Idea Pool for A New Crowdsourced Library

Contribute or start a crowdsource project here.

What crowdsource library would you like to contribute to?

Room Tones
1
4%
Gears (clocks, pulleys, cranks, etc.)
7
30%
Pneumatics and Servos
2
9%
Still Life (quite, occupied spaces)
4
17%
Forests
6
26%
IRs
3
13%
 
Total votes: 23

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GrahamDonnelly
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Re: Idea Pool for A New Crowdsourced Library

Post by GrahamDonnelly » April 10th, 2014, 6:19 pm

Walla is definitely a winner especially considering the locations of the last lib and the fact that Walla libraries are pretty non existent.

My only concern would be capturing useable Walla. As you need the perfect distance to get the useable sounds, otherwise specific words and phrases can reduce its usefulness. I live next to a dodgy pub in London and can capture some nice and aggressive Walla, funny Walla, and what sometimes seems to be full on riots.

Check out this recording I did a year or so back: https://soundcloud.com/grahamdonnelly/p ... don-people

Two different recordings hard panned so you can separate them. The main issue I had was the specific words and phrases, trying to reduce them into a blurry Walla.

I guess like anything it's location right, or organising people to "perform" - I could probably do that, a BBQ without music for an hour or so should do it.

The glass library also interests me a lot.

dpb
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Re: Idea Pool for A New Crowdsourced Library

Post by dpb » April 14th, 2014, 3:34 pm

I like the idea of the Walla library though realistically it will probably be an "Urban Environments" library. As Graham pointed out, you don't want specific words sticking out which can be hard to achieve. Also the only places I can go where there would be a crowd, would also have a lot of background ambience (malls, busy streets, Dodger games, etc)

I guess I'm just splitting hairs about the name and the expectation using the word Walla to describe it.

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MikeQuell
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Re: Idea Pool for A New Crowdsourced Library

Post by MikeQuell » April 14th, 2014, 6:34 pm

dpb wrote:I like the idea of the Walla library though realistically it will probably be an "Urban Environments" library. As Graham pointed out, you don't want specific words sticking out which can be hard to achieve. Also the only places I can go where there would be a crowd, would also have a lot of background ambience (malls, busy streets, Dodger games, etc)

I guess I'm just splitting hairs about the name and the expectation using the word Walla to describe it.
Me too. I don't see it realistically being feasible unless it's an ambient wash of crowd noise in a public area. It seems like that's what people are most excited about though so we might have to roll with it. I wouldn't expect clean Walla performances in a studio from a loop group.

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joe_griffin
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Re: Idea Pool for A New Crowdsourced Library

Post by joe_griffin » April 14th, 2014, 8:40 pm

If that's what we go with, it should probably be called "crowds" instead, since it can't properly be walla.

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chagelskjaer
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Re: Idea Pool for A New Crowdsourced Library

Post by chagelskjaer » April 18th, 2014, 12:03 pm

Hello all -
Field recordings of crowds should be possible for most people, but I guess they should be as "dry" as possible? So as not to simply become ambiences with crowds plus all sorts of extraneous noises as well? How dry should they be to be useful?

Also - when you talk about a "glass" library, is that breaking glass only?

Btw - this is a great place so far; excited to see where it goes...

Christian

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Re: Idea Pool for A New Crowdsourced Library

Post by AlexSaba514 » April 21st, 2014, 2:16 pm

I'm down for the challenge of capturing different walla perspectives. Count me in for whatever else though!

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studio13
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Re: Idea Pool for A New Crowdsourced Library

Post by studio13 » April 21st, 2014, 8:11 pm

Yeah I feel like what would be easiest to capture would be real crowds on location. From my basic understanding the term 'walla' is quite specific to loop groups doing background voices isolated in a studio. I've gotten perfectly usable stuff by standing around in locations with people but no music or heavy environmental factors.

Regarding the legality of capturing crowds / walla I had a chat with an experienced colleague of mine who's dealt with dialog for broadcast and from his understanding he encouraged me to just go out and record on location in both private and public spaces, the legal issues are basically unenforceable. ... this was his advice.

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MikeQuell
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Re: Idea Pool for A New Crowdsourced Library

Post by MikeQuell » April 21st, 2014, 11:18 pm

studio13 wrote:Yeah I feel like what would be easiest to capture would be real crowds on location. From my basic understanding the term 'walla' is quite specific to loop groups doing background voices isolated in a studio. I've gotten perfectly usable stuff by standing around in locations with people but no music or heavy environmental factors.

Regarding the legality of capturing crowds / walla I had a chat with an experienced colleague of mine who's dealt with dialog for broadcast and from his understanding he encouraged me to just go out and record on location in both private and public spaces, the legal issues are basically unenforceable. ... this was his advice.
Yea, that's what I was thinking too. The idea is that it's unintelligible conversation. How can they enforce or prove something if it's unintelligible?

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Re: Idea Pool for A New Crowdsourced Library

Post by DanCostello » April 22nd, 2014, 5:55 pm

I just remembered that a while ago, I was digging through crowd recordings in one of the big sfx collections (Sound Ideas or HE, I forget) and there was one recording where, a little ways in, there was a women off to one side talking about shaving *down there*.

-Dan.

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MikeQuell
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Re: Idea Pool for A New Crowdsourced Library

Post by MikeQuell » April 22nd, 2014, 7:12 pm

Hahah! That's incredible.

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