Comments on: I am working on a student short and I am need of good sounding 'punch' sounds for my film.

Question: I am working on a student short and I am need of good sounding 'punch' sounds for my film.

cheero — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 08:56:56 -0800

I am working on a student short and I am need of good sounding 'punch' sounds for my film. Are there any good leads on the web where I could find some that don't sound cartoonish? Thank you.

By: lemonfridge

lemonfridge — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 09:00:28 -0800

buy some meat, and record the sound of you punching it. trust me.

By: lemonfridge

lemonfridge — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 09:01:08 -0800

or just punching the palm of your hand if you cant afford a hunk of meat (i realise your a student :) )

By: caddis

caddis — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 09:15:41 -0800

Anything you find on the web will be copyrighted. Here are some ideas.

By: hooray

hooray — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 09:38:29 -0800

Have you tried findsounds? You'll have to check for yourself if the results are copyrighted or not.

By: chrominance

chrominance — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 10:25:36 -0800

What lemonfridge refers to is the fine art of foley sound.

By: monsta coty scott

monsta coty scott — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 10:41:15 -0800

There is also a fairly new site called The Freesound Project. It's a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds.

By: sourwookie

sourwookie — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 10:51:53 -0800

I think foley artists normally punch a chicken near a mic. Slap said chicken to foley the sound of comedic fapping.

By: PercussivePaul

PercussivePaul — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 11:32:07 -0800

I heard they beat up stalks of celery. The water inside makes a nice 'spprrrsh' sound.

By: MetaMonkey

MetaMonkey — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 11:32:28 -0800

From my limited experience in the matter, I can recommend hitting a variety of things with a variety of things and record the lot. Crunchy/crispy vegetables are useful (try ripping a cabbage), as is hitting sofas and fruit with hard objects. Pay attention to different types of impact, 'thwacks', 'thumps', 'smacks' and so on. Then play around with what you have in SoundForge (or similar) and particularly over-lay different sounds to achieve the type of punch you require. Clint Bajakian in caddis' link gives a fair introduction to this process.

By: plinth

plinth — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 11:34:26 -0800

According to Andy Moorer who was a sound engineer for Lucasfilm, the standard composite of sounds for a punch in the nose was:
1. air whoosing past a microphone (for the fist traveling through the air)
2. a small caliber pistol for the inital slap of impact
3. the impact of a melon dropped out of a 2nd storey window for the crunch.

He claimed that one of the major reasons that the fruit-growing region of California didn't totally go under during the depression was fight scenes in Westerns because of all the melons they were buying to drop out of windows. I don't fully believe him.

Oh, he also said that the standard sound of someone hitting the ground is a box of boxing gloves dropped.

By: muddylemon

muddylemon — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 14:49:33 -0800

there are plenty of open-source sounds at flashkit.

By: snsranch

snsranch — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 17:46:54 -0800

Oh, it so depends on what your'e doing. Is it martial arts related? Or bar room brawl?

For martial arts, and maybe other stuff, I love the sound of a ruler being flatly smacked against a flat surface. It takes a couple of strikes for practice but when done properly the whoosh, thud and crack are very distinct.

By: patgas

patgas — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 06:24:51 -0800

Mystery Science Theater 3000 taught me that slabs of meat attached to wooden paddles can be slapped together to make punching and kicking sounds. Twisting and ripping a stalk of celery is for breaking bones.