This weekend I worked with my friend Drew to try out creating impulse responses for the first time. We used a sine tone sweep method. For those who don’t know, IR’s (in audio) are used to replicate the sound of rooms, spaces, equipment, etc. This is particularly useful when an actor’s voice is recorded in a studio but needs to sound like it’s in a space appropriate for a scene. You can also sample stranger things like refrigerators, vacuum tubes, and trash cans.

Check out an example of one of our IR’s in action. Here’s some dialogue I recorded in a Columbia College booth, first played dry, and then with the IR of my apartment stairwell applied. The result is a voice that sounds almost exactly like it was speaking in this all concrete stairwell. I can’t wait to try some of these out on future projects!