The Importance of Sound Design: Tale Tell Heart and Puppetmaster

by: RFR Casket Crew Maestro Macbre

The Importance of Sound Design: Tell Tale Heart

In Poe’s classic story, the beating of a heart causes nervousness and paranoia in the lead character.  The sound of a EKG beeping, growing faster and then flat-lining.  The sound of a video game charecter underwater, as the sound gets faster and faster till the poor little digital creature drowns.  The fact is the tempo of a sound can literally make you nervous, uncomfortable and even cause panic.

However, pairing tempo with frequency can act as a double whammy.  Think of the “Psycho” theme, the shrill of the strings.  Think of the sound of nails on chalk boards.  These high frequencies cause us discomfort and to tense up.  On the opposite side of things, bass frequencies cause us to relax.  So using both makes one edgier and paranoid.

How can you use this.  Increasing tempos at the beginning of a haunt will set your customers on edge before entering.  the human heart beats at 60-100 beats per minute.  Increasing the tempo by just a few beats per minute can physically cause a persons heart beat to rise.  Don’t believe me?  Think of a defibrillator, that is just a amplified electrical current sent through the body to restart the heart.

Unexpected changes in rhythm can also cause discomfort, heightened awareness and that jumpy feeling.  A good example of this is “Tubular Bells” or the exorcist theme to those of you hard core horror freaks.  The tempo settles in and then throws in an unexpected hit every now and then that almost makes you jump.  Some time signatures also create discomfort because of the unnatural rhythm of the human body.  Time signature that are odd like 7/8 and 5/8 feel like they actually skip a beat, causing the feeling of confusion and hypersensitivity.

You as a haunt owner/designer can use both of these to your advantage, however it isn’t that simple.

If you have ever used a “Buttkicker” speaker or a similar system, knows you can physically feel sound.  The best utilization is to invade and manipulate your customer!  Rhythmic beats interrupted by unexpected hits, can startle anyone.

Well most of you don’t write your own music or create your own sounds, how does this help?  Start looking for things that do use these!  The best source is movie soundtracks, haunt soundtracks and sometimes even classical scores.  However, be careful and aware of copyrights and performance rights.

So how do you lay this all out and be the puppet master?

Outside in a Cue, you want songs that will create ambiance and atmosphere.  Think carefully about what your theme is, location and target audience.  Nothing turns me off more than a confusing haunt theme.  If you play on fears, think of those fears and find songs that characterize those.  For example: haunted mansion should include sounds that fit that, a church should be filled with church like sounds and organ drones.

Cue music should be practical not personal, just because you like a certain style or genre, doesn’t mean it will always work.  If you aim toward teens and young adults, heavy metal works, however, you are turning off older individuals, that might not appreciate your desire for GWAR.  So sometimes a combination of the two works best.  Think about it, does your haunt usually attract younger audiences or older?

Dark Pandemonium: A Descent Into The Labyrinth of the Mind

Also don’t look past finding your own unique style!  Have fun and listen all year.  There are great albums by composers that spend a GREAT majority of their time carefully creating these pieces.  Nox Arcana, Midnight Syndicate, Dead Rose Symphony, Virgil, Jerry Vayne, Rotting Flesh Radio’s Dark Pandemonium and even myself, to name a few.  Don’t overlook the importance of cue music.

Waiting room or welcome rooms, are becoming ever more popular to gauge the flow and also prep your patrons, if you have the space and means, DO IT!  This is where you create a uncomfortable feeling.  Quicken the tempo and frequencies.  The Great thing about welcome areas is that you can use a prerecorded consistent track.  But careful more than a minute makes your scare dull and annoying.  The key is to create immediate discomfort and to make your patrons afraid to enter the haunt.  This is a good primer, but remember, NOT TOO LONG!  20-30 seconds is best!

But the other school of thought is, just send them in unprepared.  This works too, but you have to use the same basis, you have 20-30 seconds to  scare and surprise, use original scares, not the standard, “boo” or prop.

Once inside, Ambient tracks work best, save the music for themed rooms (Music boxes in nurseries, Organs and bells in churches, you get the picture).  I won’t really elaborate on this because I covered it in the previous post.

Remember to make sense with sound.  Using high volume only works if the music or sounds are subtle.  You shouldn’t notice them unless you think about it.  Less is more in there.  It makes your scares more intense and unexpected, when you are waiting for that, SHOCK.  If there is loud chaos and screaming going on it’s more annoying than scary.  So tell your actors to save it for the scare.

