WRITTEN BY kylina aliotti
Office Administrator, BOOM BOX POST
Weaponiser, a plugin from Krotos, was created to assist in the building of gunshot effects, but with a better understanding of how to use it, Weaponiser can be beneficial to all kinds of builds from customizing a one time effect to providing slight alterations to repeated sound events. Using Weaponiser you can even quickly build a multi character Foley Libraries!
The Layout
The screen is split into three sections. The left and right sides are your library and meters. The center is the main building area.
The middle section is home to four tabs; Onset, Body, Thump, and Tail. These tabs don’t necessarily correlate with their labels. For instance, Body can contain whoosh sound effects or Thump can actually exclude any low-end effects. To make it easier you can think of the tabs in comparison to a sound envelope.
Onset = Attack, Body = Decay, Thump = Sustain, Tail = Release
Each tab has four banks that hold up to five individual clips allowing the plugin to cycle through multiple effects creating an exponential number of final builds from the original clips.
The right hand side shows the visual representation of the build with color coded waveforms and how they will layer over each other to create the final build. Below that meters for each tab can be found . A complete build will play in order from Onset to Tail overlapping individual sounds to make one cohesive effect.
A Practical Example
A good example of using Weaponiser’s features would be creating the sound effects for a sword fight.
Imagine the following scene; two knights are engaging in a brutal sword fight in full metal armor. Both knights get in around ten swings, most landing on the other’s body or shield. Each of the ten swings need a whoosh, a hit and a metal impact. They should be similar, but have variations in speed, length, and velocity. Additionally, pitch changes can be implemented through Krotos to distinguish between the different knights. Instead of cutting each of these swings one at a time Weaponiser can assemble these twenty plus effects at one time.
Step one:
Bring a selection of whooshes into the Onset tab. Clips can come from the built-in library or your personal library. Since we are building multiple swings, make sure to layer at least two to three whooshes in bank one, utilizing the plugin's ability to cycle through banks. Using multiple banks within a tab increases the weight of one element in the build.
Step two:
Build the hits in the Body tab. Create a similar pattern of hit sound effects utilizing banks and layering. Identical numbers of clips in each tab are not necessary. This creates even more variations and combinations of whooshes, hits, and impacts.
Step three:
Time to add metal impacts to the Thump tab. By using different impact pitch variations and putting them into multiple banks you can create tonal differences between the two knights. If one knight is no longer needed, simply mute that bank.
Step Four:
Once all the tabs have been built manipulate the timing of each element of the build. Match each swing with the correct sync of the individual elements. Timing can also be manipulated within each bank. Use the speed dial to create variations of speeds within a bank of sound effects, creating even more distinction between effects as the banks cycle through.
There are many ways to continue to customize the builds. Volume and processing can be manipulated at the tab, bank, and clip levels to add variations to individual swings. Randomizing orders within the banks can also be selected with a toggle switch, preventing the banks from repeating any pattern.
Weaponiser is a midi plugin so it can be recorded into Pro Tools with the use of a midi keyboard, allowing placement precision, similar to walking in Kontakt. With a midi keyboard each tab can be triggered individually allowing you to react to slow or rapid swings. Without a keyboard the “fire” button exports the final build in the same way. Weaponiser can also be set up to record and consolidate the build down to one track or record each element onto separate tracks, allowing for more flexibility when mixing. If you are lacking your own library Weaponiser comes with sound libraries to help you get started or supplement your own libraries.
If you are looking for an easier solution to editing scenes with many consecutive layered effects, such as sword fights, shoot outs, or war scenes, Weaponiser is a fantastic plugin to not only speed up your workflow, but make editing these scenes a fun and enjoyable process!
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