How did you come up with the idea for a library about doors?
I came up with the idea for recording doors out of pure necessity. Recently, the projects I’ve been working on have required a large variety of door sounds and the stuff in my personal library was getting boring to my ear. I set out to record a bunch of brand new door sounds, along with the help of Garrett Montgomery, Ryan Ayers, Corey Eccles, Kristi Knupp and Eric Wegener. The concept was to find and record unique door sounds for use in a brand new library. I figured that doors are something that everyone needs a lot of, so why not provide sound designers with something new and fresh! So, we split up and went in search of some sonic gems.
What’s included in Gateway?
Gateway Part 1 includes 83 individual doors, 675 files and over 1200 sounds. It is 2.5GB of stuff and the TRT is just over an hour. These door sounds could be needle-drop or could be used as building blocks for larger and more original concepts. Everything was recorded at 96k/24bit for maximum quality and design potential. You’ll find everything from tiny compartments and latches to hinges and slides to massive slams and impacts and everything in between. We treated each door like it was a musical instrument and “performed” it in different ways that would make for a dynamic collection. There really is a massive amount of variety in Gateway and there is a lot more to come with the subsequent parts.
How did you decide what doors to record?
We tried to choose doors that either had a high difficulty of access or doors that sounded unique and interesting. There really wasn’t a rhyme or reason to it, as indicated in the fact that our raw recordings for Gateway total well over 50 GB. I have been going through everything and tossing out stuff that doesn’t fit the bill. The main goal though was to record doors that people wouldn’t recognize immediately from being in the usual stock libraries.
Did you come up with a certain door recording approach?
As I mentioned previously, we had several folks out recording. Each recordist had a different setup and access to different gear.
I tried to play into each person’s strengths as much as possible while keeping in mind the limitations of their equipment. I was adamant about treating each door like an instrument to find the most interesting sound perspectives. |
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We didn’t have big, multi-input recorders at our disposal so multiple takes became necessary to get coverage on each door. We tried a lot of the usual techniques: X/Y, spaced pair, contact miking and etc… as well as some other, more creative techniques that aren’t your everyday approach.
How long did Gateway take to put together?
Gateway was a concept that I had back when I started The Library by Empty Sea, but you know how it goes, life and other projects get in the way. We first started collecting material for it about a year ago, but we didn’t really start ramping up on production until about 6 months ago. We have had all the raw material for some time now and I have been going through editing, processing, mastering and naming the sounds. Part 1 is available now and parts 2 and 3 will come later.
Looking back at it, did making Gateway go as you expected?
The biggest thing about this collection has been, and I’m sure any producer of independent sound packs will tell you the same thing, that once I feel like we’re finished I will find a bunch of new things that would be perfect for it. So, we end up recording more and more and more and pretty soon we have 50+ GB of raw door recordings on the project drive.
What are some of your favorite door sounds in there?
Some of my favorites are a really stubborn wooden and metal door to a condominium building’s garbage room that Ryan Ayers recorded. The door is extremely tight fitting in the jamb and it sounds like a massive medieval castle door grinding open and closed. Others would be the bear proof garbage can that Garrett Montgomery recorded up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. |
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One of the favorites that I recorded was the side door to a metal shed. When opening and closing, there is a pretty large change in air pressure that occurs in the structure that causes the whole building to rattle. It’s quite unique! Of course there are lots of others that are too numerous to name. Kristi Knupp and Eric Wegener are very talented sound effects recordists in their own right and I don’t want to short change them. The both found some incredible material as well!
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