How we make Slow Motion Sounds (Part 2) - Smarter Every Day 185

All right, I'm Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. This is part 2 in our slow motion sound series. We're recording stuff with the Phantom, and we're going to just play it back and show you how to create those sounds. There's something just inherently funny about a banana right next to your face about to blow up. I don't know why, but that's just funny! Also, something funny about a bana... Whoa! hysterical laughter

All right, look, this is gonna be one of the more ridiculous videos on Smarter Every Day. It's because Gordon and I got the giggles, right? So this video is about blowing up a banana right next to Gordon and a bottle and showing how the slow motion sounds are created. But if I'm honest, it's more about hanging out with Gordon. Here you go; slow motion sounds.

Gordon: Whenever I'm explaining what we do on the channel to people, I really hold us to a higher standard than a lot of other channels. Like, you know, we do "edutainment." We're very educational. Sometimes the science gets really deep. We're not like all those other channels that just, like, blow stuff up and don't teach you anything. We're not like them at all. As soon as you bring me here, it's like; "PUT A FIRECRACKER IN A BANANA!" laughter Science later! more laughter

Okay, yeah, oh man! Oh wait, is the audio recording? What's happening? This is so scary. Is this a dud that’s not going to go? I don't think it's going to go. That was the most intense, like, 30 seconds. I haven't laughed that hard in a really long time. All right, my heart. Why you do me like that, banana? All right, baby? Yeah. This is why we came to Alabama for—to learn about the culture.

Okay. Bang! Bang! Ohh! Got it! Did you get it all over you? You good? Earplugs work? Yeah, yeah. All right, let's look at the high speed. Gross! Okay, I know we're goofing around and having a little fun here, but do you remember what Gordon said in the last episode? We are gonna record the sound because one of the questions we always get is, can you just record the sounds real-time and slow it down? The answer is no, which we'll explain later.

We recorded this video at 28,000 frames per second, which is roughly a thousand times slower than standard video. Here's the slow most sped up a thousand times and laid over the top of the audio exactly as we recorded it. Now let's cut the audio speed in half. Here's audio at a quarter speed. Here's one-tenth the speed of the original audio. Once we stretch the audio down to 1/100th, it no longer sounds like an exploding banana—it sounds like something else I love. Can you figure out why this is happening?

Slow motion banana explosions sound like the Saturn V rockets. No, slow motion sound effects are not recorded at the moment, right? No, they're not. And why, why is that? Because when you slow down a sound, you make the waveform longer; you make the sound lower. So we think we can get a more interesting organic feeling effect by redesigning it. If Gordon's trying to make this slow-motion video feel more organic and interesting by adding things to it, what kinds of things is he looking for?

There's one more experiment; let's see if we can figure out how he thinks. Okay, last thing—do you remember the first video we worked on together? Sure do. What was it? It was bottles, and yeah, we blew up some bottles. And it wasn't a science video; it was more of just like an... art thing? We used your song, Cicada's Waltz, so I think we should blow up a bottle... for old times' sake here. Sure, yeah, that'll be fun.

So I'm thinking bullet comes in the neck here in, and then we should be able to see the bullet do its thing on the way out, and everything's gonna get wet. We're gonna hide because there's gonna be glass that flies. The aim looks like it's the right offset that we figured out earlier. Three, two, one. One of the first things we do always is we always lay down like a drone and just underneath everything, to give like... to make the silence more interesting, and because there is no such thing as like a totally silent room, other than like an anechoic chamber. We're gonna go bam.

We got something for the... we have to do our impact. What's so what's interesting that we want to highlight in this video, I think, is definitely gonna be the cap launching off, and we're definitely gonna want like sound for the bullet coming through, and this split here is also one of the more interesting parts of the video, as well as the exit of the bullet. So you pick out like specific things that happen temporally, and then you highlight them with sound.

Yeah, yeah, because if we just try to cover everything realistically, it can become just sort of like a mishmash and... or just like a wash. We're just picking the important parts, and we're highlighting those things. That's what keeps entertainment interesting. It makes sense now that I think back on the slow-mo footage you've done in the past. Yeah. You look for like knocks or bings or something that's hitting. What do we want people to look at, or what is, what are people already looking at? So you're highlighting visual things with acoustic cues (yeah), or audio cues, that’s awesome.

Yeah, totally. { Long Bang Sound } { Bullet hits bottle } { Glass shattering } What can people do right now with their mouse to support you in a way that changes your life for the good? Follow me on Spotify. That would be handy—A Shell In The Pit on Spotify. And just follow you. Yep, you can listen to all the Smarter Every Day music there, and all my game soundtracks. That's awesome. Yeah. Thank you very much, dude. { Bang Bang }

All right, I know this video was different, um, but I hope you understand now that slow motion sound is in fact created by a guy named Gordon McGladdery from A Shell In The Pit. But I want to say thank you to the sponsor because that helps me pay Gordon. This episode of Smarter Every Day was sponsored by 23 and Me. Anyway, that's it. I'm Destin. You're getting smarter every day. Thank you for tolerating this video. I know this was just more of a fun video than most, but it was, uh, it was a blast. I'm Destin, getting smarter every day. Have a good one. Please consider subscribing if you feel like somehow this has earned your subscription. Bye!