I do want to emphasize the need for loops that are short and can be used to lead to the next room.  Great areas for this are vortexes, transition halls, and segues to the next haunt.  use a brief short loop, maybe 20-30 seconds, that take the rhythm from comfortable 80BPM to 130-140 BPM.  This can be easily made on your own, or pay someone to make something unique.

Remember, if it annoys you, it will probably annoy your patrons!

Placement of speakers is important as well, but I will cover this in the next article.  I will show you how to create surround sound on a budget!  Impressive and fun!

As with all tips and tricks, you have to analyze your own haunt and objectives, but these simple tricks can be used to aid you in preparing for this fright season!

If you have any questions of comments, please feel free to contact me at scaretacticproductions@gmail.com or email me at ScareTacticProductions.com

The Importance of Sound Design: The Sound of Silence

by: RFR Casket Crew Maestro Macbre

The Haunt Sound Design

It’s Mid August, for the most part any of you building haunts are in the final planning or building stages.  Most frequently left till the end is putting in speakers and picking your sounds. Where to start!  What to use!  We don’t have budget! I present to you a brief guide to sound design!

Over the next few weeks, I will touch on the different techniques and examples. Lesson one: The sound of silence The truth is you can make a very stagnant room creepy, just by adding sound.

Not every room can have a scare, sometimes the a mediocre scare can be amplified by building suspense.  How do you do this?

Silence.  Not really silence, but the sound of silence.  Bare with me for a second!  Think of your favorite scary movie, what usually proceeds a scare?  Ambient noise.  This sound not only feels an empty space, but creates an uneasiness.  If you watch Ghost Hunters  as much as I do, they explain the effect of electromagnetic fields. Not only that, but it covers up your actor shifting around in a crawl space.  You can fight sound with sound using it correctly.  You can also achieve this with little resources (check out the last Ask the Maestro!)

In Layman’s terms, electromagnetic fields are produced by the presence of electrical objects emitting radiation.  This causes living creatures to feel the field causing paranoia and sometimes nausea.  This is often attributed to that “being followed/watched” feeling. What does this mean for you?  Using the right sound at the right time, will get your patrons paranoid before they even enter a room!  This is why a sound designer is important! (Shameless plug!)

Sound emits  electromagnetic radiation, but it can also effect people with the tempo, frequency and volume. The tempo of a piece can actually change the pace of a person’s heartbeat.

Think of how a song makes you feel.  Slow songs are often associated with love and fast with movement.  The human heart beats at 120 beats per minute, if you take a song that beats at about 140, you can raise a persons heart rate, making their breathing shallow and creating discomfort. Frequencies act the same way.  Sub bass tones relax you making you disarmed, where are high pitched can make you tense and uptight.

So what does this mean to you Mr. or Ms. Haunt designer?

Depending on how you use your sound, you can prepare someone for a scare.    Think about a transition room in your haunt.  What is the overall theme?  Is it a Carnival?  Industrial?  Outside?  Inside?

These are all factors. Once you do this, look for a great loopable track utilizing the atmosphere you are looking for.  Use droning pads with bass to cover up natural ambient noises.  The best will usually create a space using sound, to shrink or expand an area.  Use sounds that cover the spectrum, occasional mid range sounds matched with a low ambient noise.

Also think If there’s a specific character, maybe a clown for example.  Add elements of circus music, maybe some horn honks or giggling.  The use of pan can also add an air of uncertainty too.  If there is a large beast animatronic or ghost, use deep breathing or chilling sounds.  It’s ok to tip your hand as long as the scare can beat it.

Prolonged loud screeches and shrills, should be avoided.  You will not only drive your actors nuts, but you will also aggravate your customers.  The last thing you want is a high strung customer walking into a room with an actor about to aggravate them more.  But the intermittent loud shrill can catch a patron off guard.

The key is a lot of natural sound with unnatural effects.  All of this can be achieved without using music.  Leave the music outside.  Music should be used to create the atmosphere outside, while making the wait more pleasant and anticipated.  Great ambient music can be used inside.  For example a music box, piano, or other natural music sources.  But I will touch more on music in a later post.

The truth is, sound is a huge part to a haunt, and you need to treat it on the same level as set decorating, costumes and make-up.  You can mix your own or have someone mix them for you (Check out some free samples here).  Programs like Audacity make it free and easy!

In the next installment: Tempo and Frequency, Installing speakers, perfect scare sounds!

Until next time! Sit Back, Relax, and Rot Away!

