# Cinema Sound Foley Library: Hollywood-level immersive audio for all



## Andrew Aversa (Jan 27, 2020)

Impact Soundworks is proud to announce the release of *Cinema Sound Foley Library*, a virtual instrument built for sound designers, foley artists, editors, DIY directors, and other post-production professionals.

*Cinema Sound Foley Library* (or CSFL) allows you to easily create Hollywood-level immersive audio by "performing" foley via MIDI. This saves lots of time (and money) compared to recording your own foley or assembling audio piecemeal from multiple libraries. And as you'll see, the sheer depth & breadth of content in this collection compared to its price makes it a no-brainer.

Created in collaboration with *Cinema Sound*, the world's leading experts in film audio education, CSFL includes a massive library (54,000+ samples) of carefully categorized samples that can be performed, edited, layered, and mixed within Kontakt. No other tools required. It's also fully Kontakt Player and NKS compatible!

Let's take a look...

*Sound Browser*







Each patch of CSFL covers a broad range of sounds, like Female Footsteps (pictured above), Male Footsteps, Skin & Miscellaneous, Clothes, and Ancillary (which covers a huge range of 18,000+ bonus sounds in miscellaneous categories.)

You can quickly browse and audition sounds by category, surface, material (etc), which will help you quickly match foley to the action happening on screen. This multi-bank/layer setup lets you work within a single MIDI channel per category - again saving time and project setup.

Once you've selected the sound categories you want, an *integrated editing setup* lets you trim and adjust each sample. These tweaks are available on a per-sample basis. This way, you can get your foley sitting perfectly within a full mix all without using external tracks or plugins.

*Integrated Mixing & Editing*






And just like many of our recent releases, we've included the *Console FX rack & mixer,* so you can further sculpt and mix the sound with 30 included EQs, compressors, reverbs, delays, distortion units and much more.

*See It In Action*

Take a look at 5 video clips before & after CSFL is used to fill in all the foley-less moments!



And here's our quick walkthrough of the UI, features, and sound types.



*What Can CSFL Do For Your Projects?*


*Eliminate sameness* with a massive variety of male & female footsteps
*Perfectly match* on-screen steps with separate heel, toe, pick-up, and stop samples
*Capture movement & intimacy* with clothing and skin touches
*Build tension* with body percussion and grunts
*Add horror and battle elements* with impacts and weapons
*Bring action to life* with crunches, swishes, rustles, and more

*Other Key Features*


Over 54,000 samples recorded at pristine 24/96
Full frequency range - no pre-mixing or EQ applied, so you can sculpt your mix
Complete modular FX rack (Console) built in
Fully NKS compatible
Works with the free Kontakt Player

*New to Foley & Sound Design? We've Got You Covered...*

Cinema Sound has produced a huge range of* free* tutorial videos for this instrument showing how to use it to its fullest potential. Check them out on the *product page*!

*Pricing & Availability*

*Cinema Sound Foley Library* is available now for the introductory price of *$179* (list $199). Its convenient, powerful tools will save you time in post-production, but we think this is also an *unbeatable *value compared to other foley libraries and how much (or how little) content they include!


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## Denkii (Jan 27, 2020)

Just read this on the go and Iam so excited for this!
Will look into it later!!!


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## VinRice (Feb 1, 2020)

This is a very smart move. As Foley moves into the general consciousness, it can be a bit of a shock to learn how much specialist libraries can cost - and you need a lot of them. This should be a winner. I'll be buying.


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## Brasart (Feb 1, 2020)

Great price, will buy it during this year too


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## wst3 (Feb 1, 2020)

This is absolutely brilliant Andrew! I don't know that I can justify it right now, but if a project comes along that demands heavy use of Foley I will have to consider it - the time savings alone will be worth it.

Well done!


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## danwool (Feb 1, 2020)

I'd be curious about comparisons to UVI Walker, which is very good. I'm interested in the other foley aspects CSF offers, but it looks very footstep-centric and may be largely redundant if one has Walker.

CSF also seems more like a tool for those who have never worked with foley before, as oppose to an alternative for pros. Much of the product page is dedicated to "what is foley?" etc. I'd love hear from anyone who thinks otherwise.


