How To Make A Helicopter Sound Effect - David Dumais Audio | Game Sound Design | Game Music

How To Make A Helicopter Sound Effect

I recently bought a plugin called Traveler which is made by a company called Tonsturm. As I was playing around with this plugin, I quickly realized that I could easily make what I thought were some pretty convincing helicopter sound effects. I didn’t have to go and record my own helicopter sounds or even buy expensive sound libraries that have chopper sounds in them. Using Traveler was an easy way for me to make my own helicopter sound effects plus it’s a super helpful tool for creative sound design. So, in this video I want to show you exactly how I made helicopter sounds from my home, using sounds that I already had my computer to create cool helicopter sound effects.

What You'll Need

In order to create your own helicopter sound effects you’ll need 2 components: a drone and a tremolo plugin. Insert the tremolo plugin onto the drone sound effect. Set the mix knob to around 50% and increase the tremolo speed to your desired length. This should give you a basic helicopter sound.  In this tutorial video I’ll be using Traveller as my tremolo plugin as it has additional useful features. I’ll also be using Dron-e as my drone creation plugin. 

Dron-e allows me to quickly randomize and create totally unique soundscapes. For helicopter sounds, I suggest aiming to create a soundscape that resembles white noise in order to get the best results. 

Once you have these 2 main components together, it is only a matter of adding additional effects plugins to shape your sound to taste. I use a pitch shifter to lower the pitch of the helicopter sound. You can also use distortion and reverb plugins with great results. It all depends on the sound you have in mind that you are trying to create.

That’s it!

Resources

Traveler by Tonsturm

Dron-e (free Reaktor Ensemble for the full version of Reaktor 5.7.0 or higher)

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What other ways do you make helicopter sound effects?

Comment below!

  • Claire Allen says:

    Hi David! Brilliant stuff! I can’t afford many VST plugins, so managed to follow your advice with what I had available to me. I was wondering, as I can’t seem to find it anywhere when this post was made? Need a date to put in a reference for my University assignment

    • David Dumais says:

      Hi Claire! Glad you enjoyed it. I posted this on October 7, 2019. Hope this helps. Let me know if you had any other questions.

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