After a year and a half of studying ammunition ballistics and acquiring all kinds of high speed and sub sonic ammunition, the recording of the second installment of Bullets HD Professional SFX library is underway. This time I’m going with larger calibers and shooting longer distances. This recording adventure is not easy and I will say it’s been one heck of a learning curve.
On November 20, 2014 The Recordist ventured out to a 380 acre ranch to record bullet impacts and pass by’s. Here is some of what went down on that very cold and snowy day in North Idaho.
This video is from my sound effects recording session #6 for the forthcoming BULLETS II HD Professional Sound Effects Library to be released soon.
The guns and ammo used for this video included a Rock River ArmsLAR-9 9mm rifle (un-suppressed), Smith and Wesson M&P 40 Caliber handgun (suppressed) and a Springfield Armory XDM 45 caliber handgun (un-suppressed). We were shooting 350 yards from the 4 microphones placed out in the wide open field.
Image: 29 Grain .22 on the left. 40 grain .22 on the right
Earlier this year I wrote an article about recording the sound of subsonic bullets using 40 caliber ammunition and learned a lot about the physics and technical aspects of these bullets. Since then I have recorded hundreds of subsonic bullets using smaller 22 caliber ammunition. Keep in mind I am no physics or ammunition expert but since talking with many knowledgable people about subsonic ammunition and actually recording them I have learned even more.
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Recording the bullets for my new SFX library called BULLETS HD PRO has been quite an experience. So far I’ve recorded over a dozen guns from a .22 to a M-60 but nothing had sounded as cool or as strange as recording a Mossberg 590 shotgun with a special shell called the “Bolo”. A Bolo is two heavy duty slugs molded on to each end of a 5 inch piece of steel wire and when fire expands 240%.
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Post Date: February 22, 2012
There is a first time for everything and recording bullet pass bys and impacts was a first for me. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at bullet recording but never had the knowledge or association with anyone that had a permit to use a gun suppressor. During the recording sessions for the M60 machine gun with the very experienced and amazing marksman named Richard from the local gun shop I began to inquire about what it would take to record some bullet impacts and whizz bys. I then consulted with everyone’s favorite weapons maven – Charles Maynes (my sincere thanks man!), and he gave me some valuable advice for these kind of sessions. I then explained what I wanted to accomplish with Richard and gave him the specs from Charles and we were off and running. The bullet demo in this blog post has some of the sounds recorded and played back at 35% of normal so you can hear the shot and the impact in greater detail, and they sound much more interesting slowed down a bit. Read more
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