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It's generally frowned upon to fire any kind of gun in
public
places in the UK, even if it's a blank. The radius of
frowning generally correlates with the loudness of the
bang.
However, as far as I am aware, there is no law against a
car backfiring from time to time.
I would derive
considerable impish pleasure from having
a
small button on the dashboard which, when pressed,
would
activate the engine mismanagement system and produce
a
hearty backfire.
Were I more familiar with guns, I might also opt to have
my exhaust tuned, so that the backfire would resemble
more closely the sound of my favourite gun.
Supermarket carparks, long dull traffic cues, slightly
wobbly pensioner cyclists - the opportunities are
unlimitless.
Uncle Joe's "Little Kate"
http://en.m.wikiped...sha_rocket_launcher
Something of a limited repertoire … [8th of 7, Oct 21 2012]
Best gun sound in a movie
http://www.youtube....watch?v=_XuPHlX0Di4
Fast forward to 1:35 [doctorremulac3, Oct 21 2012]
Cartoon Physics
http://en.m.wikiped...n_physics#section_3
Some aspects are very worrying … [8th of 7, Oct 22 2012]
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This is already WKTE, although not for your intended
purposes. It's called (amongst many, many other names) an
ignition retarder, and it's used in
race cars to keep the turbocharger spooled up whilst
downshifting. It does exactly what it says on the box,
preventing the ignition of a sparkplug during
the moment of shifting, which dumps unburned fuel into
the hot exhaust manifold where it then ignites, powering
the turbo and creating a terrific bang (or, more usually,
three or four in rapid sequence). |
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The ignition retarders on modern race cars are tied into
the electronic timing of the engine, but I'm led to believe
that the earliest ones were button-pushers. They're illegal
on street cars most everywhere, for reasons that are
obvious to most sensible folks. |
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I'm not sure if you could tune it to accurately reproduce
the sound of a firearm, excepting possibly a long-barrelled
shotgun loading cheap practice rounds. |
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This I want very much. Illegal is a relative term. |
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So, if I underhend correctly, all that's needed is a
switch which would cut the ignition to a single
sparkplug for one cycle? Would there be any adverse
effects on a 3.8l V8? |
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If you paired it with a cut-out gate (also not street-legal,
but fairly common in hardcore street racing and off-road
circles), you could
actually have rapid-fire bursts of flame emerging from
beneath your car. |
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// all that's needed is a switch which would cut the
ignition to a single sparkplug for one cycle? // |
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// Would there be any adverse effects on a 3.8l V8? // |
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Not unless you lay on the thing. Using it once in a while
will ensue in hilarity with negligible mechanical
consequences; using it once or twice per day will cause
some carbon build-up that will eventually require cleaning;
using it
ten or twelve times in a minute will have your manifold
glowing cherry, and doing that every minute for half an
hour straight
will result in fire, explosion, mechanical siezure, or any
combination of the above. |
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//fire, explosion, mechanical siezure, or any
combination of the above.// |
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I think that's a small risk. |
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I would tend to agree. Pull out of the garage before you
test it. |
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//Were I more familiar with guns, I might also opt to have my exhaust tuned, so that the backfire would resemble more closely the sound of my favourite gun.// |
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Colorful life that I've lived, I've heard the sound of gunfire in the streets on a couple of occasions. Rule of thumb: If it sounds impressive, it's probably not a gun. Gunfire is very distinctive, making a "pop pop" sound verses backfires which are a very loud "BOOM!". Of course I'm talking typical handgun ammo like 9mm or 40cal, .38s that sort of thing. Never heard a large caliber rifle fired on the street, only handguns, but rifles also don't go "boom" so much as make a high pitched report that sounds like, well, a rifle. Loud, but not low pitched unless it's a 50 cal or something insane. |
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So bottom line, nothing sounds more impressive than a backfire. A gun won't rattle your windows, a good backfire will. |
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Even a .50 has a fairly sharp report compared to a
backfiring engine. Most guns don't
sound much like they do in the movies (even in otaku-scale
realistic war movies like Saving Private Ryan). From a
distance, a
shotgun makes a sort of booming sound, but rifles and
handguns
all tend to make a pop or crack that does not translate
well to recording media--thus the altered/amended sounds
you hear in the theater. The really impressive part of a
gunshot (aside from the knowledge that it is a sound made
by a gun) is felt rather than heard; standing next to a .50-
cal machinegun feels like being repeatedly whacked in the
chest with a shovel (unless you're not wearing earplugs, in
which case it feels like being repeatedly whacked in the
_brain_ with a shovel). |
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The most realistic gunshot I've ever heard in a movie is the
suppressor-equipped 9mm at the end of 'The Bourne
Identity' (K-THWACK!). |
