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.