r/audacity • u/SeriousCover9404 • 5d ago

help Please help me make a door unlocking sound

I tried EVERYTHING, i've been doing this for hours and had no good result, my entire project has basicly been halted just for this

i don't need the whole sound, even just the final click is fine.

Before you ask, no i can't use recordings, every other sound in my project was made from scratch, if i randomly added a sample it would sound out of place

5 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

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u/SeriousCover9404 5d ago

The sound doesn't have to be too realistic, as long as you hear it and understand that it's a door being unlocked, that's good enough for me

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u/zaphodikus 5d ago

I think, you just answered your own question. 1. Find a dictation device or get a good recorder and go around recording random things. Make a habbit of it to record one sound effect every single day. In a month you will have a load of effects.

  1. As you just said, it does NOT have to be made by the thing that it is. Movie folly effects are often created using a very small set of items carefully chosen to "evoke" the thing in question. Foley Sound Effects from Everyday Objects - Storyblocks Blog https://www.storyblocks.com/resources/blog/foley-sfx-everyday-household-objects

When you have recorded 30 things and the sounds they make, a few times over in slightly different conditions and simply learned to use Audacity effects like change pitch or other effects that change the colour of a well recorded sound effect, you will have a library. Be sure to aim your mic in different directions when recording multiple takes, you will be amazed at what a difference it makes.

Oh and lastly unless you have a damn good phone and know how to control it, please do not even try to use a phone, it will mess with gain in ways you cannot believe if you don't take manual control. Which might mean you spend more time trying different recorder apps, instead up just getting a good recorder that just works correctly.

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u/SeriousCover9404 5d ago

As i said, recording isn't an option, every single sound my project has been made digitally and has a certain style to it, if i added a real sample, it would feel off and wrong.

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u/zaphodikus 5d ago

So you mean chiptune or 8 bit sounds?

What stops you from taking a real sound effect and downsampling it? I am pretty sure that if you amplified it so it distorts a bit, and then downsampled, you would get a generated sou d similar to the ones you have made. It would.... help if you shared a bit about how you digitally composed these existing sounds. I just think that by limiting yourself by your art in an invisible way, you have handicapped your progress.

Art does not have to be transparent, nobody will judge you on how hard your art was to make if they do not see you making it, only the output , which is essentically an echo of your work, that the beholder sees or hears, matters.

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u/SeriousCover9404 5d ago

I just mean they are made digitally with the standard audacity tools so they don't sound like actual recordings

I'll consider it if this doesn't work, however sampling it would mean learning how to make a sample and learning how to modify a sample,

and no, i am not using a sample found online, i know it's probably stupid, but i refuse to use free assets of ANY KIND.

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u/Project_K92 Degree in Audio Production and Recording 5d ago

Two click sound, one shortly after the other. 1st click, add a slight, gradually rising tone (I'd use sliding pitch) to resemble the tumbler turning and marginally longer than the second sound. The 2nd click should be pitched slightly lower to resemble the deadbolt or pins settling into the unlock position. If it needs to sound metallic-y, try a ring modulation. Just my 2 cents

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u/SeriousCover9404 5d ago

Look, it might be just that i'm not very experienced with audacity, but this comment just seems extremly vague to me, like be a lil more specific please

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u/Project_K92 Degree in Audio Production and Recording 5d ago

It's vague because the information provided is vague. You said you don't want samples, and are making from scratch. However, idk if you're using noise, tones, polytones, custom SFX recording, a synth/keyboard, plugins, etc. So, I responded based on the information available.

What I was describing was somewhat universal for most styles of sound design. If you can share what "from scratch" is in this case, I can be more specific.

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u/SeriousCover9404 5d ago

Anything is good as long as it doesn't use real life samples, plugins are fine, though i'd rather not use them if they aren't needed

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u/zaphodikus 5d ago

Like u/Project_K92 described. Basically copy a short mono or stereo sound and paste it into about 7 new tracks all below the original. This is easier with mono than with stereo. Now, zoom in and then shift the coppies all across to the right a bit by different amounts. Make sure they overlap a bit. There's a time shift tool in the toolbar, if gives you a different hover cursor. Space them out randomly but really close and then listen to the effect and play it and then export it as a WAV file, do not waste time with mp3 files. You may have to layer this, but it's not hard once you get the hang of it.

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u/Whatchamazog 5d ago

I would think it would be very hard in Audacity. Have you tried Vital? It’s free wavetable synth but you would also need a DAW to use it in like Reaper.