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Did a bit of sound design back in the day for music percussion tracks, not for movies but the technique was the same. You layer all sorts of stuff together to make those big gun sounds. Firecrackers in 50 gallon drums, thunder, sonic booms. Got a great snair drum sound from a pile driver down the street once. You detune them, cut them up, time compress them, distortion, e.q. all sorts of crazy stuff. It can be quite fun. All to be able to say "Hey, listen to this..." "BLOOWWAAAMMOOWW!" when somebody walks into the studio. |
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Just to make the point of how much the gun sounds are modified for movies, take a copy of The Expendables for instance, and replace the soundtrack with a recording of a shooting range. It'll sound like they're quietly fighting while somebody's popping popcorn. |
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Yeah, I was riding my bicycle, one time, coasting downhill, and some goober driving a big school bus decided to pass. The backfire was only a few feet away, with the exhaust pipe pointing at me. It was louder than the time I fired a big shotgun with no ear protection. It sounded more like a gun than a gun does. |
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On the other hand, when I was riding the front-wheel drive motorcycle with the engine right in front of the handlebars, and little stub exhausts, I loved to back off the throttle just to see the flames pop. |
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As an Über-gun-nut who's actually fired andor been
present during the firing of nearly all of the
badass/historical guns you typically see in movies, the
thing that probably drives me furthest up the walls is when
they have a minigun in the movie, yet the sound guys use a
sped-up M60 with added blasting and ejection rattle. I
understand that the moviegoing public is probably put off
by seeing what is very obviously a gun but hearing
something that doesn't sound much like a gun, but one of
the scariest things about powered gats like the minigun is
that they _don't_ sound like guns. |
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//some goober driving a big school bus// hah! gotcha! |
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Actually, it wasn't me, nor even my bus nor my route... but one of the bus routes to my high school was nearly 70 miles one way, and passed through a national park. In the which there was a goodly concentration of orchards - and deer. ([Alterother], beware.) Since the deer were wont to wander, or leap, into the path of the bus, the driver would just turn the ignition key to "off" for a couple of seconds, then back on; about 3 shots over the course of a mile or so, and the bus would safely traverse the park with no mule-deer hood ornamentation. |
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I don't know if the park rangers ever caught up with those nasty "poachers" they were chasing every morning... |
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Clever... My Jeep will do the same thing. Of course, my
Jeep has a nigh-indestructible scratch-built bumper and
brush guard specifically design for catching the odd
wayward deer, but I'll still try it out. |
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The acoustic signature of firearm discharge is
notable for its very short rise time. A lot of
the energy is in this pulse; there's almost no
resonance or oscillation. It's effectively a
soliton (saltire) wave. |
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The noticeable thing about small arms fire in
an urban environment is the high-frequency
"screech" as this pulse echoes back off planar
surfaces in the vicinity; typically, these
surfaces reflect better for high than low
frequencies. |
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A tailpipe is going to smear the pulse
excessively if it originates in the manifold.
Better to design a way of injecting fuel into
the end of the pipe and then igniting it. |
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For realism, the quality required is a very
short rise time for the sound. |
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// high-frequency "screech" as this pulse echoes back off planar surfaces in the vicinity // |
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Heh. I was firing off firecrackers (illegally), just down the block from a stadium with a corrugated front---square ridges about a foot wide and deep---and the echo was fascinating. Which is why I kept setting off the firecrackers. |
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(They say the Mayan pyramids give off a echo that screeches like a sacred bird.) |
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I got to stand at attention through a 21-gun cannon salute, once, where the cannon (firing blanks) was pointed across the bay at a bunch of houses/buildings that were facing us. The echoes were sharp and distinct off each individual house front. |
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//For realism, the quality required is...// |
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Fortunately, most of the people who will hear it will
only have heard guns on TV, so I suspect an
unrealistic sound will sound more realistic. |
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That's actually quite profound, in a sad way. |
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For the same reasons, movie "explosions" are
lavish with hydrocarbon fuels. In reality, high
explosives produce a brief, bright flash
entirely lacking the spectacular roiling
fireball beloved of Hollywood. The real thing
looks much less dramatic; but in a cinema,
it's impossible to convey the ground shock/air
shock that is so entrancingly rapturous, nor
the whirr and fizz of small pieces of debris
passing through the air at supersonic speeds
… |
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We are very much in favour of increased
reality in movies. If that means patrons leave
the theatre deafened, disorientated, mildly
concussed and bleeding from multiple
superficial wounds then so be it. And that's
just the trailer … the main feature would be
considerably more impressive. |
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If I remember my Start Reck, the Borg use lasers
which make a zzzzbing noise even in deep space.