“Scorehouse”: Scoring “The Scarehouse” with Delirium Dog

by: RFR Casket Crew Maestro Macbre

My first year with Scarehouse, I met a little guy with glasses and a camera.  I was introduced to him as Glenn, everyone knew Glenn and Glenn knew everyone.  Eventually I  asked Wayne Simmons, “Who is that?”
Wayne in his ever casual, matter of fact manner said, “That’s Glenn, he writes our music.”

Wait, this is Delirium Dog? The guy that writes the incredible music for the haunt, creator of dark, unique soundscapes? This indeed was, and I was soon to find out, one of the nicest and most talented individuals I have ever met.

I would attempt to write a bio, but a great friend of mine and fellow blogger beat me to the punch, so if you are interested in learning more about Glenn, check out his interview with Gores Truly.

Fever Brain Battery,  the new release from Glenn and Undead Productions is set to release on July 29th.  The second album of music from The Scarehouse, contains new pieces from Glenn as well as some of his epic pieces from Rampage.

If you enjoy dark, ambient music that is completely unique and inventive,  you have to pick up these two albums.  I don’t want to review them just now, but that will be my next post, so look out for that!

I, however, caught up with Glenn Ricci, and wanted to learn more about his techniques and thoughts on writing such theatrical quality music for a haunted attraction.

Rotting Flesh Radio:  What are your first steps when you first receive an assignment? Do you research or do anything special to put you in a certain state of mind?

Delirium Dog:  If it’s a music track I’m being asked to compose, I like the client to send a few titles of tracks they like. Anything that captures the feeling they’re hoping to evoke. That usually gives me enough to go on. For soundscapes, I try to get the best idea of what is supposed to happen in the space the sound will play. What is the story be behind it? What will the set look like? Being in the actual room or area is the best way to go. I had a tour this past weekend of the new Pittsburgh Zombies haunt at Scarehouse and I got plenty of ideas just by being there.

RFR:  What is the Simmons’ involvement with the music and sound? Do they have any creative input? Do you provide samples along the way? Or do you have carte blanche?
DD:  For music that will be used for a trailer or a specific part of the haunt, we often go back and forth a few times with a track. I take a first pass at something and usually that gets us in the ballpark, but Scott will often ask for certain changes. By the second or third try we usually have a winner.  Scott is not a musically trained person in any way, but we have non-technical language we use to communicate. Since I know him pretty well, I can usually tell what he’s asking for even though his requests might seem vague to an outsider.

When we were trying to first establish a musical style for Delirium a few years back, he sent the tracks around to other folks on the Team to consult. I tried a couple completely different tracks before arriving at ”Delirium One,” which established the style for the rest of the soundtrack. Now, for music for Delirium, which I keep adding to, I have pretty much free reign these days.

Sometimes I make little leaps and try things out on Scott that he did not remotely ask for. When we were working on a track for the trailer that eventually became “Stay,” we started with the standard soundtrack fare. Then I decided to make a pop-song with a vocal, figuring it would be a fun exercise that would ultimately fail. Instead, Scott jumped on it. The tune took off on Myspace (which was huge back then) and ended up winning them a Silver Telly award for “Best Use of Music.” There were girls singing the song while waiting in line. It was around that time that I decided to make Delirium Dog my main music project and record a full album of music.

RFR:  Are you ever inspired by other pieces/artists? I know you’re influenced by NiN and other industrial/electro groups, do their sounds ever creep in?
DD:  When I was first asked to record what we were calling “techno goth” music for Delirium, I had not really listened a whole lot to that style of music. So I got into the mood by listen more to NiN, Ministry, Skinny Puppy, as well as online streams of harder house music. I’d just let Pandora get going and would not even know who I was listening to most of the time. It didn’t take long to absorb what I needed to get going. Of course, once I started composing, my existing influences crept in. My biggest influence for Delirium Dog was (and still is) Amon Tobin, who has made some wonderfully inventive and haunting music using samples from old records and, more recently, sounds he recorded himself. I can also hear the Pixies in some of the chord changes, PJ Harvey and Rage Against the Machine for their guitar-driven power. I should also give some credit for the tools I started using for the first time: Propellerhead’s Reason and their excellent Thor synth. I had been using Logic Pro for a while, but started getting into their synths more and more.

RFR:  How much does walking through the haunt inspire you? Is it similar to a film composer watching a film? Do certain certain scenes or characters ignite a creative spark?
DD:  That’s HUGE! For the last couple years, I’ve finally had a powerful enough portable computer to be able to compose soundscapes on-site. Before that, I would email tracks to Scott and wait for him to listen and write back. That process was pretty primitive in comparison because now I can have immediate feedback of how the track works played where it is meant to be heard. I can adjust the layers of complexity, reverb, EQ, etc., all customized for the space. I think it’s improved things greatly.

