Sound Design for Any Walking Needs
UVI Walker 2 is a flexible, easy-to-use sound design tool that supplies everything you need to create realistic footstep and movement sounds for film and video in post-production. With a comprehensive library of over 45,000 samples, Walker 2 uses a new engine to expand its already-robust array of Foley footsteps. Redesigned from the ground, up, this sound design tool lets you select any combination of four different microphone pairs, 14 types of shoes, eight types of animal feet, 32 ground surfaces (including stairs), and 24 clothing options. Walker 2 also lets you design steps for more abstract needs, like creatures or robots, and allows you to fine-tune sub-layers for steps, surfaces, and clothing. Perform your steps in auto or manual modes with independent control over toe, heel, and scuff timing to achieve perfect sync with your visuals, and adjust the volume of clothing, shoes, scuffing, floor and ground effects like creaking wood, dirt, leaves and branches, water, and more to get the exact sounds you need. The implementation of built-in FX includes a 3-band EQ, a compressor, and a convolution reverb, featuring 46 impulse responses to optimize on-screen needs from small bathrooms to city streets. Sweetwater's verdict: deep and well organized, Walker is an essential plug-in for sound designers and post-production facilities.
Related Videos: Walker 2 Footstep Foley Designer Plug-in
What’s new with Walker 2?
Walker 2 reimagines the footstep work of Foley designers by not only drastically expanding on its predecessor’s capacity, but also utilizing a new engine for greater control and realism than ever before. More footwear and surface options are accompanied by sub-layer processing, allowing you to factor in “worn” accoutrements, including guns, rifles, backpacks, chainmail, pearls, and much more. Built-in FX make for streamlined, tailored Foley work, and the convolution reverb includes 46 impulse responses, all organized by room size. The addition of non-human footstep sounds and unconventional surface and sub-layer combinations are not only sure to cover what you need, but spur plenty of creativity as well. Plus, Falcon support lets you upload your own samples to be used with UVI’s new engine!
32 surfaces, 24 clothing options, and 22 foot choices
Surfaces include multiple types of carpet, concrete, wood floors and decks, dirt, grass, forest, glass, gravel, hay, linoleum, metal, sand, tile, terracotta, water, and stairs. Versatile clothing choices are a must, and Walker 2 doesn’t pull its punches. Choose from casual outfit, cotton thick, dress, fur thick and thin, jeans thick and thin, leather, multiple rain coats, rubber suits, satin, silk, sportswear, suede, synthetic suit, wet suit, wool, wool and linen, wool coat, or a winter parka. Between 14 footstep options and 8 animal choices, you’re given plenty of creative freedom, with multiple types of sneakers, boots, dress shoes, heels, paws, hooves, talons, and designed steps based on fire, metal, organic, rocks, water, and wood.
What is Foley?
Although it had been used in live radio drama broadcasts from the early 1920s, Foley's first use in films was Universal's 1929 talkie Show Boat. Named for motion picture sound engineer Jack Foley, Foley is the process of recording incidental sound effects such as footsteps, glass clinks, door opens, bouncing balls, gun cocks, cloth movement, and the like for movies and television. Basically, Foley covers every sound in a scene not covered by "hard" effects (i.e., "cut" effects prepared by FX editors), complementing or replacing production sound captured by dialogue mics on set during filming. Foley artists — "walkers," in industry parlance — work in Foley studios equipped with different flooring surfaces, sand and gravel pits, different types of doors, a myriad of hand props, and hundreds of everyday articles used to create the sounds that reinforce the verisimilitude of the action depicted on-screen.
With Walker, you're the Foley artist
Walkers analyze the scene to determine what type of shoes (if any) the actors are wearing and what surfaces they are walking or running on; they bang on pots and pans, lock and load "rifles," shake and pour "cocktails," stab watermelons (very popular in gory horror films), and generally do whatever it takes, sonically, to make the scene sound real. By excluding or minimizing the capture of these sounds on set and adding them back into the soundtrack in post production, the editors exercise complete control over how each noise sounds and its relative volume, lending realism and depth to the sound of the production. And in scenes where faulty production dialogue is replaced using ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement), Foley has to single-handedly re-create the sonic reality. The re-engineered UVI Walker 2 lets you exactingly (and painlessly) create perfect Foley footstep sounds from the comfort of your computer. With Walker 2, you're the Foley artist!
UVI Walker 2 Foley Footstep Designer Plug-in Features:
- Realistic and customizable footstep sounds for film and video post production realized from the ground up with a new engine
- Includes 14 footstep types, 32 surfaces with texture layers, 24 clothing materials, and 8 animal options
- Optimized workflow with a library of 45,000+ sounds and 100 presets organized by location
- Runs in UVI Workstation version 3.0.3+ and Falcon version 1.6.2+
- Free iLok.com account required (hardware dongle optional)
