Using The Metallic Sounds In Our Foley Sample Pack STONEWIRE
The STONEWIRE foley sample pack specifically uses many metallic sounds because they're one of the most flexible kinds of sounds in music production. They can be used in many different contexts and run the full spectrum form trashy and noisy to beautiful and pure.
Today we're going to talk about how they're organized in STONEWIRE and some ideas for using metallic sounds in your productions.
What Makes Metallic Sounds Useful In Music Production
Metallic sounds are useful in music production because they are very flexible depending on how they are engaged and the type of sound being used.
Consider how metallic sounds can be very harsh and downright creepy. Think horror movie sound effects like a bowed waterphone. They can also generate large amounts of more pleasing white noise like frequencies like a good crash cymbal. And they can of course generate very beautiful and pure, sine wave like tones that have a melodic character to them. Think of how clear the pitch of a tuning fork is!
And if they are EQed properly they can cut right to the front of a mix on their own as well as when you layer them on top of other elements.
The Primary Metallic Sound Folders in STONEWIRE
In our foley sample pack, STONEWIRE, there are several kinds of metallic sounds for you to experiment with that were made from objects you would find in a well stocked hardware store.
Metals
The obvious place to start here would be the metals folder.
There are both long and short variations here that tend to be on the noiser and less tonal side of the frequency spectrum. These types of sound are very helpful for making or juicing up percussion sounds that you need to really propel a track along.
The closest traditional instrument would the hihat on a drumset.
Screws and Nails
Screws and nails are obviously made out of metal and the sounds here include a lot of shaker-like sounds that are basically shaking a box of fasteners.
There are also sounds in here that a technically big bolts, but there are interesting because they do have a more tonal pitch center to them while being very bright. So by pitching them in a sampler you can make very cutting melodic sounds with these.
Tones
There are of course other obviously metallic sounds in the pack like various chains, locks opening and closing, small machine running, but in the tones folder there are more pure pitched sounds made from things like paint cans, air compressor tanks of varying sizes, as well as pieces of metal railing.
Metallic Sounds That Are Usable In Different Genres
STONEWIRE is not the kind of pack you would use in specific genre of music. We didn't want to make metallic sounds for Drum and Bass or Lo Fi nail sounds or something. We wanted sounds with all kinds of texture in them because in combination with other quality samples they're going to be useful in all kinds of music that require interesting textures.
Objects That Sound Metallic & Harsh vs Resonant
We touched on this earlier that there are a variety of metallic sounds in the various folders of STONEWIRE but the most important thing in getting started quickly with them would be to grab a few different kinds of these metallic sounds when you sit down to work.
Open up your DAW or sampler and drag in a few of each class of sound and see what you can make. This is exactly how we made the bonus loops that come with the downloadable Ableton Live set with all of our sound design chains.
Choose a few harsh sounds which might be good for making percussion loops but also bring in some more resonant sounds that you can pitch down to make things like kicks with or play on your sampler to make melodies.
Thinking In Terms of Frequency: Where does a sound sit?
One of the keys to working with metallic sounds and anything other type to be honest are always being aware of what frequency range a sound is working in. The following sections are going to get into some more technical ideas for you to experiment with.
If you don't already have a good internal sense of where a sound sits on the frequency spectrum or where you think it should, we find that it's helpful to pull up your DAWs analyzer plugin and over time this will improve your sound design.
It will train you to start paying attention to what parts of a track have space to put a sound so you'll be reaching for the right sounds that work more immediately rather than having to try a bunch of things manually to guess and test what might work.
The Simple vs Complex Sound Continuum
We tend to think of all sounds as sitting on a spectrum with simple sounds on one side and super complex ones on the other. So on one end you have basic sine waves with no harmonics and on the other, crazy sounds that swirl and chance and have a zillion effects doing things to make all that happen.
This framework can be a real lifesaver when you're trying to find the right sound.
It is exactly what it sounds like. You simply ask yourself, "am I looking for a simple sound here or a complicated one?"
How do you know which to reach for? The correct answer is often the opposite of what is already going on in the track.
In other words, if you have a very busy track with 50 elements and tons of modulation making everything swirl around the stereo field but it still feels like it needs something, adding another complicated sound with lots of motion and change is probably not what it needs.
There's a good shot you need something basic and easy to understand to help the listener feel more anchored and pull things together.
The opposite is also true. If your track is kind of basic and feels like nothing interesting is happening, then that's probably the time to break out all the really intense sound design to add some interest to what is happening.
Crafting Metallic Sounds: Techniques and Approaches
Combining Different Frequencies
If you listen to the STONEWIRE loops and explore the Ableton set where we did all of our sound design you might notice how we deliberately chose to balance out the frequency spectrum.
There are always some low sounds to anchor things, some higher sounds to add polish and sizzle, some relatively static sounds that don't change very much as well as more complex sounds that change a lot with very long effects chains. We're often using a few layers of LFOs as well to create certain modulation effects.
Don't be afraid to do things like trigger and LFO with another LFO that is modulated by an envelope. You can achieve some very interesting effects this way!
Tips for Incorporating Metallic Sounds in Your Music
Exploring unconventional metallic sounds can give your music an exciting edge. Take our sounds and use them as is if you want, that's what they are designed for. But don't forget to carve out some time to do some experimentation independently to see what you can come up with.
Sometimes the best results are basically just happy accidents! We had a lot of these when making STONEWIRE, especially when using granular effects which tend to be particularly interesting when working with metallic sounds.
Balancing Metallic Elements with Other Sounds
This maybe goes without saying, but contrasting all the metallic sounds with something else in addition will only make your music more interesting. Try incorporating synthesized sources, actual instruments, or foley samples made with other materials like wood or plastic.
Summary
Recorded metallic sounds are a powerful element to have in your sample library collection because they can be some of the most flexible sounds. They can do everything from eerie, horror movie like ambiance to pure and lush melodic tones or a combination of the two.
Our pack STONEWIRE includes a lot of raw foley samples that are designed to be flexible and we additionally include processed loops and one shots so you can see what's possible with them. If you use Ableton Live, you can ever download and look inside the session where we did our sound design to see exactly how we processed the foley sounds.
When it comes to improving your sound selection, a basic mental framework like categorizing your sounds and track somewhere on a continuum from simple to complex can go a long way in helping you pick the right sounds right away when you're producing.
Frequently Asked Questions About Metallic Sounds
What is a metallic sound?
A metallic sound can be make in several ways like activating an object by striking it or making it gradually build up resonance, like if you were to bow it with a violin bow.
What is a metallic voice?
A metallic vocal quality is typically characterized as having a sharp, bright tone that often results from an increase in the fundamental frequency. Untrained singers or the layman may mistakenly describe this as a nasal voice due to the rise in pitch.
How Can I Synthesize Metallic Sounds Instead of Recording Them?
Some of what gives metallic sounds their bright, distinct quality is non-integer harmonics, usually higher up in the frequency spectrum. FM synthesis or physical modeling techniques that utilize feedback loop algorithms tend to be very good at approximating the high harmonics that you hear when activating an actual piece of metal.
(When we first released STONEWIRE a few people even asked if we used FM to make the sounds, but we did not. It's all recorded foley samples of actual objects)
How can I create a metallic sound in my music?
As we mentioned you can incorporate metallic sounds by using foley recordings like STONEWIRE , synthesize metallic sounds using something like FM synthesis or physical modeling. And of course you can combine these techniques! You could loud one of the metallic sounds from STONEWIRE into Ableton Sampler, then modulate it with FM (this is a stock feature) to make an actual metallic sound have even more harmonics and it will have even more bite and brightness!
