HISS and a ROAR has introduced a new sound library featuring the sounds of a Japanese percussion and SFX instrument, the Binzsara.
I stumbled across the Binzsara while searching for the 4th octave set of another Japanese percussion instrument I am obsessed with. At first glance I thought it must have potential, so I ordered a small one and began experimenting… Encouraged by the potential I collected up three Japanese Binzasara including one almost a metre/three feet long and a smaller one from Nepal with a different design.
Apart from creating ratchet percussion sounds & rhythms, I was most interested in how I could use them to create sound effects. But it was only after I exhausted the obvious methods that I had an idea: what would happen if I used a resonator?
As you’ll see in the video, using a small wooden box (pencil case size) enabled a different approach where the Binzasara is stationary and is activated by dragging the lid or tongue of the box across the ratchets. My first attempt created an aggressive bark and at slower speeds growls could be created. The tonality is related to the Lions Roar method as per SD039 MEMBRANE but uniquely characterful due to the wooden elements of the Binasara & the resonator.
Priced $49 USD, the 8.74GB library includes 196 .WAV files (24bit/192kHz) with metadata and photos.
Also available is Wood Moves, a collection of resonant wood sounds from a range of wooden boxes, framing timber and sheets of plywood, as well as driftwood stakes and poles.
The following weeks involved extracting as wide a range of useful wood movement as I could, performing friction scrapes on smooth sheets of plywood as well as subby ‘wumps’ using the sheets like a giant clapperboard. As the surface of the plywood became scarred I found interesting modulation was possible, which especially worked well when dragging & scraping wood boxes across its surface – even creating ‘hangry Chewbacca’ sounds!
Loading the wood boxes with objects also reminded me of a very useful wildtrack from years ago, when working on a period drama TV series. While that recording was nothing startling – background action of people loading boxes on a wharf – the organic wood sounds proved useful in many different contexts. So using five different wooden boxes I performed lots of different sounds – from champagne size to a nail box to a six-foot-long wood toolbox – which I hope will prove to be as useful as that classic wildtrack.
Wood Moves is available for $79 USD. The 12.55GB library contains 322 .WAV files (24bit/192kHz) with metadata and photos.
More information: HISS and a ROAR
