Chuck Russom

Slingshot Penny Sounds

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:50:00 -0500

I was going through some old recordings today and was reminded of these sounds. Several years ago, I took a slingshot and shot a bunch of pennies past my mic. Easy enough to record and they sound really cool. These sounds work great for bullet whizbys.

2012 Project 52 #07 Week 7 of my 52 project. Moon Jellyfish at...

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:53:24 -0500

2012 Project 52 #07

Week 7 of my 52 project. Moon Jellyfish at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach CA.

These photos look much better on Google+

2012 Project 52 #06 Week 6 of my 52 project. I couldn’t...

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:26:24 -0500

2012 Project 52 #06

Week 6 of my 52 project. I couldn’t decide on just one photo this week. It’s been warm in LA and the flowers are blooming, I guess Spring is early. I grabbed the camera and went outside for some quick close up flower shots.

2012 Project 52 #05 What Happens In Vegas…

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:23:00 -0500

2012 Project 52 #05

What Happens In Vegas…

Train Station Ambience

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:33:29 -0500

It’s been a while since I posted sounds, so I thought I’d dig up an old favorite of mine. There is a train station about a mile and a half from my house, it is in a trench, but not completely enclosed. Essentially the station is in a tunnel that is open to the outside. You end up with this very reverberant space, that almost sounds like a subway tunnel. Since it isn’t fully enclosed, you also get a mix of outside sounds, like birds and traffic, coming in. It’s a pretty unique sounding space. There are pictures on Wikipedia if you want to see what I’m talking about.

2012 Project 52 #04 Kaleidoscope View all the photos from my 52...

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:17:00 -0500

2012 Project 52 #04

Kaleidoscope

View all the photos from my 52 project

2012 Project 52 #03 Fire and explosions are cool. Taken last...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:38:00 -0500

2012 Project 52 #03

Fire and explosions are cool. Taken last weekend at Universal Studios Hollywood.

You can view all photos for my 52 project on Google+

2012 Project 52 #02 A few months back, I bought a Sigma...

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:51:00 -0500

2012 Project 52 #02

A few months back, I bought a Sigma telephoto lens, mostly to shoot my kid’s soccer games. I’ve been curious to see what kind of results I could get from the telephoto at the zoo. Last weekend I finally had a chance to haul my gear out to the LA Zoo. We got there early, before the crowds, and I was able to get a lot of really nice shots. I posted a bunch up on Google+, and this shot of a chimp seemed to get the biggest response, so I decided to select it as this week’s photo.

I’m posting all my shots from Project 52 on Google+, so head there if you want to view them all together.

2012 Project 52 #01 I’ve started a 52 project, where I...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 19:59:00 -0500

Fuller Seminary library - Pasadena, CA

Pasadena City Hall

2012 Project 52 #01

I’ve started a 52 project, where I will take and post one photo a week, every week of the year. The purpose of the project is to force me to use a camera regularly. It is also an exercise to get me thinking differently about potential subjects. I often have a hard time justifying if a subject is worth photographing. The things around me everyday often seem too normal and unexciting to me. Perhaps to someone else they are extraodinary subjects. I’m forced to shoot a photo a week, so I’ll need to learn to open my mind. The only way to get better at something is to do it often.

The first week already proved to be a challenge. I got sick with the flu and was laid out most of the week. I couldn’t find anything around the house that was inspiring to shoot. Finally, I got out on Friday night walked around town and I was able to find quite a few cool things to shoot. Many people don’t like shooting at night, but I love it. At night, there are some great lighting opportunities that you don’t get during the day, you just have to look for them.

After a challenging week, I ended up with so many cool shots it was hard to pick one, so I cheated and chose two photos to start off week #1 of this 52 week project. The top photo is the library at Fuller Seminary, which is very near my house in Pasadena, CA. The bottom photo is of Pasadena City Hall, an amazing building and local star. Built in the 1920’s and recently renovated (2004), City Hall is an architectural treasure that I’ve been meaning to photography for some time.