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## Andrew Aversa (Feb 1, 2020)

Over 50% of the library is non-footstep content. Here is the full list of sound categories (going to add this to the website shortly). Keep in mind each category listed here is a *menu* of samples.



https://impactsoundworks.com/docs/Cinema%20Sound%20Foley%20Library%20Content%20Layout.pdf


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## VinRice (Feb 1, 2020)

danwool said:


> CSF also seems more like a tool for those who have never worked with foley before, as oppose to an alternative for pros. Much of the product page is dedicated to "what is foley?" etc. I'd love hear from anyone who thinks otherwise.



Well I think that's obviously the target market. Why would a pro have any interest in this?


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## danwool (Feb 1, 2020)

VinRice said:


> Well I think that's obviously the target market. Why would a pro have any interest in this?


Temp tracks, fast turnarounds m'be? I don't know. I was thinking some pros might prefer something like this to conventional methods. I'm more composer than sound designer, but I'm doing more and more of this type of work professionally....so I'm *sort* of a pro with interest.


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## Andrew Aversa (Feb 1, 2020)

VinRice said:


> Well I think that's obviously the target market. Why would a pro have any interest in this?



The same reason pro composers use sample libraries! If you have enough time and budget, it makes sense to do custom foley for each individual project. Just like how if you're scoring a film, it would be great to be able to record a full live orchestra every time. 

Of course the majority of projects out there don't have such budgets, or the timelines are short. SFX libraries (and existing foley-style libraries) have been around for over half a century to meet these needs. It's often not practical most of the time to do everything from scratch.


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## VinRice (Feb 1, 2020)

zircon_st said:


> The same reason pro composers use sample libraries! If you have enough time and budget, it makes sense to do custom foley for each individual project. Just like how if you're scoring a film, it would be great to be able to record a full live orchestra every time.
> 
> Of course the majority of projects out there don't have such budgets, or the timelines are short. SFX libraries (and existing foley-style libraries) have been around for over half a century to meet these needs. It's often not practical most of the time to do everything from scratch.



You misunderstand. A pro would already have a gigantic indexed library of foley and a refined workflow. Unless all your samples are in open wav files with large metadata sets they will be of little interest. I'm not in any way ragging on the product however. For somebody like me who loves sound design and dabbles in foley when the opportunity arises it's perfect.


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## ProfoundSilence (Feb 1, 2020)

the NSFW Foley made me physically laugh. That would be an interesting gig I suppose, and there is probably a large demand for it

this is the best timeline. 

I'm sure some of this stuff would he awesome for metal producers


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## muadgil (Feb 2, 2020)

Perhpas I may give my point of view, as a pro sound editor/mixer. Not meaning that my opinion must be taken as a rule...
I often work on animation projects. On small budget productions, it's difficult to organize a decent foley recording session. Foley artists have a big salary (which is quite normal, as their craft is very particular and require great skills) you need a room with decent acoustic, great quality mics and pre amps. Well, you got the situation.
As a sound editor, editing all these little and very numerous sounds (feet, hand noises, clothes...) from a classical foley library is very time consumming. Opposed to other sounds which are one shots, constructions, sound design... and are better of edited in a classical way.
So, for me, this VI library will be a great tool, giving me the opportunity to record all these movements almost synced with the picture.
Plus the sounds seem to have good quality/variety.
As soon as I have a project which need a lot of foley, i'll buy it


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## X-Bassist (Feb 2, 2020)

To add to what M said above, I’m another composer/sound designer/mixer for films who prefers to perform foley to picture, just as I compose music to picture, in real time. I’ve gotten a lot of milage out of Foleyart and Edward’s Ultimate Foley, and am always looking to add more. Often with props and audience material I have to make my own instruments, but it’s well worth the time and Kontakt is easy to setup if you don’t need scripting.

As far as this instrument, it’s a good start. Most foley is mixed with a low pass and high pass filters to get rid of the extra crispiness and low end that can come with a flat close up recording, when in real life our ears are much farther away from the sound source. So I would have to hear it mixed that way to get a sense of how it works, and in the film mix examples it is left too flat. Hopefully I will get a chance to test it out soon (perhaps there could be a cut down version like with Foleyart and EUF?) The layout and sample start functions look great, I just wish there was a more distant mic recorded, to better match picture. But that requires a great foley room as well (with few reflections to work for an outdoor shot), so that might be a big ask. Like with instruments, it’s more useful on louder sounds, so small things like paper, writing, cloth rustle, it’s not a big deal.

