Distant Thunder
Sound Effects
Likely due to storms in the area, Kevin Fishburne took a break in his work on the in-game map for Sanctimonia and his Footstep series of sound effects to create something new. As he announced on his Twitter account, these new public domain sound effects are the sounds of distant thunder.
More PD SE's (distant thunder): http://t.co/9eQAIkvgy3 These were brutally EQ'd and thus require accompaniment. More after the next storm!
— Eight Virtues (@eightvirtues) April 12, 2013
Although they may sound faint when listening to them in a standard player, its easy to manipulate the audio in most game engines to get the desired effects.
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He also released an OGG that shows off the effect in-game.
Initial implementation in-game at max cloud density (audio): http://t.co/z0RKYQcUvt Will move server side and add parental lightning soon.
— Eight Virtues (@eightvirtues) April 12, 2013
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As he noted on the previous releases: These are recorded and edited by Santimonia and have been released to the public domain, and may be used for any purpose, including commercial, without restriction.
Sanctimonia is an open source massively multiplayer online role playing game in the spirit of Ultima.
Some additional notes:
This was my first time recording outside of a controlled environment. Raindrops were actually hitting the mic, which I’d covered with a sock to limit damage. The resulting “thumps” required that I kill all frequencies but the extreme lower end in order to mostly remove the direct raindrop hits. So, as described, these sounds are good for distant (as in DISTANT) thunder, or sub-woofer style accompaniment to more robust inclement weather sounds.
When the next storm passes I’ll place the mike deeper into my backyard and cover it with a stand. The stand’s “roof” will be a beach towel at a 45 degree angle to diffuse the sound of impacting raindrops and divert any running water away from the mic. That should allow me to preserve higher frequencies (though I’m sure I’ll still have to lightly EQ the results) and produce much better results.