How to make the Overlord Sound
as heard in Terminator IV and District 9 movies
When I watched Terminator IV I was blown away (not by the story sadly) by the loudness of the sound and particularly the "hooting" sound made by the machines - which I'm sure was borrowed from War of The Worlds. I came home and started to experiment with that effect.
The same sound has now been used in the trailers for District 9 so here is a quick approximation of getting that sound. I have used Reason 4 but really almost any synth or collection there-of will do. You will want to pay more attention to your choice of Limiter.
click the image to see it full size
OSCillators
Start with a synth, preferably with at least 3 Osc. Detune Osc 1 by -15 cents, Osc 2 by +15 cents and Osc 3 -1 Octave (and +20 cents if you like)
FILTers
I have used a Dual Filter set-up here and overdriven the input to each filter. Thor's Low Pass 24db Type I is perfect because it likes to distort.
Following the first filter is a distortion unit for more bite.
The second filter uses the same settings and is set so that both filter Cut Off and Reso are controlled the same (ganged or linked) for 48db filter.
There is a slight Filter Env amount to emphasize the note start. Don't overdo this.
Filter 3 is a Band Pass, again with overdrive and a slight amount of modulation from the main filter settings (see the mod matrix).
The layers of overdrive and filtering really thicken the sound up.
Effects
A wide Chorus to fatten the sound and then a Delay.
The delay is very low in the mix because the Limiter is really going to change things.
Unison is really just a form of Chorus but creates duplicates. You will see that I mixed 50:50 with dry so as not to lose the bite of the sound.
I add some Bass with an EQ
Limiting
Here's where these sounds really get interesting. Using a Brickwall Limiter (lets nothing past threshold) I flatten the sound against the pin so that it sounds over-loud.
Here's that sound as an MP3: Overlord
The rest of the effect comes from the final mix when the loud sound squashes the other sounds in the mix (requires mix limiting)
This is a cool sound but must be used cautiously or you will tire your audience and lose their interest - especially if it is a whole album.