I hope the field grows. There are a few developers getting into it. This could get extended to car foley, kitchen foley, shopping carts, skateboards... Editing this stuff over and over (esp on docu’s) can be a hassle that turns into a pleasure with a couple quick passes and some midi tweaking. Even getting last minute notes I can add something quick during the mix. Not really possible with a foley recording session. TBH I still pull out a mic and a few props to record a quick cue, but that’s when I know I have nothing good for it in a library.


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## danwool (Feb 2, 2020)

This last post brings up a good point. Are there plans to expand and add specialized libraries to CSFL? The document posted above has a lot on it (including dog toe nails!), but I can easily see the need for more and specialized foley libraries. It seems like a lot of work went into the instrument. Adding expansion libraries would make sense I'd think.


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## muadgil (Feb 2, 2020)

X-bass you pointed something that would be very useful: having the possibility to blend different mic positions. Let's say close/2m/large. It would be perfect and foley would blend more easily into a realistic mix, and add the possibility to be able to deal with moving characters on the fly.
Or as an alternative to mics, I imagine additional settings integrated in the player, like a convolution reverb with 2 sliders (wet and dry), with the usual post production reverb choices : bedroom, living rooms, bathroom, hall etc.. And a little 3 band parametric EQ.
And I guess the possibility to add your own foley would be an interesting feature.
It would make this library even more versatile and workhorsy.

I know, don't even own the library (but will in a near future) and asking for more 
You already made a great piece of job here ISW team 👏

Thats just food for thought regarding a potential update/extension


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## timprebble (Feb 4, 2020)

zircon_st said:


> Of course the majority of projects out there don't have such budgets, or the timelines are short....




Odd statement.
In 25 years of working on films we have always been able to afford a foley team, whether it is for feature films, TV, short films, docos... Apart from the creative input collaborating with a great foley team bring, the other reason is that an M&E is crucial to be able to sell the end result, and the M&E mix goes through the same QC as the final mixes.

I appreciate virtual tools like this are useful in some circumstances - I used a quite convincing Kontakt instrument for animal hooves for an animated short film... But for large projects the need to conform MIDI would be a nightmare... Matching production audio would be the other concern.

Will be interested to see how this works out - please do report back, especially once someone has taken their virtual foley to a foley predub on a proper film dub stage


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## Andrew Aversa (Feb 4, 2020)

You've had the good fortune to work on well-funded projects over your career! But consider that Netflix, Amazon Video, and YouTube now account for a huge amount of media coming out yearly. A lot of these productions are very low budget (or no-budget in the case of the latter two.) I'm doing an informal poll on my personal Facebook page now to ask if anyone has worked on any film projects without a dedicated foley artist or team. I will let you know the results!

There are also video games, which as an industry is now bigger than film. The majority of games being released each year are also very low budget, making thousands of dollars in revenue at most (e.g. <$10,000). So for any sort of in-game cinematics, unless you are in the relatively higher tiers of game production, chances are there is no budget for a dedicated sound designer with a custom foley setup for things like animations, cutscenes, etc.


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## timprebble (Feb 4, 2020)

You consider Netflix and Amazon productions as very low/no budget?? From people I know working in post the deliverables for those platforms are on par (or more demanding) than for commercial TV, features etc... Far from low/no budget.

Not sure how useful the results of a poll based on a personal FB account will be, as it simply reflects who your friends are, not an industry. For it to have any meaning would need to relate the poll to actual work history, IMDB credits etc - otherwise you may just be polling/self selecting youtubers


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## Guy Rowland (Feb 4, 2020)

I've often had to do DIY foley on UK TV productions. It's often required (at least to some extent) on productions that aren't classified as full dramas, and their post-sound budgets are tiny compared to dramas, typically 1 person vs an entire crew.


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## MartinH. (Feb 4, 2020)

zircon_st said:


> There are also video games, which as an industry is now bigger than film. The majority of games being released each year are also very low budget, making thousands of dollars in revenue at most (e.g. <$10,000). So for any sort of in-game cinematics, unless you are in the relatively higher tiers of game production, chances are there is no budget for a dedicated sound designer with a custom foley setup for things like animations, cutscenes, etc.



For games, would you allow the use of the sounds from the library as ingame sound effects? Or only synced to picture in a cinematic? I think if you decide to allow use for ingame effects, you could get a lot of sales if you promote it properly in the indie gamedev scene.


