Crowd Sound Effects – Walla / Cheering

I’m happy to write about another cool and unique recording opportunity from summer 2021.

My journey at Eggplant Music & Sound continues to surprise me. We picked up a show over the summer, that had extensive music demands. We wrote dozens of original tracks, and I was tasked with recording actors laying down the vocals. Because of their intense shooting schedules they often couldn’t come to Toronto, so we had to trek out and meet them in Niagra Falls. There we would set up make-shift studios in some less-than-ideal locations.

It was a great experience, and I’m thankful for the unique opportunity. Over the course of several recording excursions, I got to meet and hang out with the show’s location sound crew from Audio Process. They were nice gents, and kindly humoured the dozens of location-audio questions I’ve been harbouring since the start of my field recording journey. It was my first time on a film set, and after a handful of trips I felt pretty comfortable in the environment. The lunch-time frisbee games were a highlight.

It was near the end of the job that I got a call from Rob the sound mixer. They doubled booked his company, and needed a sound guy to run a B-rig for a crowd recording day. This would be my first time doing location audio, flying solo with an unfamiliar rig. I was admittedly nervous… but it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

We spent a whole day recording an audience clapping, cheering, laughing, booing, and reacting to scenes in the show. I had two rigs running. The first was a spaced pair of Sennheiser e614’s into a Sound Devices Mix Pre 10. This rig was TC sync jammed with the camera, and is what was sent to production at the end of the day. Parallel to that was my Sony PCM D100 capturing some different perspectives. I hung onto those recordings, and cut dozens of SFX samples.

I’ve taken a handful of my favourite samples from the day, and added them to our free sounds page. Check em out here. Thanks to Eggplant Music & Sound, and Audio Process for this opportunity.

And thank you for reading. Hope you all had a great summer! Till next time,

Ben @ Back Pocket Sound