What Is Being Used For Film Today?

[AnX]

kontakt and spitfire(or project SAM ) for orchestral work and may be east west sometimes but they tend to be more cpu intensive

for synth stuff
omnisphere(kinda but its kinda going out of standards now i could be wrong),halion,zebra(for hans zimmer),and other hardware emulation but they mainly prefer hardware synths

Which Spitfire library do you recommend for designing TIE Fighter sounds, then?

None, they have already been designed.

[himalaya]

We need some sounds for a 'BOW-TIE Fighter' now.

A nice regal bassoon, maybe.

[mkruse]

Thanks all for your suggestions - it seems I do these things in my daw already. I was curious whether there were certain plugins or hardware units favoured by the industry but it seems in this day and age there isn't, with the exception of pro tools.

[vitocorleone123]

There's a couple other places to go to read/ask this that I know of - and I'm sure more than this since this isn't my area of interest I don't keep up.

https://vi-control.net/community/

https://theaudiospotlight.com/

and maybe

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/forum/13/1 ??

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

..with the exception of pro tools.

And even that owes it's position in the industry to factors other than it being the only one capable of doing such work

[mkruse]

There's a couple other places to go to read/ask this that I know of - and I'm sure more than this since this isn't my area of interest I don't keep up.

https://vi-control.net/community/

https://theaudiospotlight.com/

and maybe

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/forum/13/1 ??

This is awesome, thanks!

[ATS]

Spectrasonics claims their products have been used in several films:

https://www.spectrasonics.net/company/filmtv.php

I'd be shocked if they were not.

[mkruse]

if you are looking at todays industry standards you have

for daw
pro tools and cubase is the standard but recently many major video game companies have switched to reaper

kontakt and spitfire(or project SAM ) for orchestral work and may be east west sometimes but they tend to be more cpu intensive

for synth stuff
omnisphere(kinda but its kinda going out of standards now i could be wrong),halion,zebra(for hans zimmer),and other hardware emulation but they mainly prefer hardware synths

for effect they use their daws inbuilt effects or hardware effects

Thanks, this is a good answer, much better than "use anything" - which although true, doesn't answer my question.

[whyterabbyt]

Thanks, this is a good answer, much better than "use anything" - which although true, doesn't answer my question.

Well, I did think it wasa terrible answer. Inaccurate. Ludicrously over-generalised. And that he hadnt read what you were asking for in the slightest, since he gave you a list of stuff for music composers.

But my mistake; I guess we'll all just have to learn that orchestral sample libraries and romplers are used for designing sound effects in film.

Oh well, at least now you've got a handy shopping list, eh. I hope it gets you somewhere, because clearly sound design isnt a craft, its ownership of a particular toolbox. What the hell, my mistake. Best of luck. Sorry for all that 'use anything' stuff, I guess I dont know as much about sound design as I thought. Ha!Ha! I don't even own Omnisphere!

[mkruse]

Thanks, this is a good answer, much better than "use anything" - which although true, doesn't answer my question.

Its a terrible answer. Inaccurate, ludicrously over-generalised, and he clearly didnt read what you were asking for in the slightest. He gave you a list of stuff for music composers.

I cant believe you think that orchestral sample libraries and romplers are used for designing sound effects in film.

It has to do with attitude.

[mkruse]

by the way, here's that video, in case you want to hear how the SFX sounded like in context :

Can I ask how long this video took you finalise? Great work btw. I couldn't hear the 'aahh' at the end but I'm assuming that has to do with the pitch shifting you did?

[whyterabbyt]

It has to do with attitude.

Yup. Everyone else was indicating that the tools were not what was important, compared to the mindset and knowledge, but his attitude was 'hey, lets list some irrelevant stuff because film'
For the win.

Sorry we wasted your time by actually knowing about this stuff.

[himalaya]

by the way, here's that video, in case you want to hear how the SFX sounded like in context :

Can I ask how long this video took you finalise? Great work btw. I couldn't hear the 'aahh' at the end but I'm assuming that has to do with the pitch shifting you did?

Thanks.
The 'ahhh' can be just heard right at the end when the cow is rolling down the hill.
It's pitched up a bit.

The music took one weekend to complete (from idea to final master) and was accepted by the producer on Monday, but then the effects were completed over the next 5 days or so. The cartoon was worked on continuously and I would receive new cuts with more elements in the video which had to be accounted for with more effects. Also, and this is the difficult part, I didn't nail the sound of the ice cream flowing into the tub I made it too real sounding initially, and subsequently had to make it sound more 'cartoon' like. Which actually was easier to do than the more realistic sounds I made at the start.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Thanks, this is a good answer, much better than "use anything" - which although true, doesn't answer my question.

Its a terrible answer. Inaccurate, ludicrously over-generalised, and he clearly didnt read what you were asking for in the slightest. He gave you a list of stuff for music composers.

I cant believe you think that orchestral sample libraries and romplers are used for designing sound effects in film.

It has to do with attitude.

...Or, perhaps, asking the right questions

[himalaya]

Have studios moved to various plugins within daws?

I think the real creative potential lies in plugins outside of any DAW. I'd recommend that you start collecting 'creative'-type effect plugins. You should have a nice library of spectral effects, good sounding pitch-shifters, anything that manipulates formats (vocal 'transformers'), vocoders, ring-modulators, frequency-shifters, Impulse Response reverb (not to get the perfect hall sound, but to have access to new textures and special ambiences). Resynthesis can be cool as well (try Alchemy and Harmor). A great library of plugins and knowledge of how to use them fast! Often, it's not about just one plugin, but several linked in series...


Also, and I think this is very important, a list of 'stuff', DAWs, plugins, may not mean much without some clarification as to why and how it is used. What I mean is, if I say that I find Chromaphone indispensable, one may go away thinking "well, I'm not interested in electric pianos, or bongos and similar", not realising that within Chromaphone are hidden amazing sounding 'physical' objects, which can be very useful for all manner of bangs, clashes, knocks...ie: a lot of 'Foley'-like material. The same applies to Zebra, or Tassman, or other such instruments.

I'd recommend that you invest in a good quality hand-held recorder and start exploring your surroundings by recording anything that makes an interesting sound. I think this is even more important than which DAW you may want to use ( I did all my work years ago in Sonar, btw). Once you have a library of your own 'found' sounds you will be able to use them with your plugins to transform into new sounds. The beauty of this approach is, that you start with a real-world sound, which you transform with plugins into new textures, but, you have the control of how much of the original 'real-world' sound you want to make audible. So the end result can be totally transformed but still have a certain 3D, live, recorded feel. Or some 'machine', mechanical feel, which would be difficult to create using synthesis, or maybe too time consuming to create...

Then, if you are really stuck for ideas, as you state in your opening post, look at the work by other people. For example check out Diego Stocco's YT channel for some very inspiring examples of truly creative sound design work. Maybe it's not immediately applicable to effects that we may want to use in film, but what he shows can be adapted, modified or just function as inspiration:


Hope this helps