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## Andrew Aversa (Feb 4, 2020)

MartinH. said:


> For games, would you allow the use of the sounds from the library as ingame sound effects? Or only synced to picture in a cinematic? I think if you decide to allow use for ingame effects, you could get a lot of sales if you promote it properly in the indie gamedev scene.



Yep! It can be used in games, it does not have to be only used for film/TV and traditional linear media.


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## Andrew Aversa (Feb 4, 2020)

timprebble said:


> You consider Netflix and Amazon productions as very low/no budget?? From people I know working in post the deliverables for those platforms are on par (or more demanding) than for commercial TV, features etc... Far from low/no budget.
> 
> Not sure how useful the results of a poll based on a personal FB account will be, as it simply reflects who your friends are, not an industry. For it to have any meaning would need to relate the poll to actual work history, IMDB credits etc - otherwise you may just be polling/self selecting youtubers



In my years as a professional composer and sample library developer, I've connected with a wide range of other professionals (sound designers, composers, etc). I realize an informal personal poll is just that, however these are not hobbyists or students. These are people that earn money for their work, and that purchase professional tools. At the end of the day, they are part of the audience for this virtual instrument (and basically all others you see on VI Control).

My question was,

_For any of my friends who have worked on film projects (including indie/student stuff), did you ever have a project where there was *not* a dedicated foley artist or foley team?_

Responses so far include:

"Yes, SO many, and most projects would have been better off with 'em!"

"Yea all of them."

"Yes. Frequently there's only one or two dedicated sound engineers on an entire indie project and they usually use licensed stock sound effects instead of proper foley."

"Yeah, all of them as someone else said."

"Far too often, I've had to help out a bit on the foley front, but mainly it's been a sound engineer."


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## mark edward lewis (Feb 5, 2020)

danwool said:


> I'd be curious about comparisons to UVI Walker, which is very good. I'm interested in the other foley aspects CSF offers, but it looks very footstep-centric and may be largely redundant if one has Walker.
> 
> CSF also seems more like a tool for those who have never worked with foley before, as oppose to an alternative for pros. Much of the product page is dedicated to "what is foley?" etc. I'd love hear from anyone who thinks otherwise.


We did generally design it for the independent multimedia creative - which is the entire purpose behind http://www.cinemasound.com anyway: supporting the independent media creative to get Hollywood-level results at no-budget price using audio/sound as the primary discipline to create powerful audience impact.


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## mark edward lewis (Feb 5, 2020)

zircon_st said:


> Yep! It can be used in games, it does not have to be only used for film/TV and traditional linear media.


It's like SUPER DOPE for games!


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## timprebble (Feb 5, 2020)

Of course there are all levels of productions happening at all times.
I am sure some/many have never ever had access to a foley team...
Best of luck to them


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## mark edward lewis (Feb 5, 2020)

timprebble said:


> Odd statement.
> In 25 years of working on films we have always been able to afford a foley team, whether it is for feature films, TV, short films, docos... Apart from the creative input collaborating with a great foley team bring, the other reason is that an M&E is crucial to be able to sell the end result, and the M&E mix goes through the same QC as the final mixes.
> 
> I appreciate virtual tools like this are useful in some circumstances - I used a quite convincing Kontakt instrument for animal hooves for an animated short film... But for large projects the need to conform MIDI would be a nightmare... Matching production audio would be the other concern.
> ...



Ideally, once th client approved the foley, it would be burned into stems - so the dub stage doesn't have to deal with MIDI. Although, given the price and that it's fully compatible with Kontakt which most houses have - AND given that I've never seen foley taken in 1 on the stage - always changes - CSFL is still a pretty great tool even on the dub stage.


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## mark edward lewis (Feb 5, 2020)

muadgil said:


> X-bass you pointed something that would be very useful: having the possibility to blend different mic positions. Let's say close/2m/large. It would be perfect and foley would blend more easily into a realistic mix, and add the possibility to be able to deal with moving characters on the fly.
> Or as an alternative to mics, I imagine additional settings integrated in the player, like a convolution reverb with 2 sliders (wet and dry), with the usual post production reverb choices : bedroom, living rooms, bathroom, hall etc.. And a little 3 band parametric EQ.
> And I guess the possibility to add your own foley would be an interesting feature.
> It would make this library even more versatile and workhorsy.
> ...



