Creating solid and engaging sound design requires more than a library of sounds and a tricked out studio. Neil Clutterbuck, composer and sound designer at London's Logorhythm Music goes out of his way to find real sounds for his compositions.

"You listen to so many commercials and films these days, and you can identify where the squeaky gate sound effect came from," says Clutterbuck. "I can sit through a film and say, 'that is squeaky gate two from such and such sound-effects CD.' An awful lot of people rely on CD sample libraries and the like, and that is an area where we take the extra trouble."

Clutterbuck and his recording engineer, Nick Glover-Horn, go out of their way to find and record the sounds used in his commercial projects. In a recent ad for the Heathrow Express train through FUEL UK, Clutterbuck used train and station sounds to compose the sound design. For a BMW ad for WCRS London, "Music," he used automotive sounds recorded with pressure zone microphones attached to a BMW engine as the car raced around a test circuit.

"Composing music out of real sounds comes about from listening to the natural tones of things," notes Clutterbuck. "In the BMW spot, the acceleration noise of a car is always a steady upward pitch, and when you start listening to a lot of it, you can determine notes, which you can then back up with some sort of rhythmic sounds."

Usually spending at least two days gathering the source sounds he uses in a project, Clutterbuck plans out the sounds he wants to incorporate into each piece before going out into the field to collect source material to combine with the music and effects he creates in the studio.

"My style is start off with a source sound that has to be reflected in the product, then build musically around that," says Clutterbuck. "I put my recorded fresh source stuff onto a hard disc recording system, then edit and tune the sounds. My instrument of choice is the keyboard, and I think the most trustworthy thing I use is the Akai S3200 Sampler. That and my old mini-Moog, which is great for creating sounds from scratch."

While Clutterbuck draws a parallel between today's computer graphics and tomorrow's computerized music, he says the old methods of generating sound effects remain relevant.

"I am a big fan of foley sound effects; the only advances we currently have are taking a source recording of a foley artist and manipulating it further," he says. "I still think the great thing foley artists had was the right sound for the right image."

Logorhythm was formed by composers Anthony and Gaynor Sadler in 1986, who today, along with Clutterbuck, Rory McFarlane and Anu Pillai, create music and sound design for clients like Sony, Bacardi, the BBC, Renault, Levi's and Cadbury.

WEB.FILES:
BMW: http://www.bmw.com