To do these photos justice, please click and view the large versions. Or better yet, view them on Google+

I also have an album of other photos I took of Pasadena City Hall

15 Scientific Facts About Creativity

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:54:29 -0500

15 Scientific Facts About Creativity:

An interesting article to read, if you don’t mind a little science

Ariel Gross: What Isn't Sound Design?

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:01:00 -0500

Ariel Gross has been writing some great posts on game audio over at #AltDevBlogADay. If you are interested in game audio, and you haven’t checked them out, you should do so right away. I really like his latest post; What Isn’t Sound Design? Here is an excerpt:

Sound design is not quick work. It doesn’t happen in five minutes. I don’t care what sound I’m making, it could be the sound of a feather landing lightly in a basket of cotton. It doesn’t matter, it’s not going to take me five minutes. It’s probably not going to take me 30 minutes. I might be able to get it done in an hour, but it’s not going to be the best that it can be. Not even close. It’s going to be a rough first pass that may be acceptable to ship if absolutely necessary, but I’ll probably find some time to make it better later. May as well say that it’s going to take at least a couple hours.

He hits it right on the head. Game Sound Designers are usually asked to perform under unrealistic deadlines. We’re often asked to deliver 8-10 finished sounds a day. That is a sound or less per hour! At the same time, the quality is expected to be top notch. From nothing, through research phase, concept, trying things out, to finished/polished/mastered sound in 40 mins to 1 hour. And it is supposed to be awesome! Something doesn’t seem right there…

These expectations are a holdover from the days when “Sound Designers” would just grab a sound from a library, do a quick edit, and then deliver it as a final sound. We are way beyond that. Today’s projects require custom sounds, but our schedules rarely allow for this. How do we educate the people setting the schedules/budgets that this isn’t doable/acceptable anymore? Anyway, that’s enough from me, go read Ariel’s stuff.

The End of Chuck Russom FX

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 20:47:48 -0500

I announced on Twitter that I will permanately shut down Chuck Russom FX on January 18, 2012. I instantly got overwelmed with messages of support and questions asking why I am shutting it down. I said I’d write up a blog post to explain. I’ll make an effort to explain as much as I can and keep the details as brief as possible. Beyond this post, I’m not really looking to discuss this any further, so please respect that. Ultimately it is a personal decision and I’ve decided that I no longer want to focus my time and efforts on running the business. I appreciate everyone’s support over the last 20 months and I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent doing this.

Here are some of my reasons for ending it:

There are other things that I’d rather spend my free time on. Chuck Russom Fx operates as a side project and takes up a lot of my time. Moving forward, there are other side projects that I’d like to focus on. Something has to give.

From a business standpoint, Chuck Russom FX is not profitable. Yes, I bring in money, but if you subtract the true costs of doing business, then I have been running a business that has been losing money for 20 months. At the same time, sales have been steadily decreasing each month. How is it losing money? Am I really personally losing money? You have to factor overhead (recurring) costs like server fees, accounting costs, legal costs, and other misc costs. Overhead is pretty low and isn’t the real problem. You also have to consider production costs (costs to make each library). These costs include; props, equipment purchase/rental, and my time. I work on a freelance basis, every hour that I spend on a sound library is an hour that I cannot bill to a client project. I keep track of the hours that I spend on a library and those hours multiplied by my rate become part of the cost of producing a library. With the exception of my rain and fireworks libraries, I have never broken even on a library (once I factory in the cost of my time). So that means that nearly every library I’ve produced has lost money. I accepted that my time investment is a cost of building the business and someday, it will even out. Some of my libraries are nearly two years old now and still have not turned a profit. Libraries that I have planned for the future will require a greater investment of money and time. I decided that I can’t produce those libraries at a loss and had to cancel them, especially given the overall decline of sales over the past six months. When you look at it from a business standpoint, it really doesn’t make sense to keep moving ahead. The whole point of a business is to cover both your overhead and hard costs and also make money for the time you invest.