RFR:  You live in Baltimore, but write for a haunt in Pittsburgh, is to hard to keep the haunt fresh in your mind?
DD:  I still do a lot of the tracking at home but I can usually work from my notes and get the sound pretty close to where it needs to be. It’s nice that I can still tweak them when I get there, but I’m pretty used to working remotely if I need to. Since I’m only 4.5 hours away, I end up coming up quite a few times between July and September.

RFR: What programs do you use? Instruments? Equipment?
DD:  Logic Pro is my main DAW, running on a Macbook Pro. I have Reason slaved to that. Lately, I’ve been transferring my songs over to Ableton Live to prepare for performing them live in the haunt. I use a number of plugins, including Garritan Personal Orchestra and most of what iZotope has put out (iZotope’s Ozone is on every track). I also use Absynth from Native Instruments pretty often.

My guitar is an early Parker Nightfly and my bass an Ernie Ball Music Man Sterling running through a Line 6 Pod XT Live. I record them with some distortion and then end up adding a good bit more with the software. The guitars show up quite a bit on the first album, but just a few tracks on the new one. I’ve been enjoying the control over the electronic instruments more and more and using less real guitar, but it’s still definitely in the mix. It hard to tell which tracks are real guitar and which are software instruments distorted to sound like guitar.

I use my iPhone and a Zoom H4n to record sounds from all over that I use in my music and soundscapes.

RFR:  When it comes to designing sound how do you know when you got it just right?
DD:  You can only tell for sure when you’re on-site and the sound totally clicks for the space. Sometimes it’s close, but you can tell it needs more of this or that. You keep adjusting until it’s awesome, or at least good enough and you’ve run out of time. You never have enough time to make every little part exactly the way you want. Last year, we put in over 30 separate sound sources–some at the very last minute. Some of those sounds were just there to fill in space and cover up sounds spilling in from other parts of the haunt. We found that it is better to fight sound with more sound because acoustic dampening never seems to completely block out sounds from another area.

RFR:  How much of your free time is spent in the studio writing and recording? How much total music and sound goes into one haunt?
DD: I can easily put in 30 hours in an average week, much more when I’m really busy. I’m always either recording or composing or researching some aspect of it. I’m constantly trying to learn new things. I work in video as well, and will be doing more videos for my music. Between music and video software, you can easily fill up your day learning and trying new things. I never feel like a know enough and I like to learn by doing things, so I just try to keep doing new things.

At some point in August or September, I’ll spend a solid week and a couple long weekends at Scarehouse doing nothing but sound design and installation for about 12 hours a day. My wife helps with some of that because running cable can be difficult to do alone, and the place is so huge and creepy that it’s more pleasant to work on the buddy system.

All the sound put together adds up to several hours. I can’t even guess how long…maybe five hours? I like to make very long soundscapes so the actors don’t have to hear them loop every couple minutes (and eventually go insane). I also don’t like for the guest to ever notice the loop point because that takes you out of the experience. With longer, more fleshed-out soundscapes, the guests get a richer experience and the actors go insane at a much slower rate. They still want to kill me when they find out I’m responsible, but at least there is at least a bit of respect behind their murderous intentions.

RFR:  What is it like when you first walk through the haunt with your music over the speakers?
DD:  Depends on which frame of mind I bring to it. There is the critical mind that is thinking about how to tweak and improve things. Then there is the more objective mode, when I stand back and thing “whoa, I did all that!?!” I often cannot even remember how I got certain sounds or effects. It’s like it must have been someone else…and yet I know it was me. It’s sort of like an out-of-body experience.

RFR:  Do you ever attend other haunts? If so, what are some of your favorites?
DD:  It’s a shame, but I’m so busy with Scarehouse that I do not often get to see other haunts. Any suggestions?  I’ve always wanted to visit Goatman Hollow here in Maryland, but I’ve not yet had the pleasure.

RFR:  Thanks Glenn, for such great insight!  You have made creating scores and sounds for haunts an art form.  We wish you and Scarehouse the best for the future!

Make sure you pick up “Fever Brain Battery” on itunes July 29th!

Follow Glenn at one of links below and drop him a line, a great guy with a lot of talent!

iTunes

Facebook

Website

twitter

Look for the upcoming review of “Fever Brain Battery”!