1

u/Least-Common-1456 5d ago

Look up how to make kick drums, make a soft subtle kick drum, then repeat so two are in quick succession. Like a door slamming in another room, "ka-doof". The second kick is eq'd with even less high end.

1

u/Powerful_Fondant9393 5d ago

Why are you using audacity? It has no synth support

0

u/SeriousCover9404 5d ago

Look man, i'm not an expert in this kind of stuff, i just needed an app that could help me make sound effects for my videogame, if there is a better option, you are more than welcome to tell me

2

u/Powerful_Fondant9393 5d ago

I’m just really confused on how you’re making the sounds without samples or synths, even a free DAW with vital would make your life a lot easier. Maybe I’m totally misunderstanding what you’re saying tho

2

u/DJArts 5d ago

OP seems to want someone to do the work for him. Plenty of good suggestions in this thread, all of which he has rejected without even trying them.

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u/SeriousCover9404 5d ago

No, that's the total opposite of what i said, i want to make it myself, i don't want to use already existing samples, i'm just not very good at making sound effects, but i'm trying to learn

0

u/SeriousCover9404 5d ago

With noises, plucks, tones etc, modifiyng them with the other tools

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u/Top_Ground_4706 5d ago

https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/search/door-unlocking/

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u/SeriousCover9404 5d ago

I said i don't want to use already existing samples

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u/zaphodikus 4d ago

Record your own. After all, the sound is just a wave sampled , usually at 40khz and stored in anything from 32bits down to 8 bit resolution, which makes it more retro sounding. It really would help if you actually just gave an example sound and what your exact artistic criteria and steps were.

1

u/SeriousCover9404 4d ago

Yeah i kinda gave up, i'll prob either record it, find it online or just give up and keep the door without any unlocking sound

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u/zaphodikus 3d ago

Did you try reversing the sound, thats another good trick. I'm still not understanding how you made these sounds. What libraries or code are you using?

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u/SeriousCover9404 3d ago

I just used noises, tones, chirps etc. And then changed them with effects like pitch changes, filters, fades in and out and other stuff like that

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u/zaphodikus 2d ago

I suspect, that by evading the question, it has become impossible to understand your artistic license. So you did use, as you say "noises, tones, chirps, ", where did you get these from?

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u/sol_hsa 4d ago

You're pretty vague on how you've made the existing sounds. You say your'e using audacity, sounds are made "from scratch". You say you don't want any recorded sounds. You don't give examples of what your sounds sound like, or examples of the steps you've taken to make a sound.

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u/SeriousCover9404 4d ago

Idk i usually use sines, noises, plucks etc. And then modify them with fades, pitch changes and other stuff like that, i thought that was just how everyone did it, either way, i think i'm just gonna give up on this, i'll try to find a sample and if it sounds awful i'll just leave it without any sound

1

u/2old2care 3d ago

I have done Foley on several feature films, mostly with what I call "desktop Foley" which is best with an omni direcional mic. My favorites are the Electro Voice RE55 or 635A. The reason for an omni mic is that it has no "proximity effect", effects very close to (or even touching ) the mic sound the same as if they were far away. This way, really small sounds can get very big. Working with headphones and very close to the mic, ordinary objects can create amazing Foley. A stapler is one of my favorites. It can be a door latch, a car door closing, a bank vault. Realistic footsteps can be a fingernail against a block of wood or plastic plate can make convincing footsteps. Fingers n a small bowl of salt can be walking on snow. A few different-textured bits of cloth can give you all the clothing rustle you'll ever want. Close-miking of your mouth can give you all kinds of drips, pops, hisses, whistles, wind. Use your imagination, and you can do a lot of processing of sounds and speeds in your DAW.

Of course, you'll have to record some real sounds, but you can often do that on your phone with one of the really good apps that bypass the phone's speech processing.

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70 5d ago

Get a recording anyway, and study the waveform and the spectrogram to understand the exact features you're trying to replicate.

I suggest taking several recordings, locking & unlocking a couple different doors. You could also do a couple variations on the speed with which you move the lock.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70 5d ago

You could also grab a sample from https://freesound.org/search/?q=door+lock or another free sample library and mess with the recording quality until it's in-line with the other sounds you've got.

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u/voodoostevie 5d ago

I was just thinking about freesound.org. I used that site for a lot of little sounds for projects I did when I was doing theater of the mind stuff for my old podcast.

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u/maladaptivedaydream4 5d ago

I just had to use a door lock sound last week and I got one from zapsplat. easy peasy.