This morning around 5:00 am I headed out to Brunswick County NC for the woods.  My friend Dr. Jim Parnell, who is an Ornithologist and avid photographer & professor emeritus, University of North Carolina - Wlimington, took me out to record some wild turkey sounds.  We set up in the woods for a good 2 hours in a small photo cabin he had built waiting for the Turkeys to gobble a bit.  He was out yesterday morning and took the photo of the Turkey to your left and most likely it's the one that showed up for the show this morning.  He was very active and gobbled a lot but unfortunately was just too far away for me to get some workable sounds.  Oh well, maybe next time!  It was nice to get into the woods and enjoy the smells and sights and I really enjoyed being with Dr. Parnell.  As we were leaving he took me to a spot by the woods where there was a large piece of tin laying.  He lifted it up and there were two beautiful copperhead snakes laying there.  Fortunately, they didn't move but I was ready to bolt if they had moved just a little!

Happy to report that the sounds I created for Artist.IO are now live and available for sample or download.  Check out the Public Transportation Announcements, Emergency Room Sounds, Prison Sounds and Police Arrest sounds.  All created exclusively for Artist by Apple Hill Studios! We're anticipating a long relationship with Artlist with many more sounds waiting to be recorded and shared to the public.

Recently I added UVI's 8 Bit Synth to my library of instruments.  This is a cool program with a ton of retro/vintage sounding patches.  I've recorded a ton of sound effects this past week using it and several music tracks for children's educational/entertainment games.  This is a fun and rewarding venue for me!  The challenge is to keep the productions simple, catchy and kid friendly.  Time to get creative....peace out!

Take a listen:  Children's Video Game Fun (available soon on AudioJungle)

I have been working the last month or so on producing over 150 custom sounds for Israel based Artlist (with a final count of over 400 sounds). I was working specifically on Emergency sounds, Police sounds, Court sounds, Medical sounds, Cartoon sounds & TV/Announcer sounds.  It was a ton of work but very enjoyable and it challenged my creativity which is always a good thing because it forces growth and knowledge.  The sound effects industry is a fascinating field and I'm grateful everyday to be a part of it.  Proud to be a contributor to Artlist's Sound Effects library.  Check out my Author's page at Artlist.  You can sample (& buy) a ton of my sounds on their site!

I made my very first recording back around 1968.  I remember being astounded at being able to hear my voice played back instantly.  The recorder was a small portable reel to reel tape recorder that belonged to one of my Uncles.  The second time I recorded was with my school friend Jimbo Alexander who lived down the street from me.  He brought over his portable reel to reel and we recorded my first song "Babe I Need You So".  My sister Robin helped me write the lyrics.  It was 1970 and I was in the 5th grade and had started my first band with Jimbo on bass guitar & our friend Jay Brinkley on drums.  I was the guitarist & lead vocalist.  The guitar was a Western Auto Del Ray acoustic guitar.  We played that song over and over again and got to perform it for our entire 5th grade class at an end of the year party along with the song "Joy to the world" by Three Dog Night (which was popular at the time).  I remember the feeling of being so scared but so excited to be in front of my peers performing those songs!  Fun memories.  Christmas 1972 was extra special because I got my first cassette tape recorder.  I spent hours upon hours recording sound effects, songs, interviews and pretending to be a radio DJ (my dream at the time).  I still have those tapes and get a kick out of hearing my little adolescent voice and the shenanigans I got into.  And now I'm grateful that I'm able to continue to record my music and sounds and share them with the entire world - thanks to the "world wide web" and particularly AudioJungle.

​I had a blast yesterday traveling to Burgaw, NC to record sounds at the Old Pender County Jail.  The Jail is listed in the National Register of Historic Places: Burgaw Historic District.  It was built in 1924 and operated as the jail house until 1979.  Thanks to a friend I was able to get in touch with the town manager James Gantt.  James along with Louis Hesse (who is the town building inspector with knowledge of how to use the various levers to open the jail doors) took me over and I was able to record some fabulous sound effects.  The concrete floors and all the steel helped to make it a very reverbant space and the end product makes the doors closing sound bigger than life.  Louis shared with me that years ago when the jail was in operation, some of the town teenage boys would sneak in and throw fire crackers in to scare the prisoners.  I can only imagine how surprising and scary that must have been!  Some of these sounds, including the sample below will be available for purchase on AudioJungle.  To learn a little more about the Jail, check out this video from local TV WECT.

I'm excited & proud to be working with Nadav Presser & Artlist.io helping to build their sound effects catalog.  Artlist, based out of Israel, is one of the world's largest online supplier of music tracks that cater toward the video/film market.  They are putting lots of energy & effort into building their sound effects library.  Currently, I'm enjoying producing various voice overs and cartoon effects for Artlist.  We'll be branching out into lots of different categories in the near future.  Stay tuned folks! More to come.

I recently purchased several swords online to use as tools to produce various sword sound effects and ultimately the sound of several pirates having a sword fight.  What great fun!  With the help of a couple of friends we recorded the swords hitting together in the studio.  We did several 30 sec takes for the sword sounds.  I mixed several tracks of sword hits and scrapes and then added whoosh effects throughout by recording a 4' thin wooden dowel swishing through the air with stereo Neumann KM-84s and I sweetened those up with some effects using the UVI software "Whoosh".  I then added the sound of boots moving on a wooden floor using actual shoe sounds in my studio along with the UVI "Walker" footstep Foley Designer.  And then for the final layer I recorded several tracks of male fighting grunts, laughs and heavy breathing.  In the end I came up with a Sword Fight Sound Effect Ambience just under a minute in length that works perfect for either a Pirate fighting effect or warrior/battle effect.  My sword sounds are available for purchase on AudioJungle & Pond5.  This particular sound will be available exclusively on AudioJungle in a couple of weeks.

Apple Hill Studios is pleased to announce our Relaxing Sleep Sounds products - available as an instant download on Tradebit.  You can choose Gentle Rain, Soft Chimes, Ocean Waves, Fireplace & Electric Fan.  All are guaranteed to aid in sleep and relaxation.  Each sound is 90 minutes in length and recorded in 96/24 high fidelity and mastered to the highest quality mp3 for fast, easy downloading.  

We're happy to announce that our new product - Horror Background Ambiences is now available as a full digital download on Sonniss.com.  A collection of ten different Horror Background Ambiences that work perfect for building suspense, mystery and tension in your Horror project. Produced using field recordings, voice overs and synthesizers. Perfect for use in projects needing dungeon sounds, scary video game ambiences, dark ambient projects, horror movies, scary sound fx, suspense scenes, haunted houses, live escape room experiences, scenes of tension and distress.

Check it out!