Presumably, they do this in order to intimidate
the
enemy. |
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By the same token, it seems to me that current
firearms and explosives need considerable revision
to make them more lifelike. |
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<placeholder for [8th] comment regarding lasers
being primitive weapons>_ <\placeholder> |
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<placeholder for [8th] to make a pun/play on the
word 'lifelike'> _ <\placeholder> |
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// Better to design a way of injecting fuel into the end of
the pipe and then igniting it. // |
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// We are very much in favour of increased reality in
movies. // |
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As are I. Back to Saving Private Ryan for a moment:
despite the conservatively enhanced gunshots (they did
their best to keep it real), I was impressed with the
non-fiery, terrifyingly instant ordnance explosions in the
movie. The mortars went Crump!, the grenades went G-
Whack!, and the bombs simply went Bang! with little
melodramatics and no excess of sturm und drang, just a
whole lot of schrapnel and a horrific (simulated) toll on
human life. I have it on good authority, mainly from [8th]
and a handful of WWII vets, that these at least were highly
realistic depictions. The tank cannons still had a little too
much
slow boom, but you have to depict scale somehow. Since
then, I've been quite (objectively)
pleased at the trend of 'realistic' violence in action movies,
emphasizing the terror and carnage and moving away from
the pretty fireworks. Gunshots, however, will never sound
just right, and I fear we may never hear a true minigun
blast in the theater. 'We Were Soldiers' came close, but
even then they slowed it down. |
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My dad and son were both in combat so my combat stories are all second hand. My personal war stories are mostly about things like getting snowed in for a day in Pittsburg without room service and being forced to eat at the Denny's next door. It's still hard to talk about it. |
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Anyway, my boy tells me that the sound of a helicopter minigun, especially at night was very creepy sounding. Very un-gunlike, more like a growling sound with these tendrils of fiery death reaching down from the sky. I think he used the word "creepy", but now that I think if it the word might have been "awesome". I'll have to check with him. Anyway it's supposedly a sound you'll never forget. |
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It isn't. I've never been in combat, but I've used/witnessed
many combat weapons on the range. A minigun sounds like
a low-octave chainsaw from Hell. It's the sound you'd
expect if the Grim Reaper mechanized his scythe. It's
indescribably loud, louder than a jet engine, and if you
close
your mouth while you're standing nearby it tries to push
your sinuses out through your eyeballs (or ears, possibly;
I'm always wearing earplugs at these events). |
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By the way speaking of combat depicted in the theater, my dad says the beach scene from Saving Private Ryan was the only realistic depiction of battle he's ever seen in a movie. He said the only thing missing was the smells which are pretty unmistakable evidently. By his account battle was an extremely horrific business. I think he used the words "scary" and "confusing". I can only imagine. |
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It seems to me that tweaking the car ignition would leave Max capable of making only one sound. Instruments are all electronic these days. Why not get more breadth of expression: loudspeakers of the "Baby Got Back" variety and sampled sounds of various sorts. If nothing else a range of different backfires, but why not screeching brakes, train air horns, roaring race car engines, snorting Belgians, urinating on a car door, and so on. All those useful sounds. |
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Loudspeakers? A trifle vulgar, but an interesting
option. |
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Actually, I wonder if there's also a market to be
made in guns engineered to sound like a car
backfiring? |
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// snowed in for a day in Pittsburg without
room service and being forced to eat at the
Denny's next door. It's still hard to talk about
it // |
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Understandable. Christmas 1942 in Stalingrad
would be infinitely preferable. |
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For spine chilling never-to-be-forgotten
audio impact, the 30mm cannon in a
Thunderbolt has few competitors even as
some distance. |
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Memorable sounds? Being 2km forward of a
squadron of Challenger tanks and listening to
outgoing rounds passing low overhead; the
staggering sensation of a MLRS releasing a
full salvo; and, oddly, the unmistakeable
relentless hammering of a .303 Vickers gun. |
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As to Saving Private Ryan- yes, the first time
that the film industry got the WipWipWip of
incoming automatic weapons fire right. Once
heard, never forgotten. |