Some people have suggested that I just stop creating new content and leave the site up for people to continue to purchase the old libraries. To be honest, I could do that. Monthly overhead is pretty low and it wouldn’t take many sales to break even. There are a couple issues I have with that. First, without new product releases, monthly sales slow significantly. That means that most months I would be looking at little to no actual profit once my overhead was covered. I’m not really interested in running a business that just breaks even. Second, even without producing new libraries, the business does occupy some of my time. I have to deal with server and website issues and maintenance, customer service, accounting, and general business planning and management. I really just need to wipe it all away and not have it occupying my mind so that I can move forward and try new things.

My main business (my day job) is freelance sound design. I feel that over the last year my day job has suffered as I focused more time growing Chuck Russom FX. I’m not saying that my work or the quality of my work has suffered. But I feel I have spent more time promoting the FX business and not enough time promoting my sound design business. My day job pays the bills, I need to focus much more time on growing my sound design business. I don’t feel I can successfully run both businesses right now, at least not at the level that I require.

That’s the gist of it. I could have gone into greater detail that might explain the whole story more, but I feel I’m being a lot more open that most businesses ever would be. I’m not sure that I’m ready to say that I will never again license sound effects or produce sound libraries. I do enjoy it and if I can find a business model that works for me, I may attempt something again in the future. But for now, this is the end.

Dying Garbage Disposal Sounds

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:21:57 -0500

One thing that really fascinates me about recording sounds (and taking photos) is the ability to capture moment in time which we may never experience again. I have sounds of buildings while they are being constructed, sounds of my dog who died a few years back, and sounds of my daughter when she was just days old.

A couple of years ago when my garbage disposal started dying, it made some crazy sounds. Of course I had to record it! I’m glad I recorded when I did, because now I’m back to having a fully-functional, boring sounding disposal under my sink.

Side Projects

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 23:39:00 -0500

Working in a creative job is challenging. You have to be able to create on demand and within a defined amount of time. I think most will agree that it isn’t always easy to just flip a switch and turn the creativity on. I’ve discovered that having creative projects outside of your day job are essential to maintaining a creative mindset.

My hobbies have really been fueling my creativity lately. Spending a lot of my free time working on my photography and music has really inspired my sound design work and I’ve found it much easier to create on demand during my day job. I started to think about starting up some type of creative side project. After a lot of thinking, I’ve come up with three that I hope to start next year. It looks like in 2012 go back to my 2010 ways of never sleeping!

I’m inspired by photographers who do a 365 project, which is where they take a photo and post it every day for a year. I know that I would not be able to stay committed to that. I’d probably last a week before giving up. I am going to try a 52 week project. Each week, I’ll take a photo and post it here on the blog. It will be interesting to see if I can stay committed to the project for an entire year. It will also be cool to look back over a year and see my (hopeful) growth as a photographer. I’m starting this project the first week of January.

I also have a music project that I’d like to start up. I play guitar and drums and write occasional songs, but I never record or play for anyone. It’s been a great outlet for me and I think it might be time I get back to recording music (it has been many years since I’ve attempted. I have something in mind that I hope to start up next year. If past experience is any indication, this project will never see the light of day. But I’m going to try!

There is a third project I have in mind that I’m not ready to share but I think it will make a nice addition to this blog. I will be starting on it soon, so watch out.

Electricity

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:39:00 -0500

If you followed my old blog you know that I had posted a lot of sounds that I recorded over the years. Unfortunately, all of those posts were lost when the blog got deleted. Luckily, I still have all of the sounds.

From time to time, I will be re-posting some of my favorites. I’ve been working on a lot of electricity sound design lately and was reminded of the time I recorded Tesla Coils back in 2005. This is one of my favorite sounds from that session.

New Sound Library

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 02:29:28 -0500

New Sound Library:

Today I released Drones, my latest sound library. It’s been almost 4 months to the day since I released my last library. That is the longest break between libraries since I started Chuck Russom FX back in April 2010. Damn, I’m slacking….

29 ways to stay creative

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 17:20:22 -0500

29 ways to stay creative

Photo

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:50:11 -0500

I love that this guy plays his instruments live and...

