Calling all gun nuts

[Nestor Makhno]

Sorry that should be 'aficionados' - just wanted to get your attention guys.

OK serious request here to anyone who has access to a range and reasonably good sound recording equipment and any of the following:

Mannlicher M95 rifle (or similar)
Steyr 1912 Pistol
Bren or ZB26 or ZB30 LMG
Beretta m1938 SMG
Orita SMG

What we need are the following recordings

1 - reload sounds (from a distance of about 1 metre) this should include 4 parts:
a) ejecting empty mag (and also half-full mag if you can manage it) and sound of it being ditched.
b) rustle of new mag being taken out.
c) sound of mag being slotted into place
d) cocking of the gun
2 - close up firing single and burst (distance about 1-2 metres)
3 - distant firing sounds single and burst (distance 50-100 metres)
4 - set-up sound for the Bren bipod

Check levels so the input is bouncing just on the border of the red and about 4-6 decent recordings of each firing ssound would be appreciated.

PM when it's done and you will get credit in the Carpathian Crosses add-on and a chance to hear your fave weps in-game.





...oh, and the biggest cookie I can bake.

 

[Grobut]

I doubt you would be able to use thouse sounds directly, but they would serve as excellent templates for creating new ones digitally.

 

[Nestor Makhno]

exactly - more likely I would mix them with crisper stock stuff from a variety of packages - a bit like mappers overlay terrain textures on top of google earth photos or old maps for accurate-looking maps.

 

[Xancerman]

no directly recorded sources are good for implementing, mixing is required for the digital domain, however, if some kind soul would record, im sure we could (if the recorded material is good enough) make some badass original stuff

 

[User Name]

I have a Steyr M95 long rifle, and carbine, but my sound equipment is not up to par. Where can I upload a wav recording I made of the long rifle. I was using my camera's mic.

I have a mic for my laptop so I could do a slightly better recording. I'll be able to do all you asked pretty easily.

 

[[5.SS]Strother]

Is it possible to put the recording stuff surrounding the rifle to get a good sound, and have it all compressed together sort of? I guess it would take some editing though.

 

[Boogerhead]

This guys have everything but the Orita:
http://www.rememuseum.org.uk/arms/armindex.htm

Looks like it's a 90-mile drive from where you are. Whether they'd cooperate, I know not, but maybe it's worth a phone call. If you can explain what you're trying to do and volunteer your final sound recordings for their use, maybe you could make something work.

I've got a friend at Robert McCormick's First Division museum, but I doubt they have much of what you're looking for. If you get truly desperate, though, PM me and maybe I can make it work.

 

[Bauer]

I doubt you can find the Orita anywhere. There's barely any pics of it on the net, let alone sounds or owners.

 

[Nestor Makhno]

Username I'll PM you an ftp you can upload to, BH - I will give them a bell - good idea.

 

[{YBBS}Sage]

I've been thinking about a problem with firing sound recordings for a while now, and figured I'd toss it out there for you....

As loud as firearms are, the environment you shoot them in changes the sound a LOT. I've shot in a lot of different places, a ton of times, and couldn't pretend to tell the sound of my 91/30 from the sound of, oh, a Remington 700, or a Mauser, or even an AR15 in some cases. There are some different hallmarks that certain calibers have, like .223 sounds completely different from things like .308 because of the much higher velocity making it a sharper report... usually... but otherwise, they all sound almost exactly the same. Other than "rifle" "pistol" or ".22," guns all sound about the same.

It gets worse when you move to a more distant place. Terrain does a lot more the further away you move. The range I go to, you can have 100 people blasting away with rifles at the same time, and 1/2 mile up the road, not hear a thing because of the terrain.

Didn't mean to derail. Hopefully someone can find this stuff helpful.

 

[Nestor Makhno]

Yeah - This is a good point and I was kinda guessing that there will be many factors external to the gun itself affecting the sound. Distance, for example; if you look carefully at the distance sound files for all the guns in RO the sound has absolutely no relation to the close-up sound.

Most of the close-up sounds are in a fairly 'dry' reverb ambience - the zone sound ambience parameter which a good mapper will set for each zone of their map takes care of any variation due to, say, being in an enclosed space with wall-hangings or being near a cliff. A failure by the mapper to set these parameters correctly can result in very weird sounds indeed on an EAX set-up. One custom map for example, and it shall remain nameless, has artillery effects which sound like a chimp let loose on a 5 piece drumkit made out of oildrums using a crowbar - just cos the ambience is so wrong.

What I was more hoping for was one characteristic of the sound that makes it reasonably identifiable - the Bren for example, in most recordings and on the one occasion when I did hear one being fired, has got quite a metallic, hollowish sound. I also don't want to get blindsided by, for example, proudly unveiling a big, boomy Beretta M1938a sound and then being told that the gun is almost silent IRL.

For automatics which use burst loops it also helps to get a burst with the correct rate of fire already there - messing with the file duration whilst preserving pitch can give you funky results depending on what tools you use (I only have SoundForge, unfortunately, which also makes mixing more of an art than a science).

As for the reload sounds - I expect those to be quite distinguishable and characteristic, at least for things like cocking, bolting and so on.

I think it is worth a try to produce something as true-to-life as possible - our modellers, skinners, animator and coder are sweating blood to get weps out there for the Romanians which will satisfy gun aficionadoes and I reckon I owe it to them and the community to try and match that.

BTW Sage, are you sure you aren't just going deaf from too much time spent on ranges? JK - thanks for the input.

 

[Manstein]

if you haven't yet had any takers on your M95 Steyr, I am near certain that someone on the surplusrifle.com forum would be willing to oblige your request

 

[{YBBS}Sage]

Yep, I agree, it's always worth a try. My post isn't meant to dissuade people from trying. Just some food for thought. A commitment to quality is always a good thing in my book. It's rare these days.

BTW Sage, are you sure you aren't just going deaf from too much time spent on ranges? JK - thanks for the input.

Hearing protection FTW.

One of my clanmates has some bad hearing loss from the Army, though.

 

[User Name]

I've got the M95 covered. I'll be recording tomorrow if weather permits.

Edit: It didn't. I won't be able to go again until next Friday.

 

[Capt.Marion]

how bout, if you are able to, record shooting at the range, and in some different enviroments (i.e. fields, woods, etc...)

I know that if you live in the states, it ain't that easy...

 

[Nestor Makhno]

Or, maybe in a high street ambience No, that's not necessary - RO Ed has pretty good ambience settings for its sounds. In fact, 'overkill' describes it a bit better than 'pretty good'.

 

[Nestor Makhno]

I've got the M95 covered. I'll be recording tomorrow if weather permits.

Edit: It didn't. I won't be able to go again until next Friday.

NP - we are still working on the model anyways

 

[User Name]

I'll be shooting in the woods, and in a field.

I don't think they'd like it too much if I started shooting in town.

 

[Quietus]

I'm not an expert here but probably the best place to record quality gun sounds would be in a wide open flat area with no obstructions so you don't get a bunch of reverb and echo bouncing off hills/mountains, buildings, valleys, trees etc. You just want the "pure" sound not the reverb and echo from different environments. Also like Nestor said it's very important you don't "clip" the sound when recording. Recording with mic input volume or sensitivity too high will result in clipped or distorted sound which will sound horrible and be useless and unfixable with any audio software.

 

[Tak]

Best way to make a gun sound is to mix it. It's just too much of a PITA to capture the quick punch of a gun firing with a microphone. You need perfect conditions and even more perfect equipment. Good luck with it