Create Crazy Sound Effects with Household Objects [DIY] - 101th Edition

If you’ve ever wanted to play at being a Foley artist for your own audio recordings, here’s a list of common household objects that can create tricky but believable sound effects. Photo by M. Keefe.

Sound designer David Filskov posts an interesting list of tricks he’s collected from other designers for turning common objects into audio trickery. It seems like a stretch, until you realize that movie soundtracks are rarely recorded from the source—often because doing so would be dangerous, impractical, or wouldn’t sound believable.

The sound of people walking on snow? It’s made by recording people in the studio walking on flour or cornstarch. If you live in a cold, snowy climate, you know how rare that perfectly crunchy and squeaky snow is. The sound of a naval depth charge? A toilet flushing at half speed, with a reverberation filter applied. Alien sounds?

Certain kinds of canned dog food make useful sounds as the food comes out of the can. The chunky stuff isn’t so good, but the tightly packed all-one-mass kind makes gushy sucking sounds when the air on the outside of the can is sucked into the can to replace the exiting glob of dog food. This sound can be used as an element in certain kinds of monster vocalizations, alien pod embryo expulsions, etc.

Those without pooches can also try solid cranberry sauce for a similarly weird noise.

If you have your own tricks for turning every day objects into cool sound effects, share the cinematic magic in the comments below. Extra points will be awarded if you link to your audio of a Chimera fighting a Liger, made with Saran Wrap, a Twinkie, and a startled house cat.

By Jason Fitzpatrick
Yaab