The problem with "different mic positions" is that the only mic positions you really want to have are the ones which make foley sound like how it is on set. And since a majority of the time the re-recording mixer is creating that ambience with convolution verbs etc, there's no reason to have such recordings: the foley is dropped into those same verbs (or at least similar settings). It also allows the re-recording mixer to move the foley from room to room with the same bus architechture of the rest of the sound disciplines. Doing pre-made mic ppositions is great for music - but we're _matching_ in foley. And that match happens in pro tools or at the very least from an impulse response from set loaded into a convolution reverb. Hope that makes sense. Excellent thought, though!


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## mark edward lewis (Feb 5, 2020)

danwool said:


> This last post brings up a good point. Are there plans to expand and add specialized libraries to CSFL? The document posted above has a lot on it (including dog toe nails!), but I can easily see the need for more and specialized foley libraries. It seems like a lot of work went into the instrument. Adding expansion libraries would make sense I'd think.


Absolutely! At the moment we're judging user responses and seeing where they wish they'd have other elements. We, by no means, created all-things-for-all-situations. Instead, we created the most used clothing, skin, and footsteps we run into all the time doing mixes for independent media creative productions. We've already thought about specialized Footsteps, clothing and even general discipline for all three. Perhaps a 19th century add on. 18th century. 1st century. 25th century. Locales: western. Urban. Suburban. Snow. Etc.

Exciting!


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## X-Bassist (Feb 5, 2020)

timprebble said:


> But for large projects the need to conform MIDI would be a nightmare... Matching production audio would be the other concern.


All midi foley is laid off to audio tracks, so conforming is just like traditional foley, with the exception that it CAN be reedited in midi to create a new performance. Grouping a few midi tracks and an instrument track to the audio means it can be carried along with the audio conform, but doesn't have to be seen unless it needs relaying.

And as far as matching I've had good success matching production just like other foley, add some eq, panning, Altiverb ambience and mix it in. But having enough choices and a good interface to make those choices is key. 

I agree with you a foley team is always best, because like great orchestral musicians they put heart in the sound AND performance, that makes it special. But for animatics, trailers, or those last minute changes/pickups it can save the day without a foley stage. I hate to say it but I think more productions will be going do this road for various reasons, sometimes it's not just budget.

I'm glad to see ISW really worked on the browser, as that's were you need to spend most of your time on the interface. But more can be done. As the collection grows or has more versions added, having a browser that can find things quickly is key. Adding a search window, plus some keywords or categories might be helpful. The Ancillary categories has way too many things in it to select from a list. I would suggest they check out Output's Signal browser or one of the other clever browsers created for Kontakt that don't involve a pull down menu with 30+ items in it.


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## timprebble (Feb 5, 2020)

Totally agree - it is about performance. For me, a foley artist is like an actor. They give intent to sound. If you've worked with good, great & not so great foley performers the difference is very obvious.But the same also applies to recording technique, microphone/s choice, attention to detail, matching perspective, action and feel etc...

But one of the things that really fascinates me is this: one of the key motives appears to be budget driven: "there is no budget for foley" But somehow there is budget (or time to burn) for someone to "walk" every cue on their MIDI keyboard... and perform every spot effect... and a cloth track? Then edit the MIDI because it won't be right first time... but not just edit sync, also tweak velocity, add variation etc... then print it all to audio, cue by cue (literally thousands of cues in a feature) And then prep it for a foley predub. Or predub it themselves? Quite amazing where all this unbudgeted budget suddenly comes from... Love to hear these other reasons?


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## muadgil (Feb 5, 2020)

timprebble said:


> Totally agree - it is about performance. For me, a foley artist is like an actor. They give intent to sound. If you've worked with good, great & not so great foley performers the difference is very obvious.But the same also applies to recording technique, microphone/s choice, attention to detail, matching perspective, action and feel etc...
> 
> But one of the things that really fascinates me is this: one of the key motives appears to be budget driven: "there is no budget for foley" But somehow there is budget (or time to burn) for someone to "walk" every cue on their MIDI keyboard... and perform every spot effect... and a cloth track? Then edit the MIDI because it won't be right first time... but not just edit sync, also tweak velocity, add variation etc... then print it all to audio, cue by cue (literally thousands of cues in a feature) And then prep it for a foley predub. Or predub it themselves? Quite amazing where all this unbudgeted budget suddenly comes from... Love to hear these other reasons?



I'm 100% with you regarding the artistic value of a real foley artist, the feeling they can give to the soundtrack, by being sensitive and I would add that for the most part, they are far more efficient in terms of time spent/foley amount. And I personaly hugely prefer working in these conditions rather than editing footsteps, believe me.

