Most of the songs we write and record have instruments and/or vocals, but nothing else. Let’s face it, the most exotic sound on most of our recordings is a tambourine. This is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, “instruments and/or voices” run a pretty wide range, from Gregorian Chant to Smooth R&B and everything in between. But once in a while, just for novelty value, you should consider using some sort of sound effects in one of your songs.
Some songs, like the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine,” are positively full with background sound effects. The birds chirp along to “Blackbird” by the same band. More recently, digital mix master Beck and others have combined “found sounds” and other effects with music samples to create audio collages in their songs. Of course, this is a technique where a little can go a long way. There is no need to exaggerate!
As a composer, you can specify what sound effects will be heard by adding notations like (alarm clock here) to your lyric sheet, or at least have a firm idea of what specific effects will be used when you write the song. In this case, the effects would be considered part of the song. Alternatively, you can wait until you’ve got your Producer hat on and decide if and where to add sound effects when mixing the song. Here, the effects would be considered part of the arrangement.
name that sound
There are three main sources of sound effects: (1) sound effect CDs or websites; (2) TV shows, DVD movies, etc.; (3) personal recordings.
With sound effect CDs or websites, you get pre-recorded sounds of all kinds, with many variations, labeled by theme and length. Do you need the sound of a car starting and driving away? There were a dozen variations of this sound on a CD I found. Do you need birds, crickets or elephants? Once again, the labeled samples by the dozen can be found on the sound effect CDs. And here they are complete CDs of storms, jungle sounds, etc., ready to use!
Sound effect CDs can be found by sheet music at your local library – mine, a medium sized branch, has drawer after drawer full of the stuff! For me, this beats websites, which can be cumbersome to use and usually make you pay for your samples. If you’re in a real rush, maybe try online, but otherwise, just head to the library!
Another really good (and cheap) source of sound effects is to record a movie or TV show while you’re watching it and then restore some of the effects you hear (or dialogue—talking is a sound effect too!) by copying it onto a cassette or whatever you use to import external audio into your studio.
Finally, one of my favorite sources of sound effects is recording my own. With battery-powered portable recording devices like the Zoom H4 and others available, it’s a breeze to get CD-quality recordings “on the go” of anything from your own rain storm or cute kitty to the crowd at a football match. A word of caution though. Once you start thinking this way, it’s hard to stop. (I could film an oncoming train! I could film a volcano!)
There are sounds all around you. Why don’t you try incorporating some of them into one of your songs? Works!
