has been in constant use since 1995 when DR1 was released.

It also appeared on the Roland SFX board for the JV/XP/XV synths and shows up mixed into some of the FX sound menus on Stylus RMX too.

Of course it's in Omnisphere too, but we haven't used it in any patches yet....at least not in the most obvious way that you've heard it a million times already.

[wagtunes]

A bowed cymbal can sound like any number of things depending on different factors. I still think the sound in question is a bowed cymbal, possibly with a little processing (maybe time stretched) but I think you're overstating how much "synthiness" is in the sample in question. It simply has a lot of overtones which could be from the sound itself or maybe it is slightly overdriven.

It is a bowed metal object of some kind and you could get the same or similar sound from bowing the right cymbal. Looking through free sound archives I've found already a few that are incredibly close.

As I said, IF it's a bowed cymbal (and I'm not 100% convinced) it is heavily processed. As to what it's processed with, no clue.

Again, please listen to the video I posted. There is a "naturalness" to the sound that is NOT present in the example the OP posted. As crappy as my ears are I can't believe I'm the only one who hears it.

I already acknowledged that it probably has some processing, so I'm not sure what you're asking of me...

If the above poster is right, and I believe they probably are the name "rusty spoke" indicates that it's probably someone scraping metal against or otherwise bowing the metal spoke of a wheel and then likely slowing it down to get that sound.

I think you're taking the sound of the video you posted as some be-all-end-all of what a bowed cymbal is capable of sounding like. As I said, you can find examples of bowed cymbals that are incredibly close to what the OP is asking for and would likely sound even closer if slowed down. Not all cymbals produce the same pitch and amount of harmonics, etc produced by the bowing process are dictated by various factors as well. The "processed" or "unnatural" sound sound you are referring to is likely more simple than I think you imagine and, as I said, probably the result of simply slowing down or time stretching the sample. I don't think it's more complicated than that.

I'm simply going by the original response, it's a bowed cymbal.

Not a "natural" bowed cymbal is all I'm saying and might be a bowed metal object of some sort. I'm not arguing it's bowed.

But nobody is getting a clean cymbal to sound like that. And yes, it's either pitch shifted or time shifted or maybe both.

The effect reminds me of the sound of the ships in Star Wars which was produced by an elephant cry. Naturally, heavily processed as it was, it doesn't sound like an elephant cry. But it is. So yes, technically it's an elephant cry. But it's not the actual sound of an elephant cry because elephants don't sound like that.

So I should have been more specific in my response. That's not the sound of somebody just bowing a cymbal and putting it on tape. It is heavily processed which makes the possibility of it actually being a bowed cymbal irrelevant.

It's like taking the sound of a gun shot and mangling the envelope and running it through a granular engine to the point where is sounds like a string pad. It may have started out as a gun shot but at the point of actually using the sound, it's irrelevant especially if that same sound could have been achieved by many other means.

Point is, if the OP is trying to duplicate the sound (and this is what I was getting at) knowing it's a bowed cymbal, if in fact it is, is meaningless until he can find out what processing was done on it to get that sound.

[goldenhelix]

You keep saying "heavily processed". I think we have very different definitions of "heavy processing", as I don't hear anything other than probably slowing playback speed here, probably one of the simplest and non-obtrusive forms of processing imaginable. This isn't Star Wars and it isn't an elephant cry. It's a bowed piece of metal of some kind, probably slowed down a bit. It might be a cymbal, it might be a bicycle spoke, it might be the license plate on your mom's Camaro.

As far as the original question, OP asked what the sound is.. I replied that I think it's a bowed cymbal, which is an adequate answer. You're honestly being annoying with the level of nitpicking here. How many steps of the process should I have included to satisfy you and your godlike ears? It was a bowed cymbal of 4mm thickness with a medium amount of X type of rosin bowed at 2 m/s recorded in a white-painted 8 sq.ft. room with a thick carpet recorded through a Shure SM57 and slowed down to 1/2.5 the speed? Yeah... I think you get my point.

Honestly, it seems like you're the only one here who is at all mystified by what "heavy processing" was done to this sound.

[wagtunes]

You keep saying "heavily processed". I think we have very different definitions of "heavy processing", as I don't hear anything other than probably slowing playback speed here, probably one of the simplest and non-obtrusive forms of processing imaginable.

As far as the original question, OP asked what the sound is.. I replied that I think it's a bowed cymbal, which is an adequate answer. You're honestly being annoying with the level of nitpicking here. How many steps of the process should I have included to satisfy you and your godlike ears? It was a bowed cymbal of 4mm thickness with a medium amount of X type of rosin bowed at 2 m/s recorded in a white-painted 8 sq.ft. room with a thick carpet recorded through a Shure SM57 and slowed down to 1/2.5 the speed? Yeah... I think you get my point.

Honestly, it seems like you're the only one here who is at all mystified by what "heavy processing" was done to this sound.

Well, to me, time shifting or pitch shifting is heavy processing. So I guess we'll just agree to disagree on the amount of processing done on this thing. All I know is, I've never heard a pure bowed cymbal sound like that. That's all I'm saying.

And with that, I'll drop it. But I am going to research to see if I can find out how the original sound was made. It has to be somewhere on the Internet as everything else is.