Hi Olivia and Hamdallah, please introduce yourselves – and the idea behind the Phonic Shop:

Hello Asbjoern and everyone at A Sound Effect, thank you for this interview opportunity. We are freelance Sound Designers, mostly short films, commercials, location gigs. We studied Sound Design at Savannah College of Art and Design, with minors in Music Composition and Film.

We wanted to combine our passion for sound and field recording with a way to contribute to environmental preservation

We first met in a summer recording studio class. We found common interest in SFX and field recording and we both love traveling and backpacking.

The idea for Phonic Shop was actually born during a trip to Yosemite while we were living in California. We wanted to combine our passion for sound and field recording with a way to contribute to environmental preservation.

Phonic Shop’s aims to capture the natural soundscapes that exist without human interruption. There are 7 billion of us in the world, and we are pretty loud. Airplanes, cars, motorcycles (blasting through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park), sirens, industrial motors and fans, people who just talk a lot – we are looking to capture how environments sound without all of these. We’ve found when we set up, roll sound and walk away, the soundscapes come alive.

We want Phonic Shop to be a resource for media professionals and naturalists. The shop will offer flexible purchasing options. Offering regional bundles, content specific bundles, single libraries and Lite pack SFX libraries, Kontakt patches and collections of Impulse Responses. We want everyone to be able to get exactly what they need.

What locations are you planning to record?

Phonic Shop’s first major release will be the Atmospheric Series. The U.S. Atmospheric series will include 3 subcategories: Air, Urban and Water. We will be traveling to 4 regions within the US to collect recordings for this series: Southeast, Northeast, Southwest and Northwest.

Within these regions we will be visiting National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, bodies of water, small towns, and large cities

We have scheduled 3 months for each region to record, edit and release, as we finish them. Within these regions we will be visiting National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, bodies of water, small towns, and large cities. For example, we are starting in the Northeast, we plan to visit Acadia National Park, New York City, parts of the Great Lakes, The George Washington National Forest, with stops in between.
 

Olivia and Hamdallah’s video presentation for the project

Anything you’re especially looking forward to capturing?

We are excited to record clean, simple sounds: subtle leaves rustling, the air tone of a forest, the first bird song of a day. We will be backpacking and camping as much as possible to record, allowing us to capture environments at all times of the day.

We’re especially excited to record coastal areas. There is something trance-like about the movement of water. It’s mostly personal, but I can’t wait to capture uninterrupted lapping of waves on a rocky beach at dawn somewhere.
 

How are your libraries different from what else is out there?

Phonic Shop offers a fresh take on sound effect libraries. Along with contributing portions of our proceeds to environmental organizations, we will offer comprehensive purchasing options for everyone. Also, because we are backpacking and camping on our recording trips, we’re able to reach more remote locations and offer our recordings with reasonable pricing.

What’s your recording experience and setup?

Our formal recording education comes from the our experiences Professors at SCAD. Specifically, a man with a wealth of knowledge, Professor Peter Damski. From his many stories of recording solutions while working location sound for films and years of working production sound for TV, we learned practical knowledge and technical skills from Professor Damski.

Most of our experience comes from the need to record original SFX for the projects we we’re editing on. Often we weren’t able to find the file we needed in the libraries we had. So we recorded our own.

For our setup, we will be using a Sound Devices 744T, 2 Sennheiser MKH 70s and 2 MKH8040s. These microphones are small, the recorder is manageable and the stands are lightweight. We’ve chosen this combination of microphones to allow us to capture a true, dynamic and balanced sound. Each set of mics used as a stereo pair will complement each other and allow the option of layering for the designer.

How can people help support the project?

We’ve created a Kickstarter to help raise funds for some higher quality equipment. Any donations are extremely helpful, but also sharing our project in any way. Beyond the Kickstarter, Bookmark our website, subscribe to our newsletter.
 

What is the future of Phonic Shop?

Once the project is funded, we will purchase the rest of the recording equipment. We’ve been lucky enough to purchase a Sound Devices 744t at a good price, we’re now focusing on good deals for the microphones. We plan to gather the rest of our kit and begin recording in the Northeast by mid September.

Beyond our first release we plan to expand Phonic Shop’s reach internationally. Building our collection of Atmospheric Series, we plan to release libraries covering regions around the world.

In addition, we will be recording libraries in Turkey and Jordan, focusing on cultural sounds, markets, prayer calls (hopefully in quad). Again, we plan to contribute proceeds from our libraries to corresponding causes, refugee camps, humanitarian aide etc.

As we travel and record we will be posting updates, samples, pictures, and freebies, so keep in touch, follow us on facebook and instagram.
 

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