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//Memorable sounds? Being 2km forward of a
squadron of Challenger tanks and listening to
outgoing rounds passing low overhead; the
staggering sensation of a MLRS releasing a full salvo;
and, oddly, the unmistakeable relentless hammering
of a .303 Vickers gun.// |
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Gosh, [8th], you do get around, don't you. When
was all this? |
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Yea 8, were you over in the Sandbox with the Brits? If so, what part? If you say "The hot sh*tty part." I'll know you were really there. (That's the standard line I hear.) |
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I'm interested to know why you all think it's so hard to get gunfire sounding right in films. I mean - reasonably expensive microphone, requisite gun, relative placement & environment, one round[2]. Job done - to the limit of the speakers available. If the speakers arn't up to the job that's not the film's fault. |
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[2] Or a few for variety. Or, say, 200 for a minigun. |
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Every Tuesday afternoon, between 1330 and
1530 (if wet, in the Church Hall). Tea or
coffee and biscuits are included, but please
bring your own mug, teaspoon, folding chair,
body armour and helmet. Sturdy shoes, ear
defenders and full anti-flash gear are
recommended. |
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// if you say "The hot sh*tty part." I'll know
you were really there // |
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Ummm … warm certainly, dusty definitely,
smelly - incredibly. It's just a matter of
picking the right time of year to visit, which is
restricted to the 29th of February. |
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No. The peak SPL from even a modest
firearm at 5 metres is going to be 130dBA or
more. To reproduce that, you'd need a
massive amplifier system and enough
speakers to handle the power and even then
the surge would probably fry the crossovers. |
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Go hook up a quality microphone to a
storage scope and then loose off a few
rounds. Check out the peak height and the
rise time. Oh, and don't expect the mic to be
good for anything afterwards. |
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I think the argument is that real guns do not sound
very realistic, and therefore the sound of real
gunfire is not used. |
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In the end, though, you have to ask yourself who is
at fault here. If the vast majority of people think
that real guns don't make realistic gunfire noises, it's
clearly the guns that need revising. |
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There's always that delightful Russian musical
instrument, the Stalin Organ … |
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I'm not sure 'realism' is the issue; I think it's more that real
guns don't sound _impressive_
enough on film. Dirty Harry's big bad .44 magnum is a very
impressive gun on celluloid and in real life, but the
genuine article just goes pop when you pull the trigger.
Granted, it's a very loud pop, but it's over very quickly and
doesn't sound like much more than a highly amplified
champagne cork. |
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Truth be told, a magnum doesn't even
sound that impressive first-hand (at least for those who
are accustomed to gunfire). For the very real harm and
devastation such a hand cannon causes to be fully
conveyed to the audience, it has to do more than just go
'pop'! Thus, instead of sourcing actual gunfire, foley
artists turned to firecrackers in trash cans for a deeper,
fuller bang. |
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Nowadays, with all the digital sound manipulation wizardry
that's being developed, filmmakers are turning back to real
gunshots recorded in studio environs, but they still have to
mess with them to make them spectacular enough to
match what's happening on the screen. I'm not even really
bothered by that; what bugs me is when some mobster's
snubnose .38 goes off with a bang that I clearly recognize
as having originated with a 30-06 rifle, or when an
automatic weapon goes ticktickticktick to let us know that
it's empty, even though in reality the last shot sounds sharp
and cut-off because the slide is locked back. |
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//I think the argument is that real guns do not sound very realistic// |
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Certainly not when compared to preconceptions created by years of hearing sound designed, dramatized gunshots in movies. |
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And in the category: Best gun sound in a movie, the nominees are: "Big gun. The Expendables 2" (See link, fast forward to 1:37) |
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I believe that [alterother] has succinctly and
peraciously hit the nail on the head and come
straight to the point. |
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'cues'... 'unlimitless'... ? |
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//all that's needed is a switch which would cut the ignition to
a single sparkplug for one cycle?// |
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Hmm… I dunno about that. I'm not going to say it wouldn't
