The World's Longest Foley Closet

My friend Pete is another local sound editor (and sometimes-location-sound-mixer) here in Knoxville. As often as we can, we'll take a free day to head out on an adventure, loading our recording gear in the truck and heading on down the highway in search of sound. It could be traffic, or wind, or bugs, or water, but we're always looking to beef up our own sound effects libraries with unique sound effects, and especially with ambient backgrounds.

Stereo recording setup along the Hiwassee River near Reliance, TN.

Depending on where those trips take us, we'll find antiques stores along the way. We're not looking for furniture. We're in search, of course, for sounds. Weird sounds. Unique sounds. Little oddities, hiding in dark corners of the shops, that make noise. If it squeaks, creeks, whizzes, whirs, buzzes, rumbles, clicks, clacks, or snaps, we're probably going to take it home. This is how we have built our closets for sound design. Sound effects libraries are all well and good, but custom-build SFX and Foley are a heck of a lot of fun.

A few of the noise makers in my collection: a toy sewing machine, a rotary phone, an antique coffee grinder, an old tin food mill.

I've amassed quite a collection over the last few years, and it continues to grow. This year, though, we decided to take a trip to "The World's Longest Yard Sale", also known as the 127 Yard Sale. As they say on their website, "4 days. 6 states. 690 miles." This annual event takes place every August. It starts in Addison, MI, and follows US 127 all the way to Gadsden, AL. To say it's an experience is an understatement.

Parked along US127 at the "World's Longest Yard Sale", somewhere near Pikeville, TN.

We started in Clarkrange, TN, just north of Crossville, and made it all the way to Signal Mountain outside of Chattanooga. For 87 miles, we browsed through all sorts of vendors lined up by the highway. There were many we passed by - yards of old clothing or dishware, and tents of large furniture, don't really offer much for our purposes - but there were quite a few we browsed along the way.

These shopping excursions are quite entertaining, though we do draw some odd looks from time to time. Wandering through tent after tent, picking up random oddities here and there, holding them up to our ears, comparing notes on the sounds they make and if they're worth purchasing... it must appear quite strange to the vendors and the other shoppers, but that's half the fun. We'll field the occasional question about what we're doing, and a brief explanation usually turns suspicion into amusement.

I love crafting sound effects, especially for narrative projects. The art of sound design often requires creating a sound that is more "real" than the real thing, playing to the psychology of sound and satisfying what the human mind expects to hear rather than presenting the sound as we'd actually hear it in real life. This means picking any one sound apart, identifying all the smaller components that dwell within what we hear as one. Common household items are frequently useful, but there's something about old, rusty, worn out junk that opens up a whole world of strange and wonderful sound elements.

A few of this year's finds from the 127 Yard Sale.

In all, the day on The World's Longest Yard Sale was hit and miss, but I did manage to bring back a few interesting things. They'll all get moved into the studio closet, where they'll wait patiently until that one project comes along that will benefit from the sounds they make. That may happen sooner, or later, but there will certainly be another antiques store excursion between now and then.

My one regret from this past weekend, though, was passing up a vintage set of new-in-box lawn darts. Oh, well... there's always next year.