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:45:33 -0500

I love that this guy plays his instruments live and doesn’t sequence. I hate sequencing music (which is a big reason why I never record anything). Very inspiring video.

Am I An Artist?

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 01:14:00 -0500

There has been a lot of debate over the years about games being art. Well, this post isn’t about that…. If you must know, I think games are more like porn than art, but that is a post for another time.

I work on games as a Sound Designer and a Sound Recordist. My job is very creative and I work on creative projects. Does that make me an artist? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I am a creative person (and always have been) and I work in a creative field, so am I an artist?

From dictionary.com

art·ist

[ahr-tist]

noun

a person who produces works in any of the arts that areprimarily subject to aesthetic criteria.

a person who practices one of the fine arts, especially apainter or sculptor.

a person whose trade or profession requires a knowledge ofdesign, drawing, painting, etc.: a commercial artist.

a person who works in one of the performing arts, as anactor, musician, or singer; a public performer: a mime artist;an artist of the dance.

Looking over this definition, I would say that numbers 1 and 3 do apply to my job and maybe even number 4. So, according to the internet, I am an artist. Now usually, I take the internet’s word as final. The internet knows everything and is never wrong. The internet gave us videos of a barely-dressed Britney Spears dancing to a Marilyn Manson song. Clearly, the internet had figured the world out. I’m not sure about this one though.

I’ve been visiting a lot of museums the last several months where I’ve seen works from numerous artists. I’ve also been following a lot of photographers on Googe +. A common theme I’ve seen with many artists is their art is about expressing themseleves. It isn’t always a job for them. Even if they are not being paid, they still create their art. It is their passion and a very personal thing to them. Even if they never made any money they would continue with their art. They have to, it is a fire inside them that never dies.

It’s this concept that I grabbed on to. If someone wasn’t paying me, would I continue with Sound Design? Would I continue on to express myself even if their wasn’t a payday? Hell no, Sound Design is hard. I enjoy what I do for a living very much, and I am grateful that I have a career that I love. I wouldn’t want to do anything else. But if their wasn’t a payday, I wouldn’t spend my day designing sounds just to express myself. I need a purpose for my Sound Design. There are numerous other things that I would rather use my creative energy on.

And this is where things get interesting. What if I didn’t have to ever work again? What if I was retired or won the lottery or suddenly received a huge life insurance payoff from a recently deceased loved one….. What would I do with my time? I know exactly what I would do. It is the stuff that I currently do in my free time. I would play music, write, take pictures, and possibly record interesting sounds (and also bitch a lot on Twitter). All of these are creative things. All of these are considered art. And I do all of them without any hope or need of a paycheck.

I play guitar and drums almost daily. Music serves as an incredible creative outlet for me. It is a very personal thing that I share with no one. I never play live and I never even record my music. It is for me and me alone. I see it as something pure, even by recording it, it would be ruined for me. Music helps drive me as a creative person and I need no paycheck or recognition from it.

Writing is something that I was once very into. Once I got more and more into music and sound, writing went away, but it is still something that is in my mind and something that I’d like to get back to. There is a lot swirling in my head that if I could ever find the time, I would write down.

Photography is my new passion. I’ve only recently discovered it, but I love pictures and it is constantly on my mind. It has overtaken everything and become my main creative outlet. My new obsession really. It is also something that I would never want to consider a profession. I do not want to make money from photography.

Sound effect recording is an interesting thing for me. I do it as part of my career, but I think that even if their was no paycheck, I’d still record interesting sounds that I discover. Not sure what I would do with them, but I love recording. Recording is what got me into Sound Design in the first place. Every time that I fire up a recorder and a microphone, I’m reminded of the 19 year old kid that I once was who was obsessed with finding a career in a recording studio.

So, after all this, am I an artist? No, I don’t think I am. I really don’t think I am comfortable using that term to describe myself. Picasso was an artist, Monet was an artist, I’ll leave the title to people like that.

I am a creative, and I don’t need words or titles to define who I am.