Software Review: Boom Library’s Virtual Foley Artist
The interface for Virtual Foley Footsteps.
Anyone who works with sound for picture is probably familiar with Boom Library’s collection of sound FX libraries.
Boom Library products cover a vast array of sounds and environments, with specialized packages filled with cues for guns, cars, horses, nature, creatures and even a remarkable collection of whooshes and impacts that make up the Cinematic Trailers FX pack.
Adding to this is one of Boom Library’s latest endeavors, the Virtual Foley Artist Footsteps Pack.
Virtual Foley Artist is an interactive footstep creator that allows sound designers and mixers the ability to “play” footsteps to picture with a keyboard MIDI controller, rather than importing and spotting each footstep individually on the DAW timeline.
I reviewed a similar product, Foley Collection’s “Total Pack” a while back, and decided to see what Boom Library had to offer in the realm of interactive Foley software.
System Requirements
Boom Library runs via Native Instruments’ Kontakt, Version 5.5.0 or higher and retails for 199 Euro or about $222 USD. It requires at least:
- Mac OSX 10.8 or higher Intel Core 2 Duo.
- Windows 7 or higher, Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD AnthlonTM 64 X2
- 4GB RAM
In Use
Virtual Foley Artist (or VFA as we’ll refer to it from here) loads through Native Instruments Kontakt software. The main page is divided into “SHOES” and “ACCESSORIES”, and allows users to load one of five shoe types: Boots, Dress Boots, High Heels, Leather Shoes or Sneakers.
The SHOES panel allows users to load up to two different types of shoes to blend together, which can prove useful for adding additional clack or punch to any of the primary sounds. In the ACCESSORIES panel, users can add additional layers of clothing sound to alter the selection, including Cloth, Leather and Metal options.
Both the SHOES and ACCESSORIES sections come with Volume and Tune knobs, allowing users to blend the volume between shoes and accessories, as well as fine tune the pitch of each to their liking to add or subtract weight and depth.
The bottom panel gives users a choice of surfaces: Concrete, Concrete Gritty, Gravel Light, Gravel Medium, Wood Planks, Wood Parquet, Sand, Metal, Snow, Water and Grass. This allows users to mix and match and of the shoe types with any of the eleven different surfaces available.
Conveniently, Virtual Foley Artist has designed the surface layout so that five different octaves on the keyboard can trigger steps on five different surfaces, allowing engineers to move from scene to scene without having to reload surfaces and settings.
On the far right side of the VFA window is a slider labeled FAR and NEAR. This allows users to adjust the perceived closeness of the footsteps using the keyboard’s pitch bend wheel. This proved an innovative and effective way of adding depth and space to all of VFA’s sounds.
Finally, the SETTINGS tab on VFA also allows users adjust EQ, Compression and add Reverb to their footstep creations.
All of these functions fit together through MIDI mapping. Once a shoe and a surface is selected, the footsteps are all controlled through a MIDI keyboard using the following layout:
C: Heel left foot
C#: Tip left foot with release sample
D: Heel right foot
D#: Tip right foot with release sample
E: Stair steps with release sample
F: Short slides
F#: Medium length slides
G: Long slides
In Use
I found Virtual Foley Artist incredibly handy for dropping footsteps into the dramatic and documentary projects I’m currently working on. The interface is simple, easy to navigate, and the samples are well recorded with excellent dynamic range. Using a weighted MIDI controller with VFA allows for expressive control over that dynamic range, allowing the engineer to really “perform” with the included footstep samples.
In an interior scene, I used the NEAR and FAR feature and found it to be an excellent addition. This feature alone saved me from having to dig deeper into EQ and volume automation within my mix to achieve the same effect, as I would have in the past.
To Be Critical
Having used and reviewed similar products before, I will say that the choice to separate heel and tip samples into individual keys can make the process of recording the footsteps live a bit more complex than I prefer, and requires a bit of practice to execute naturally.
Essentially, users must play from C to C# in a trill type motion in order to get an accurate footstep sound out of a live performance. While this certainly allows the user incredible control over the speed of the footstep, I often find myself preferring a single key sample that includes both heel and tip.
I would suggest an update in the future to allow users the option to play heel and tip samples together by striking a single key, perhaps offering an additional control to adjust for average speed between these two impacts.*
The stock library is already extensive, but my hope for the future is that VFA will add even more sounds. You really can never have enough choices when it comes to shoes and surfaces for a virtual Foley product. The more sounds that become available for VFA, the more powerful and valuable this plugin will become.
*Update, 3/26/2016: Boom Library has been updated to version 1.1 which now defaults to “single” mode which allows for single key triggering of the heel and tip sound. Additionally, the delay between heel and tip can be adjusted using the new Tip Delay box. If desired, users can switch back to “Split” mode in order to trigger heel and tip separately. Great update!
Summing It Up
The sheer amount of time saved by being able to “play” footsteps live to picture, rather than spotting in individual samples one-by-one, is a huge help to my workflow. On top of this, the extra controls over surface, pitch, depth and accessories expedite the process even further, eliminating the need to do significant additional processing and hunting through libraries to obtain a convincing sound. For engineers working on independent projects without a budget for a full-blown foley studio, Virtual Foley Artist is an excellent project that is sure to enhance any film.
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