Found sound processing

[ZERO]

Hey fellas, I've been recording some shit with my iphone around the house and in work and have got some nice bits. Really I'm a bit puzzled as to what I'm supposed to do with them now. I've added a bit of distortion and eq but they still sound a bit meh

I've looped sections, but they just sound like looping noise. I'm not really sure whats the best approach to get them fitting into a track. Any pointers?

[bram2000]

I've only just started playing around with field recordings myself, but I find the easiest way to use them is as atmospheres, where you just loop sections and maybe warp a bit and possibly some Lofi stuff before sitting it very low in the mix.

Next easiest seems to be for clicky type Porc stuff, because you can usually find one or two nice transients, adjust the envelope, compress, maybe Lofi etc.

I'd love to hear from some more experience sound manglers on this subject!

[ozias_leduc]

i recently got a zoom h2n and have been having a great time with it. i had visions of doing really "cool" things like sneaking into abandoned factories, steelworks plants and so forth.. the reality so far has been slightly less glamourous; i've just been banging shit around the house:) there's lots of good stuff in the kitchen!

personally i drag the file into an audio track and split it into usable parts. then i organize them so they are a bar apart (drop the bpm if the bits are longer than a bar.. they >>need<< to be a bar max), consolidate the lot, then "split to midi track" and set them to split at a bar. this way i have already macroed controls over the stuff i need. (i have set up my own slicing preset so i have the parameters i like)

[Mslwte]

pots and pans and keys and coins! filter it distort it and loop it! seriously it will sound like some heavy badass industrial. trust me

[kuba_rubacha]

dead rite James,found a crow toy in me moms today and recorded sound it makes it sounds like a great stab material,just the right ting i was lookin for a track im stucked on,mad how inspiration comes from the smallest of things:-)

[Mattias]

For me & my field recordings pitching, filtering & saturation does the trick. I often dont use more then that when I put them into my sound bank. When I lift sounds into my productions however they can get treated by eternal chains of effects, & layering. Field recordings are as most powerful being layered and or pitched & filtered in my opinion.

[Mslwte]

I recorded my little girl playing with a toy truck on the kitchen floor while my girlfriend was cooking. Unreal the sounds you can get from a sample like that!

[kuba_rubacha]

its all about beeing creative and makin tha most of what ya have....1000000's spent on gear wont make you sound tha best:-P

[endfindead]

Mattias has it (as usual), pitch it up & down and layer the results, then start processing the f**k out of it! I often end up with nine channels of a sound with different fx chains, time stretching, reversing, etc, then resample the whole lot... great fun!

[Lost to the Void]

I use a lot of field recording. It`s a big part of my Voidloss stuff.
I generally always have my recorder with me when I am out and about.
Traffic, trains, vents, generators, echoes in tunnels, walking on a shingle beach, hitting metal things like lamp posts, boat engines, factories, the wind through the trees etc etc

I recently updated my percussion library by spending a day in the house hitting shit. Plank of wood, chopping board, pots and pans, cutlery, cooker grill, wooden floor, electric toothbrush, knife steel, cooker hood fan, vacuum cleaner, socket wrench.

Bloody lovely.

No real processing after recording except maybe some gain correction and noise removal.

Once in use though, anything goes. Sometimes bizarre textures are made using just reverb and compression, or a combination of modulators and comb filters. Quite a lot of the time I re-synthesise the recordings. I used to use Image Line Morphine, but I tend to use Camel Audio Alchemy now.
Basslines and Synth lines, Pads and Percussion all created through found sound. My sample library is one of the most powerful tools in my box.

[AlexSting]

I always keep my recordings as natural as possible. This creates an organic feel which often is really interesting.

But if you like to mess around with your recordings AND if you are on Ableton I would definitely recommend Granulator. It's a free Max for live plugin. You can find it here: http://www.ableton.com/library/granulator/

There is also a very inspiring video when you hit the link!

Basically this tool takes your waveform and randomly changes the loop's startingpoint. Extremely useful.