Using A Thesaurus For Sound Effects Searches

Using A Thesaurus For Sound Effects Searches

When diving into a sound effects library looking for tornado-related sounds, a couple of search terms quickly come to mind: tornado and wind. But casting out a wider net will usually collect far more potentially useful sounds. A thesaurus can really help by reminding you of related terms. In this case, following thesaurus leads could take you to: hurricane, cyclone, gust, blow, storm, typhoon, twister, gale, squall, wreckage, destruction, ruin, collapse, disintegration, shred, explo, rip, crunch and even doppler.

A library search using any one of these words will probably retrieve a bunch more sounds that could be useful in building the soundscape of a tornado. And there is a good chance than only a few of those sounds would have made it onto your initial list.

Cast a Wide Net

So much of good sound design comes from being surprised and from discovering things you didn’t anticipate and then knowing how to use them. When you’re doing field recording, the best sounds you find are often ones you never would have guessed were going to be at that location. Likewise, throwing yourself into library searches that may only be peripherally related to the thing you think you are looking for can, way more often than you might think, allow you to discover exactly what you are looking for, what you need, and what will put cool spins on important moments.

The same goes for recordists and librarians who are adding sound effects to a library or building new libraries. If you have a recording of an electrical hum, you will definitely want to use tags like: buzz, drone, whir, thrum, current, voltage, circuit, etc. to give searchers the best chance of finding your sound.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, using emotion words as keywords in a search can be a fantastic way of finding useful sounds you might not think to look for directly. Words like scary, soothing, weird, funny, and comical are often great search terms when combined with keywords that are more specific to what you are looking for.

Happy hunting!
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