But... 
A sound editor will be paid something like 200€/day. A foley artist 4/500€. And the recorder 2/300€. (at least here in France it's that kind of money)
A simple editing room with a pro tools can be rent 200€ by a studio. Or even free if the editor is already geared. 
A good recording room with good gear and good acoustic will be more like 600/800€. 
That's for cost, quite big gap.

Not all production needs a full foley soundtrack, it can be only touches here and there, to give a bit of realistic human presence when needed. 
For that, these type of libs are perfectly fine. 

Of course for a drama, full feature, well produced documentary etc.... It would be total non sense to use a library and fuss with all the audio/midi editing. With at the end a far less good artistic result.
But for a self produced animation short, or basic YouTube shortcut, it will be quite useful. 

To each tool its proper use.


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## Guy Rowland (Feb 6, 2020)

Perfect reply from muadgil above.

Tim, I'm not sure why you're so relentlessly laying into this product. It's not even a new concept (UVI's Walker, Tovusound's FoleyArts).

IMO it's never a pretty sight watching one developer attack another, especially in the other developer's own thread. Maybe the claim in the title is on the hyperbolic side (hardly unique here of course), but that's about it.


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## ProfoundSilence (Feb 6, 2020)

Guy Rowland said:


> Perfect reply from muadgil above.
> 
> Tim, I'm not sure why you're so relentlessly laying into this product. It's not even a new concept (UVI's Walker, Tovusound's FoleyArts).
> 
> IMO it's never a pretty sight watching one developer attack another, especially in the other developer's own thread. Maybe the claim in the title is on the hyperbolic side (hardly unique here of course), but that's about it.





Guy Rowland said:


> Perfect reply from muadgil above.
> 
> Tim, I'm not sure why you're so relentlessly laying into this product. It's not even a new concept (UVI's Walker, Tovusound's FoleyArts).
> 
> IMO it's never a pretty sight watching one developer attack another, especially in the other developer's own thread. Maybe the claim in the title is on the hyperbolic side (hardly unique here of course), but that's about it.


coincidently a developer who also sells sound effects LOL.


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## X-Bassist (Feb 6, 2020)

timprebble said:


> Totally agree - it is about performance. For me, a foley artist is like an actor. They give intent to sound. If you've worked with good, great & not so great foley performers the difference is very obvious.But the same also applies to recording technique, microphone/s choice, attention to detail, matching perspective, action and feel etc...
> 
> But one of the things that really fascinates me is this: one of the key motives appears to be budget driven: "there is no budget for foley" But somehow there is budget (or time to burn) for someone to "walk" every cue on their MIDI keyboard... and perform every spot effect... and a cloth track? Then edit the MIDI because it won't be right first time... but not just edit sync, also tweak velocity, add variation etc... then print it all to audio, cue by cue (literally thousands of cues in a feature) And then prep it for a foley predub. Or predub it themselves? Quite amazing where all this unbudgeted budget suddenly comes from... Love to hear these other reasons?



I totally get Tim's point of view, it's not just about a kontakt instrument or even the "man hours" (the best foley artists I've used have been mostly women) but the performance. I hate to relay this to people new to the field, but there are at least dozens of ways to put your foot down on a slab of concrete, times by every shoe and every surface, with round robins, not sure even 100,000 samples would cover it. But on top of that fact the Foley Artist - having NEVER seen picture before (most don't watch it first)- hit their marks precisely, and give you a performance that's "sad" or "angry" or "confused" that adds something to the scene. It doesn't just replace production, it does something better. Like a hollywood session player coming in to replace a high school student, they make it come to life and even if it's played low, it adds so much to the scene.

I walked foley myself for my first TV show in the 90's. Thought I did pretty good after it was edited. But on the 3rd show I brought in a Foley Artist, not even a great one, and she made my foley sound like crap. Seriously. No amount of editing can make up for a stiff performance.

So, having said all that, that is why a lot of other props have not been explored, because there would need to be too many variations to cover everything. Even footsteps now need to have more variations, more round robins, it had to be treated like a great percussion library. And then you're just covering basics. But for basic things, for simple scenes, for short segments, it's workable. Once you get good at it you can perform it and record it to audio at the same time, then just punch in the fixes that are needed (now that's oldschool! Reminds me of working with 2" tape!  ).

