Need help, want to make explosion sounds

[Varkas]

I'm currently playing a game that has quite some cool explosion sounds. That made me want to make some of my own. But I have no good idea how to start. Record something and edit the recording? What would be good sounds to start with?

Or work with envelopes and noise and try to synthesise the sound?

I've not done a lot of sound editing so far, so any tips will be welcome. Thanks!

PS: Sadly I can't record real explosions, there are no explosives for sale here and even fireworks only in the days before new years. So I need something else.

[zorg]

It is a very broad topic, sound creation, basically with enough practice, people can turn anything into anything. You just need to experiment around
sfxr and its derivatives are good if you want more 8-bit-ish sounds, otherwise make a P sound into a microphone and distort it, filter it, add reverb, stuff like that... assuming you have some kind of audio editor, even audacity which iirc is free... try stuff out, and you'll get the hang of it; it's really not an exact science.

[Varkas]

Thanks. I have audacity, and I had some success with recording and postprocessing sounds, but in case of explosions I was out of luck so far.

I must admit though, that I spend 95% of my time on programming and graphics, so experience in sound is really small. I had hoped that I can draw from other peoples experience and get a bit a head start instead of starting all from zero

I was searching youtube for tutorials, there are some, but strangely, the good ones are all about other sound types, and the explosion ones are lacking. But maybe I just didn't search right.

Once I can get hold of some paper bags I'll try to record "exploding" an air filled paper bag. The usually make nice bangs. Must see what else seems to be good sources of explosion sounds.

[monolifed]

Twisting a bell pepper might work for explosion sound
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYS0rPYjW28

[Varkas]

Ah yes! I had found that during my search. They make some really sick sounds. I tried the walnut-bone-crack imitation, but I could not reproduce anything nearly as good as what they had made. I put my version here:

https://opengameart.org/content/cracking-sounds

So, there is more to it than what they show. But it's very impressive for sure.

[CharlieHunt]

I'm currently playing a game that has quite some cool explosion sounds. That made me want to make some of my own. But I have no good idea how to start. Record something and edit the recording? What would be good sounds to start with?

Or work with envelopes and noise and try to synthesise the sound?

I've not done a lot of sound editing so far, so any tips will be welcome. Thanks!

PS: Sadly I can't record real explosions, there are no explosives for sale here and even fireworks only in the days before new years. So I need something else.

When such “large” sounds are required, the sound engineer must contact professionals or technicians in the same way that a director puts together a team; if the sound engineer needs an explosion, he can phone the demolition company and find out if demolition of any houses is planned in the near future. During the break, as a rule, they play uptownaces. If a sound engineer needs a cannon salvo, he can contact participants in historical reconstruction of battles or with gun lovers. Most often, people are delighted with the opportunity to participate in something that will be used for the film, and help with pleasure.
I do not advise you to do this without professionals.

[Varkas]

Well, the point is to learn how this is done and then do it on my own. While it is insightful to read how professionals work here, I think I'll need to take a step back and find something that I can safely do at home.

Actually I had some success with synthesis, using noise, envelopes and frequency filters. Not on a pro level yet but I think I can create quite some interesting sounds this way. And it will be a useful skill for later projects.

Edit: Some examples of what I achieved so far:

A first successful synthetic bang here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpi2I7QvMr4
Some better sounds in this one, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXn25l84ec4

[zorg]

CharlieHunt: Yeah, i disagree; there are people who do stuff like this (trying to recreate specific sounds just in software, or with hardware synths only) both professionally, or just as a hobby; it's completely possible and fun to learn imo. Especially if we're not talking about triple A games and stuff (also sound needs to fit the other parts of the media one makes; you'd not put grand live symphonic music into an 8bit styled visual laden game just like how breath of the wild would seem weird with music composed on a SID chip.

Not to hate on foley artists and stuff, but there are times when that's not needed. e.g. Animal Crossing: New Horizon was the first game that actually did all the sound effects in-house with all the materials they needed being brought into the studio itself (no field recordings like at the beginning; according to an interesting yt video about it anyway) but on the flipside, game soundtracks like the neverhood or bastion would sound *very* different if they used gigantic orchestras and symphonic sessions just because they could. (i know, comparing sfx with music, but that wasn't the main argument i was making)

Just my few cents.