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

[skipscada]

the sound of people chewing on stinking popcorn

If you record people chewing stinking popcorn close to a bodhran, then pitch shift it and add some flanger, you come very close to the sound of a laughing wookie. Tricks of the trade.

[whyterabbyt]

You know what? I've never played a violin but I sure as hell know what one sounds like.

No, you know what a violin typically sounds like. Which is a subset of what its capable of sounding like.

Question: Is it possible to make a violin sound like that sound in the video clip?

Of course, silly Waggy. Start by clamping the violin to a cymbal...

[braj]

You know what? I've never played a violin but I sure as hell know what one sounds like.

No, you know what a violin typically sounds like. Which is a subset of what its capable of sounding like.

Question: Is it possible to make a violin sound like that sound in the video clip?

Of course, silly Waggy. Start by clamping the violin to a cymbal...

[noiseboyuk]

Like I said earlier, anyone who really cares all that much could email Eric P. and ask him directly.

I'm not sure Eric's email address is public, you know...

It's a real shame. Until a few years ago Eric would post with good grace and humour in many forums regularly. I guess he woke up one day and decided that his time was best spent better elsewhere and who can blame him.

This sound has been overused for a good 20 years now, he's spoken about it (again, as I posted earlier) and hasn't divulged how it was done, so I just assume its one of those things we'll never know 100%.

[VariKusBrainZ]

In fact, if you could combine Chromaphone with String Studio that would be really cool.

Maybe that's a new vst they could make.

And they could call it Tassman

[Aloysius]

A bowed banana

[gentleclockdivider]

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.

It's obviously a pitch shifed bowed cymbal .
Why is it so hard for you to admit something ?

[omiroad]

Somehow posting on forums makes some people build up a sizable ego.