Real Foley Artist's, like real session players, bring everything to the next level (I still use car crash recordings I did at Paramount's Foley Stage years ago). And they DO get a big job done faster than anything else. So for projects with decent sound budgets they will always remain. And even for TV or Film that needs special props or long performances (usually half of the foley I do) there will always be a need to perform it in a studio with real props. But I think as developers come up with better interfaces and better samples (Hollywood style foley recording, a close 416 and a more distant 2nd, better performances) these kind of instruments will sell more and more.


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## Brasart (Feb 6, 2020)

You guys, different tools for different people/budget, it's fine.

It feels like reading those crazy people that used to swear musical samples would be the end of live musicians, music and humankind.

Everybody knows it's different using samples and having a dedicated foley crew performing it live, just like everybody knows using live musicians is different from using libraries; but sometimes you can't use live musicians, and sometimes you can't hire foley artists.


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## X-Bassist (Feb 6, 2020)

Brasart said:


> You guys, different tools for different people/budget, it's fine.
> 
> It feels like reading those crazy people that used to swear musical samples would be the end of live musicians, music and humankind.
> 
> Everybody knows it's different using samples and having a dedicated foley crew performing it live, just like everybody knows using live musicians is different from using libraries; but sometimes you can't use live musicians, and sometimes you can't hire foley artists.


Good point, but the issue usually is that most people DON’T know the difference. Whether it’s the new composer that’s never heard something they’ve written played by a top notch musician (maybe 95% of composers overall?) or a film producer that can tell that there is a difference because he’s only heard crappy foley mixed low, it’s one of those things that get’s placed in the “not really necessary because we have technology” category.

Honestly I’ve fielded the question of “Why do we need foley at all?” From producers and directors since the 90’s (even on animated projects) but everytime I explain and show them a mix with and without GOOD foley, then they begin to understand.... only to come back on the next project with the same question. Now the 2nd question is “why do we need live foley?”. Because it’s faster and easier to cut something that’s close then editing the hell out of some prerecorded effect. Try cutting a violin performance out of bunch of random recordings (from different sources and rooms) and you’ll start to see what I mean.

So in my experience it’s easier to get a producer to understand the importance of good musicians than good foley artists. And how they SAVE time is usually lost on most people, editors included.

The product is a good start, we just need more. AND live foley recording (whether a foley artist in a foley room, field recording, or a mixer with silverware in a booth) is never going away. The field of material needed is just bigger than any symphonic orchestra, and not as exciting.


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## Mark Schmieder (Feb 8, 2020)

Great explanation! And though I do not CURRENTLY need foley in my work (the film director I was working with for many years died in a tragic accident, and I haven't been motivated to hustle myself to someone new as I'm busy with plenty of other stuff), I have definitely bookmarked this library as the go-to should my needs change in the future. Really well designed, with the needs of working artists in mind.


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## wst3 (Feb 9, 2020)

A human foley team is always going to bring a soundtrack to the next level... ok, a good foley team, but you know what I mean.

Tools like UVI Walker, Boom Library Virtual Foley Artist, and now ISW CSFL are bringing Foley performance to projects that don't have the budget for a foley artist or team, and that's good, it will improve the quality of the soundtracks.

Of the three I think CSFL seems likely to fit my workflow better, and I'd grab it in a second if it allowed me to import from my present stash of SFX libraries.

I have no doubts as to the quality of the sounds that are included, but no one library covers all the bases, and I have quite a few SFX libraries that I've used often enough to have a certain comfort level.

And I mean no disrespect to ISW or CinemaSound, but no one company can cover every possible category, let alone sound. I am happy to see Tim Prebble pop in here - his libraries are among my favorites, perhaps a tad quirky, but they fill in the blanks left by some of the older providers like Sound-Ideas, BBC, Hollywood Edge, etc. Boom Library is another company creating "new" libraries that cover lots of cool sounds.

I really like the new workflow offered by CSFL (e.g. the ability to cross-fade between two patches), if I have to bounce (pun not intended) between that and dropping files into a timeline then I lose time, and the benefit of the new tool.

For someone that has not invested in SFX libraries I think this could be a fantastic starting point. Not sure it is ready for folks who have large libraries.

Another thing that would be cool, but probably not necessary, would be integration with librarian tools like Meta-Digger or Sound Miner - assuming of course we can import those sounds.

I hope ISW will consider allowing access to other SFX libraries in a future update.


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