Recently, I was in my studio planning my 8-bit sound pack when I decided I wanted to include explosion sounds. I asked myself: “how do you create 8-bit explosion sounds?”.
I did a bit of research and lots of experimentation and this is what I found. 8-bit explosion sounds can be created using any synth with a noise oscillator. Reduce the envelope’s decay, add some bit crushing, and add your desired effects and you have a classic retro explosion sound.
This is not the only way to create explosions sound. In this post I actually want to share with you three ways that I’ve discovered to create effective 8-bit explosion sound effects.
What You'll Need
- A synth with a noise oscillator. We’ll be using Massive by NI in this tutorial.
- S-layer by twisted tools OR any explosion sound file
If you don’t have any of these tools, check out this page HERE where you can find many free synths to get started. Look for synths that have a noise oscillator like the Fathom Mono by Seaweed Audio and the Burt 2.0 by Noisebud.
Method #1
- Select the noise oscillator. Make sure all other oscillators are turned off.
- Reduce the envelope’s level knob down to 0.
- Play around with the envelope’s decay knob until you get a note length that suits your purposes.
- Insert the bit crusher and sample and hold insert effects in slots 1 and 2 respectively. Set the dry/wet knob to 100%. Play around with the sample and hold pitch knob to get the color you are looking for.
- Add your desired ‘fairy dust’ effects. Play with the noise oscillator’s color knob. Add filters, reverb, and any other effects you desire.
For this first method, you can actually use any noise oscillator either from a synth or from a sample. I personally found it much easier to create these sounds within a synth, but do not let this limit you. If you don’t have a software synth, grab a noise sample file. Tweak the envelope with an envelope plugin and add effects in your DAW’s effect rack.
Method #2
- Turn on Oscillator 1 using oscillator Math II preset.
- Pitch down Oscillator 1 down 24 semitones.
- Reduce the envelope’s level knob down to 0.
- Play around with the envelope’s decay knob until you get a note length that suits your purposes.
- Insert the bit crusher and sample and hold insert effects in slots 1 and 2 respectively. Set the dry/wet knob to 100%. Play around with the sample and hold pitch knob to get the color you are looking for.
- Assign the step modulator to oscillator 1’s pitch. Turn up the pitch modulation up to 33 (33 semitones).
- Randomly assign steps in the step sequencer. Turn the rate knob all the way up.
- Play with the noise oscillator’s color knob. Add filters, reverb, and any other effects.
Method #3
- Load a as many explosion sounds into S-Layer. These can be any kind of explosion sounds you have. I used everything from sci-fi gun sounds to designed explosion sounds and professionally recorded explosion sounds from sound packs.
- Insert a bit crusher as an effect insert. Increase the sample divider. Decrease the bit depth.
- Play around with different bit crusher presets. Add your desired ‘fairy dust’ plugins.
For this third method you do not need a S-Layer or any software plugin. Use professionally recorded explosion sounds and add bit crushing to them. If you want to be creative, design your own impact sounds and follow these same techniques.
Conclusion
There are of course many ways to create a 8-bit explosion sounds but these are just the ones that I found to be effective and useful for my project. This is more of a modern approach to creating retro sounds without having to use older software and gear, but hopefully this can spark a little creativity for you and help you in your upcoming work.
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What other ways do you make 8-bit explosion sound effects?
Comment below!
