Mec Soundscape of Paper 纸景

Introduction

•7 types of traditional hand-made paper、6 type of industry-made paper

•From tiny paper particles to massive wave surfing

•For trailer, documentary, movies and UI or special FX in video games

•12 patterns of paper movement in recording, easier to find the sound

•Hi-end pre-mastering and final mastering

•Recording：96kHz 24bit Stereo, 192kHz 24bit Stereo (better for some of the papers)

•Post Production：96kHz 24bit Stereo

There are 2 packs which could be purchased separately

Raw Pack

•Raw Record: 201 tracks

Designed Pack

•Pre-designed: 85 tracks / over 340 takes•Designed FX: 130 tracks / over 390 takes

Papers Collected

1.Rice Paper, BenSeYunLong

2.Rice Paper, QianYunLong

3.Rice Paper, QinShuiGuangBan

4.Rice Paper, QinShuiChang

5.Rice Paper, WangTongHe

6.Mulberry Paper, SangPi

7.Mulberry Paper, GouPi

8.News Paper

9.A4 Print Paper, 80g

10.Card Paper

11.Hardcover and Coated Paper (Books)

12.Softcover (Books, Traditional Type and Modern Type）

13.Posters

Story Behind the Sound

The starting idea was quite easy. I was just wondering if that’s possible to have most common and easy materials to making some dramatic sounds. Then one day, paper specially hand-made paper got into the plan.

But how to capture such small and fine movement of paper and how to make it sounding rich enough as a library. This is a big challenge and t’s totally out of my imagine. Eventually It took 13 months and went through sort of stages:

1.Collecting Papers : Most of papers actually sound quite same. Even my ears are not able to figure out the difference. Then I had to learn more about hand-made paper. And purchased about 15 types of them. And then study how to play with them. After practicing, 7 of them were collected to record. Because my hands can create various sound from them.。

2.Research of Pre-Recording and Post : Figuring out the patterns of microphones setup for specific paper movement. Patternised recording and foley actions can make it easier to find and use the samples. But the sound sometime is too tiny and very hard to capture and well normalize the textures in post-production. Fortunately, a friend’s studio(Sound Machine Studio) would like to help. They have super quiet foley room and bunch of hi-end hardware that I can freely use. It makes the entire working flow into a more complicated level. But, the research told me it’s really worth to do like that. And that’s the only way to have highest quality as I want.

3.Recording, Pre-Mastering and Post-Production : After recording, all the recorded tracks were polished by sort of mastering hardware. That drawn every take’s color and texture. And then collect and cut takes for the next stage.

4.Pre-Design and Render :Collected the most interested and potential takes and then edited and mixed for getting an good version of samples which’s like in our mind. Just simply edition and EQ. Even no compressor in used. It’s also a prepare for the next stage.

5.Dry Designed version：By using Sensel Morph Pad and Radium sampler in Soundminer v.5, let the samples mixing and flowing like water. For example that’s impossible to have longer and continuously moving paper sound from recording. And in a good sampler, it makes true. And the I can go the the next stage。

6.Designed for Special FX: Paper movement in slow-motion, that looks like ocean waves or Chinese ink from Chinese brush. In fact, it’s much harder than my expect before. If just few samples, that’s quite easy. But if bunch of samples, that needs more variations and that’s big challenge. I don’t think that I have found all the skills in this pack after weeks of trying. But I tried the best on it.

So, actually this case is much harder then my plan at starting time. Another reason is that, I didnt like the skills I have every used for years. There shall be some fresh skills or methods that I can try something very different. But anyway, this is exactly the goal of the idea: try something fresh from very easy materials. That’s always a tough work if we got this idea in mind.

In the Designed FX version, the biggest challenge is to find right reverb. Paper sound is very sensitive in a reverb and very hard to control. Except Altiverb, the most-often-used reverb plugins in this case are: Eventide MangledVerb, ShimmerVerb and Blackhole. Plus GRM SpaceGrain and Sountoys Crystallizer for support and avoiding the metallized echo and feedback from reverb.

Hardware in Used

Microphone: Schoeps 641、640 one pair each、Sanken CO-100 one pair

Mic Pre-amp and Comp: API Channelstrip

Pre-Mastering: Maselec MEA-2 EQ、Millennia NSEQ-2 EQ、Maselec MLA-2 Compressor

Final Mastering: API 5500、Empirical Labs EL7 FASTO Jr、SSL Fusion、Waves MAXXBCL

Audio I/O: Apogee Symphony MK1、MKII

Foley Recording & Pre-Mastering：Sound Machine Studio

Special thanks to Sound Machine Studio and the great help makes the case into possible!

Keyword in Chinese/English：

撩 Pull Up, 抖动 Shake, 绷紧 Stretch, 折叠 Fold, 展开 Open, 合页 Close, 揉 Rub, 撸页边 Flips, 撕扯 Rip, 翻页 Turn ,拍打 Tap, 落地 Drop