work, but I can tell you that I once had a Corvette with a
faulty spark plug boot, and the only thing I noticed was that it
ran like crap at idle. The whole engine would nearly vibrate
itself to pieces. Once it got going you almost couldn't tell it
was running on only 7 cylinders, though. I certainly didn't
hear any backfiring. |
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I have a feeling that for a modern computer-controlled, fuel-
injected engine fitted with a catalytic converter, it may be
quite a bit more complicated than simply cutting out the
spark for a single cycle. |
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Perhaps though it's the non-realism of movie gunfire sounds which gives movie bullets enough momentum to push people through plate-glass windows? So, let's suppose that movie bullets contain 1mm^3 of material which Hollywood has collected from the core of a white dwarf star. This has a density of 1x10^9 kg/m^3, so the bullet will weigh just about 1kg. If it is fired at 200 m/s it will therefore have sufficient momentum to give a 100kg man a velocity of 2m/s towards the nearest plate-glass window. Surely the explosive power necessary to propel a 1kg bullet, in addition to the retro-rockets required to stop the shooter moving backwards at 2 m/s (Newton, and all that), would make a more impressive noise than 'real' gunfire? |
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No degenerate matter required, except
perhaps in the brains (if any) of the
scriptwriters. Rather, it is an example of how
the phenomenon of Cartoon Physics <link>
has permeated the world of live-action
movies. |
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What you need is a veteran car - I'd imagine Maxwell Towers to have at least a few. |
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Since they have many more manual controls than moderns, one can switch off the ignition while driving down a hill. If you put your foot down for a short time, the exhaust pipe should become filled with petrol and air and is thus primed. On reaching the bottom (or passing a cyclist struggling up in the other direction) one can fully retard the ignition and switch the magneto back on. Hill-arity will ensue. Probably works best in a lower gear since the engine speed will be greater and therefore the effect of retarding the ignition will be greater - this is the reason why it will be less reliable on an unmodified modern (high engine speed = advanced ignition, except on steep hills upwards) |
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I haven't tried this out yet, but is close to the top of things to try when I've done my clutch up. |
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just get an older Class B rally car. The anti-lag systems were ridiculous. |
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If foley artists make gun-noises that sound like movie gun noised by setting off bangers in a bin, could guns not be made to sound as the washed majority think they sound simply by puncturing a hole in the bottom of a metal bin and sticking the the fore of the gun through the hole, the aft (including the handle) remaining outwith and behind the bin. When fired, the binchamber may or may not create a large echoey booming noise, which will sound boss. This approach has the added bonuses of giving the wielder something to catch enemy bullets in and of making the firearm easier to disguise (as a bin). |
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I realise that this does not address the problem set out by MaxwellBuchanan (ch is aspirated) but hey ho. That problem could be solved by sitting a foley artist in the boot with a metal bin and some fireworks. |
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[calum], you should post that as a new idea. I would also suggest electronic versions, perhaps a jacket-mounted speaker system that senses the 'crack' and amplifies and echoes it. |
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Done. Feel free to suggest. |
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[bigsleep], do what? (Remind me of the babe) |
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Hang on - 130 decibels and it isn't impressive enough? |
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To be honest I don't think I'd mind if the gunfire wasn't impressive. And realism in war films would be great. |
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Protagonist gets conscripted
Protagonist wades through muddy field getting shouted at.
Protagonist travels to front. Mostly involves being sick, bored etc.
Protagonist arrives at front. More hanging around. Occasionally something some distance away will be hit etc; generally doesn't sound impressive.
Protagonist goes on mission, catches a bullet, dies screaming, fade to black. |
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You missed the bits about being too hot/
thirsty/cold/wet/hungry, but particularly the
digging holes … lots of digging holes. "Holes
every day … dying- occasionally". |
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[Loris], you need to watch 'The Pacific'. It's what you
described (i.e. a realistic vision of war) as seen through
the eyes of those who opted out
on the last step. |
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And listen to the veterans in "Band Of Brothers". |
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