Sound Design and Music Composition

This is one piece that turned out fantastic despite being given few tools to work with.  The object was to sound design completely from scratch a scene from an old science fiction movie.  We were not allowed to use any canned sounds and everything had to be created using only sound synthesis.  I chose an old classic, War of the Monsters and found the perfect monster fight scene to recreate. 

The most unique part about this piece that I enjoyed doing the most was creating the monsters different roars that they do throughout the battle.  I did this by layering several distorted sounds from the Vacuum plug-in in Pro Tools.  I then modified them by putting them the various pitch shifters, flangers, and to add the larger than life sound I put them through some reverbs.  The results turned out fantastically. 

Creating the ordinary sounds was actually the hardest part of the process.  Without Foley as an option I had to get creative and create footsteps out of different low bass drum pads. With some careful EQ work I managed to get them to sound like real footsteps instead of what they originally were.

For the music I wanted something that would match the otherwise cheesy puppets fighting. With that in mind I composed some fairly basic chord structures that helped move the action forward, and they added the proper tension to the piece.

Given all of the time I put into the project I’m definitely proud that it turned out so well. After sound designing this piece I feel like I can create sounds for any occasion or piece.