AS Media - Heartbeat SFX Practical Experiment

The Brief:

-To make my own heart beat SFX

Different ideas:

In my sound effects research of the old radio days, I understand that to create heartbeats, they placed the arm of a record player on a towel or other kind of soft fabric – with the needle actually touching the cloth. Light taps on the fabric translated as low-end thumps when amplified through the record player. The “heartbeats” could then be performed as needed. I don’t know how “good” they sounded, but it’s certainly one method.
– Steve Lee

A buddy of mine created a very nice heartbeat using a large plastic trash can. The plastic popping in and out was very controllable and created two distinct in/out “pumping” sounds.
– Bob Kessler

Take a piece of fabric and hold it with a loose grip. Then quickly stretch the fabric for a pounding, heart-like sound.
– David Filskov

Bare your chest (!), position a microphone pointing at your shoulder region and then make a quick inward pull with your arms and hands and stop abruptly. Keeps you warm as well :)
– David Filskov

Any kind of thump run through a lowpass filter sequenced in a reasonably rhythmic sequence will give you the effect. It might be fun to throw in some “flushing blood” kind of liquid.
– Jamey Scott

Anyone try contact mics on a pulse point? This might work well if you also employ a BP cuff (don’t try it on the one in your neck :)
– David Steinwedel

I double the heartbeat with a kick drum. Filter anything below 60Hz, add an insane amount of mid frequency.
– Jerome Boiteau

Sourced from: http://www.epicsound.com/sfx/

Due to my lack of equipment, the availability to much of the methods previously discussed is limited. Therefore, I decided to use one of the methods, being making the noise with my mouth.

After doing the experiment the sound created are linked below:

-

Evaluation Percussion Noise (made with my mouth)

Pros;

- The right sound levels

- The right volume

- The sound was a deep sound that didn't need any distorting or manipulating

Cons;

- Slightly unrealistic

- The quality of the sound was not up to standard

- No increase in the rate, making it harder to use

Further evaluation:

In my opinion the sound created was useful in portraying a rested heart rate, however to a lesser extent. I feel it would be more useful to have an external professional sound effect as it would make the noise, one more realistic and two, more conventional as it would create a more suspenseful effect as that is the purpose behind the professional sound effects.

Song manipulation - phone

Using iMovie, I added the effect of 'Telephone' over the song My Muse by Dropout to created a muffled effect. This will be perfect to use in our film opening when the victim is listening to music through headphones, as it sounds like it is playing through headphones.

Song manipulation - multi-tune

Using iMovie, I added the effect of 'Multi-Tune' over the song My Muse by Dropout to created an eerie, disconcerting effect. This will be perfect to use in our film opening when the victim's phone is broken and the music is glitching on the phone screen, as it reinforces the idea of the phone and music being broken. 

Distort ringtone

On iMovie, you can add audio effects to audio to create a distorting effect. Seeing as in our film opening, she drops her phone and this creates a distorted ringtone on an iPhone, I used the typical Apple ringtone and put an effect over it to make it sound creepy.

I tried the 'Muffled effect', but this wasn't creepy as it sounded like she was listening to it in earphones or something. I next tried the 'Telephone' effect, but it had the same problem. The 'Echo' effect was good, but didn't sound as distorted as I wanted it to. I tried the 'Cosmic' effect but this was too distorted and didn't sound realistic. I finally tried the 'Shortwave Radio' effect which was the best, as it is very distorted and clearly broken but sounds realistically different to the original.

Sound Manipulation

Having chosen our song for our blog and updated our story-line, we need to experiment with manipulating the sound so that it sounds creepy and sinister. 

To do this, I first imported the sound.

The next step was to detach the audio from the video so that it was easier to manipulate. 

Next I experimented with decreasing the sound so that it would be a deeper pitch and the lyrics would be inaudible. At first, I made the sound go as slow as possible but this did not sound very good.

I then made the sound just a little bit slower than the original speed, but this did not sound sinister. 

Next I made the speed about 1/3rd slower than the original speed and this sounded sinister and creepy. You can just about hear the lyrics so that you know that it is the original song playing. 

Overall I am pleased with the outcome, however, I would have liked to 'jutter' or stall the sound so that it sounds broken up and even more distorted and sinister. 

Here is the final video:

 

Manipulating sound 

To start off with, I used a black picture and pasted it 7 times so there was something for the sound to go over. I then put the (non-copyrighted) song over the top, and trimmed it to 4 seconds where the singing starts. I did this 6 times so I could try out 6 different sound effects to see what kind of atmosphere/mood they gave. 

I decided to leave the first 4 one without an effect, so you could hear how it is with no effect over it. The next one I used the 'Echo' effect, which I think sounded really good and creepy, building tension. The next one I used the 'Telephone' effect to see how it would sound, and it sounded very muffled and quiet. I thought we could maybe use this for when there is music in the earphones, as it creates that kind of effect. I then tried out 'Large room' and I think this sounded good as it echoed but not as drastically as the 'Echo' effect, which in some circumstances could be even creepier. Next I tried out 'Multi-tune', which had a very distorting and uncomfortable effect. I hope we can use this in our editing but it's a case of deciding where. The final effect was 'Robot' which is very computerised and sounds good in that sense but I'm not sure if it would fit in our film opening with the concept or location.