5 Types of Sound Effects

There is one book that I will always keep in my collection, and will recommend to anyone I meet who is interested in sound design.  That book is The Sound Effects Bible by Ric Viers.  I’m sure you’ll see plenty of my mentioning of it throughout my blog. 

This week, I am going to talk about the 5 different sound effects used throughout a film, paraphrased from Ric’s bible.  Those different effects consist of: Hard effects, Foley sound effects, Background effects, Electronic effects/Production elements, and Sound design effects. 

Hard effects are kind of like the literal sound effects that you would expect to hear in any given scene, such as car horns, punches and gunshots.

Foley is the process of performing the sound effects while watching the video play.  It has a very natural feel to it if done correctly. 

Background effects are also known as ambiences and atmos.  They give the feeling that the viewer is right there in the scene.  Examples are wind blowing, fluorescent lights humming, and knives and forks clinking together. 

Electronic/Production elements are sounds designed by synthesizers or computers to create sounds never heard of before electronically.  They are heavily used in radio and sci-fi films. 

And lastly, there are the sound design effects.  These are sounds that have been recorded and manipulated, typically through a DAW to give an effect that you can’t achieve in a natural sound recording alone. Examples include extreme reverb in a tense scene or mixing a few different types of animal sounds to create a whole beast like sound for imaginary creatures.