What made you decide to launch your first sound effect library?
I think that independent sound libraries are the most genuine way to offer high quality sound effects. I already did a title for a big publisher, but I follow the independent market and was inspired by its authenticity and its quality.
It’s a place to build your own ideas in your own pace without obligations, and these are elements that lead to a better end-result.
What’s the concept behind Silentscapes?
The main idea is to give sound editors, busy post production studios and sound designers a collection of ambience sounds to use as the most neutral layer, and to give them a foundation to build the designed sound events on.
The first idea started with the desire to collect room tone sounds but then I decided to extend it to exterior sounds.
How did you decide what sounds and ambiences to include?
Following my ideas I tried to use all everyday ambiences. Cutting out sound events, making it as simple as possible to get good exterior sounds, and searching for interesting peculiarities in indoor sounds.
Silentscapes isn’t a collection of rare location recordings but a collection of a revisited common background sounds.
How did you go about recording it, and what was your equipment?
I keep the Zoom H4n with me to stay ready to capture interesting and unexpected location sounds. Some recordings are the result of sound editing of the Zoom H4n recordings and the Rode NTG3 Shotgun mic.
This 3-mic setup was the method I used for locating a specific element within the ambience (for example an air conditioning system in a room).
I recorded the “wet” ambience sound with the Zoom stereo microphones, and used the Rode to capture specific sound elements.
This was the way to have the possibility – in the post-production stage – to create the final sound, balancing the ambient sounds with the specific sound source, and blending the Zoom’s wet ambience sounds with the details of an on-axis shotgun recording.
I really enjoyed to see people’s reactions to the Zoom, looking at it as if it was some sort of mysterious device.. and in particular, finding their comments in my headphones or in the editing stage – very useful for a Commentscapes release!
Thanks to Giorgio Riolo for taking the time for this Q&A. You can hear a preview of the library below, and get the full library here
