For the finale of “The Muppet Movie”, Jim Henson wanted to pull off an incredible feat – to show 250 singing, dancing muppets simultaneously onscreen.
This task may not seem that crazy, until you realize that just the current core cast of puppeteers for The Muppets is only six people!
To pull this off, Henson had to put out one of (if not THE) largest casting calls for puppeteers ever recorded. Eventually, the final team was over 150 people who, when they recieved the call for “Muppets up!” successfully pulled off this significantly large showcase onscreen.
While Henson succeeded with this very large undertaking – I want to tell you about a much smaller one we’re working on at nir.media called “Small Sci-Fi Weapons. Today, I’m going to give you three reasons that this sound effect pack should stand out to you (and if you’re interested – there’s a waiting list link at the end of the article). Those reasons are:
- It’s built for game sound designers first
- It’s small and curated
- Unlike other sound packs, it comes with a bonus
Small Sci-Fi Weapons was built with game sound in mind.
James Thatcher, creator of Small Sci-Fi Weapons has crafted this effect pack with an explicit understanding of difficulties game sound designers face – namely repetition and the need to create numerous variations.
Therefore, Small Sci-Fi Weapons is actually a modular sound effect pack where the transient, body, and tail of each sound is broken up into its own layer and edited to matching length. James’ intent with this was to allow designers to take these sounds and drop them right into a set of Wwise random containers for each sound type.
Therefore, when a user triggers any of the guns, the final sound would be slightly different every time without the need for additional work on behalf of the designer. This concept was actually illustrated in a recent video by Akash Thakkar as well!
James also considered the types of sounds that are readily available and are necessary as well. Most big shooter games already have gun sounds available, and most guns are built to be big and over-the-top. James recognized that there aren’t many gun sounds available that emphasize smaller, unique sounds that will still stand out but not be something you may already have in your library
Small Sci-Fi Weapons isn’t huge, but it’s curated.
James’ intent with this pack wasn’t to fill out your library or give you a pack of gun sounds that would cover everything you may ever need. This pack is intentionally small – both in sound and size – as it’s intended to be a supplement to what you already have.
So, our hope is to provide you with a limited set of sounds that you like and actually want to use. We prefer to stray away from giving you a large pack of sounds with seemingly large coverage that can make you overwhelmed, where you don’t use most of the sounds anyway.
James has also crafted these sounds with usability in mind, so he’s named and tagged the files with all the metadata adhering to the UCS naming standard. He recognizes that a lot of times files can just be hard to find when you’ve got a large library, so by using UCS, he hopes to alleviate that for you.
Unlike other sound packs – Small Sci-Fi Weapons has a bonus.
Usually with a sound effect pack – what you buy is what you get. But, we thought it would be fun to give you more than you expect. So, if you purchase the Premium Edition of Small Sci-Fi Weapons you’ll get access to a short video training – How to Craft Phenomenal Gun Sounds from Everyday Objects.
In the training videos, James walks you through all the concepts and considerations he used when recording Small Sci-Fi Weapons itself. Not everyone has great gun sound source lying around or the ability to record it, so James has built a cool bonus showing you how you can make great Sci-Fi gun sounds at home without anything special. Most importantly, James shows off his process – which isn’t something you’ll want to miss.
So, what makes this sound effect pack special, again?
- It’s built for game sound designers
- It’s small and curated
- Unlike other sound packs, it comes with a bonus
Unlike The Muppets I can promise you none of these sounds are large or over-the-top.
Instead, James (who is a Muppet in his own right!) has done a careful job to curate really cool content for you. If you’re interested in knowing more and signing up for the waiting list, you can find it at: https://nir.media/products/small-sci-fi-weapons/