Weapons, scary

Just taking “bang” sounds and compressing them usually doesn’t give them a dangerous edge.. Get a “tone” in the sound.. Take one of the elements in the weapon sounds and do a pitch bend.. For a quicker pistol or machine gun, do quicker pitch downs, kind of like the HighQ synth percussion effect.. If you use processed weapon sounds in this element, it sounds realistic, too.. And if you have a bigger gun, cannon, etc, you can make it into a longer baaoooo, tone. That gives it volume, while the more aggressive HighQ effect gives it a feeling of something quickly leaving a gun barrel.

– Gustaf Grefberg

Emphasise details that you’d only hear if it were close up. e.g. some slight metallic rattle type Foley? And while low end is great and all, it’s more the mid-upper ‘crack’ that makes them seem more in-your-face. I just don’t think that gunshots have enough duration for the unsettling effects of this sort v. low-end to be registered by the listener, myself. Though I guess you could bring a loop of it in underneath a sustained burst of automatic fire.

– Lee Banyard

Reduce the overall mix so the gunshot sits onto of it rather than getting lost in it. Mix in some subtle high frequencies that descend in pitch rapidly at the start of the attack part of the sample. Get hold of some powerful wining hydraulics – with a fast discharge of air – “pssssst!” and mix this in. boost the bottom frequencies – but not too much or your explosions will sound weak in the mix. think about mixing in the mechanical sounds of the weapon too – click, shchlock, clack – sorta thing. Consider ‘pitch sliding’ the original sample slightly – make the attack slightly higher pitch and ramp it down quickly to the original pitch. Find a kick drum sample, and mix it into the attack part of the gunshot. Try not to compress them too much, or if you have to make sure you leave a quite a long (50ms maybe) attack. If there’s no initial transient, the gunshot will sound flat. It’s the very short loud initial hit that makes me jump every time.

– Patrick Phelan

Also remember to have all the frequency ranges covered. Bass for the thud, midrange for the actual shot itself, and the top end of the metallic sound, or something that has a bit of ‘bite’.

– Garry Taylor

You might try some ‘pre-sound’. Something that cues up expectation. maybe a hint of reverse reverb of the gunshot? Something subliminal where people get edgy, but they can’t put a finger on why…

– Tim

1. make a distorted square signal not longer than 0.04 sec and paste it at the very beginning of the sample. 2. mix in a short sample of high-tone ricochet sound (short one). Sometimes you will get nice effect thanks to that. 3. mix in high-tone laser (blaster) synthetic sound. It also helps sometimes. 4. mix in some metallic sound at the very beginning of the sample… i.e. “click” (from empty weapon) or some empty shell bounce-sound. Generally … to make my weapons more powerful I usually mix “base” sample with some high-tone/metallic short sounds.

– Adam Skorupa