Designing sound For Rival

The concept

Rival Productions, a local video production company, sent me an automated graphic they had been working on for social media. The sound effects used were cinematic in style and grew in volume and tension as the graphic logo slowly assembled. What was in place would have worked, but I really wanted to give the piece more texture and depth with the movement happening on screen. The concept was simple; I wanted to create a sonic landscape that the logo could live in, but I wanted to punctuate specific moments the camera angles shift the viewers perspective. I also wanted more sonic texture that would give weight to the stone-like words in the graphic.

The Design

First, I sourced textural sounds that I thought would fit the graphic. I began searching my libraries for heavy weighted sounds of rock, metal, and large impacts, but ended up ditching the metal altogether as it didn’t quite fit the part and focused on darker textures. Although, I quickly discovered that I needed an ambiance for these textures and the piece as a whole to live in. To achieve this I used Izotope’s Iris 2 sample-based synthesizer to create some pink noise with a modulating low pass filter on it. This added weight and movement, creating a space for the piece to live in. From there I played with the sounds of crumbling rocks I had sourced from my library. The rock samples were pretty convincing, but they needed more depth. I decided to add automation to the pan controls of these tracks in Pro Tools to better follow the objects on screen. I also wanted more impact during the dramatic shifts between camera angles, so I went back to my libraries to find some good transitional effects.

I’d created space, texture, and movement, yet things still felt a little too stagnant. I needed a riser effect to build up the sense of anticipation.

I decided to use Native Instruments Rise & Hit plugin for Kontakt to achieve this. I wanted a riser to build tension to the climax of the piece, but also leave room for the heavy droning synth I had in mind for the final moments. Rise & Hit had the flexibility I needed to come up with the exact timing necessary; I used Spectrasonic’s bass synth Trilian to achieve the droning sound by creating a slower attack and modulating the distortion to swell. Both of those elements combined gave the graphic the intensity it needed to come together.

Some Final Thoughts

Working on this piece was enjoyable, and a reminder of how much automation can add to a video like this. Also how the culmination of patience and small brush strokes is what gives a piece its depth and character.

I am thrilled to have worked on the logo for a company like Rival Productions.