The EM Poll

RIOT ACT

Jun 1, 2001 12:00 PM, By Jeff Obee

           

Slow Death by Vise ($79.95, audio CD; $99.95, AIFF/WAV CD-ROM) offers 68 tracks of deliberately twisted, rude, distorted, and unusual sound effects. The samples range in length from less than one second to more than two minutes. The collection owes its rough character to the lo-fi microphones and speakers used in the recording and to unconventional recording techniques.

The producers gathered plastic karaoke mics, old paging microphones, and piezo transducers and connected them to deliberately distorted and damaged speakers, car speakers, and Sony Walkman headphones. The producers then attacked those devices with a variety of implements and recorded the resulting signals. In addition, a Shure SM81 condenser microphone, which was pointed at the source from a foot away, served as an ambient mic. The combined signals were then recorded to separate tracks using Digidesign's Sound Designer II. The miked track, the ambient track, or an occasional blend of the two tracks made it to the final mix. Editing and mastering was accomplished with Sound Designer and Pro Tools.

Drop in the Bucket

When I first listened to the CD, I was momentarily taken aback. I thought that something was horribly awry in my studio. It turns out that the CD's initial sounds are 60 kHz noise bursts followed by a mic being tapped and a patch cord's unplugged end being touched. Beware: the documentation warns of drastic variations in volume levels from sound to sound.

The effects were created with a diverse selection of items and methods. A few offerings include a plastic mic recording while on fire, pop cans being crunched, a mic resting against a grinding wheel, and plastic and glass being hammered and crushed. The producers also used noises from items they dropped and rolled, including electric motors, a wooden rat trap, a condenser mic dragged on concrete, a microphone tapped or blown, a bottle rocket fired through a plastic tube, and a jar dropped in a bucket.

The Drill Bit

Each track offers several takes of a specific sound event recorded with different microphone configurations. For instance, track 18, titled “Glass Jar Dropped in a Bucket,” provides six takes: three takes of a condenser mic inside the bucket, which recorded multiple bounces of the jar, and three takes from the perspective of an ambient microphone above the bucket.

Track 5, “Attacked by Drills,” offers six metallic grating sounds that run the gamut from “heavy rumble with medium-pitched screechy attack and fuzz decay” to “sustained harsh screechy electric motor.” You're into extreme sounds, you say? Try “Drill Press Penetration,” in which a rotating drill bit is pushed into a mic capsule until it hits the circuitry.

Slow Death by Vise features a large number of metallic sounds. Track 45, “Shaking Metal Box of Metal Parts,” has a dozen sounds. The producers miked the box inside and outside. The shaking rhythm varies, as does the timbre. Recordings of automobile tow chains constitute 37 sounds on three tracks. The chains are dropped as a wad onto a mic and as a pile into a box, and are then gathered from the box.

The CD's sleeve provides an overview of the collection's contents. Comprehensive documentation is included on the disc in PDF and FileMaker formats. Sounds are listed by track with the sound title, description, track number, start point, and length. If you have FileMaker, you have that information and a card-view library, keywords, and user comments.

Word to the Vise

Riot Act aimed the CD at sound-effects designers working in video games and Foley for science fiction and horror TV shows and films. Unless you need raw, intense soundstage aural events, Slow Death by Vise probably isn't for you. However, if you work in a genre that requires unusual sounds, it's a resource you may want to have. Spend the additional $20 for the CD-ROM with WAV and AIFF files. You can download a free demo from Riot Act's Web site. Give it a listen.

Overall EM Rating (1 through 5): 3.5

Riot Act; tel. (708) 222-9842; e-mail feedback@riot-act.com; Web www.riot-act.com