Sound f/x Car Crash on Stage

[CrazyTechie]

So I just had this idea come to me while contemplating my sound design for "The Ride Down Mount Morgan."

At the start of the play there is essentially the sound of a car crash (at least that is what the director wants and I agree.) What I want to do with sound is to bring the audience into the show by making the sounds and sound placement as realistic as possible.

So the big question. What would it take to recreate the sound of a car crash off-stage in the dark without running sound through the system ie: foley work.

Thanks in advance!

 

[FACTplayers]

This probably isn't what you are looking for as far as an answer goes, but why not just run a separate speaker off-stage and play the sound of the car crash through that. You can then use the subs in the theatre to re-create the bass since sub base frequencies are very difficult to place the origin.

On a different note, the first sound I associate with a car crash is the sound of the tires skidding across the pavement. That wouldn't be too difficult to re-create.

 

[Jsamuels201]

By not running sound through the system do you mean you want a manual sound effect or do you just want to make it sound like it's coming from on stage. Unless you really want a manual effect I'd say set up some monitors backstage and a subwoofer and do some panning across the stage. That way it will sound like it's happening on stage to the audience and you also have an entire world of sound effect libraries and DAW's to work with.

 

[Joshualangman]

This sounds like a very difficult thing to recreate through foley work. I don't think there's a way to do it without using the sound system, at least to mic whatever sounds you do live. Probably a combination of live foley and recorded sounds could work well, but I think one of the most important aspects of this effect would be the extreme volume — something that's very hard to do with foley. You may be able to find a combination of live effects that work and mic them. I think though, that since you're going for extreme realism, you may find that a skillfully recorded and mixed combination of sounds assigned to speakers in appropriate places does the job better.

 

[CrazyTechie]

FACTplayers Yes that would be the plan if I can't do it manually. I agree with you completely that a tire skid is the first thing I associate with a car crash however, this crash is in the middle of a blizzard on a mountain so I feel as though realistically tire skid's may be out of place.

Jsamuels201 Yes I would like to try to do this manually however it's still just a thought process.

 

[CrazyTechie]

This sounds like a very difficult thing to recreate through foley work. I don't think there's a way to do it without using the sound system, at least to mic whatever sounds you do live. Probably a combination of live foley and recorded sounds could work well, but I think one of the most important aspects of this effect would be the extreme volume — something that's very hard to do with foley. You may be able to find a combination of live effects that work and mic them. I think though, that since you're going for extreme realism, you may find that a skillfully recorded and mixed combination of sounds assigned to speakers in appropriate places does the job better.

That is an interesting thought about mixing recorded sound with foley sound. I agree that it would be hard to pull off, and I also agree with the extreme volume as this play essentially revolves around the fact that Lyman got into a car crash. I was planing on placing many speakers underneath the audience (as the will be in the black box on platforms) and that is an interesting idea to route different parts of the sound to different speakers. Thanks for the ideas.

 

[museav]

I was planing on placing many speakers underneath the audience (as the will be in the black box on platforms) and that is an interesting idea to route different parts of the sound to different speakers. Thanks for the ideas.

While people are less sensitive to vertical orientation, they will localize to where they perceive the sound originating. Taking that and the affect of the path on the frequency response into account, will speakers under the seating provide the desired effect?

This also gets into an area of accuracy versus effect. An accident on a snowy night at any distance away may not going to be a very dramatic sound, the snow will tend to soften the crash and both the snow and distance will attenuate much of the higher frequency energy. The reality is that if you were to recreate the sound accurately it may not have the impact desired, but if you take artistic license in terms of accuracy you have to be careful so as to not go so far as to lose the credibility of the effect.

 

[CrazyTechie]

You're right the speakers under the seats probably wouldn't be the best idea for this effect. This morning I did draw up an idea of sweeping the sound from SR to SL (drawn so I wouldn't forget it.)

This also gets into an area of accuracy versus effect. An accident on a snowy night at any distance away may not going to be a very dramatic sound, the snow will tend to soften the crash and both the snow and distance will attenuate much of the higher frequency energy. The reality is that if you were to recreate the sound accurately it may not have the impact desired, but if you take artistic license in terms of accuracy you have to be careful so as to not go so far as to lose the credibility of the effect.

You're right it probably wouldn't be as effective if I were to make it truly realistic. I've also been pondering doing a projection of a snow storm during the beginning to help bring it into context which should allow me to cheat a little on the sound and make it not as realistic for a crash on a snowy night.