SOMETIMES, the only way to create reality is by making sounds you would never find in nature. Here’s a selection of the lengths to which sound designers have gone to put the snap, crackle and pop into a spot.

Into overdrive

Sound design: Mike Rosnick, Rosnick Mackinnon, Toronto

Spot for: Mastercard

Agency: Communique, Toronto

TO convey the sound of an old clunker lumbering down the highway and shedding its parts, Mike Rosnick had to evade the law. He rented a beat-up car, complete with a seat that was just hanging on, took it for a ride down the back roads of Ontario farm country, and recorded everything.

He later recorded more destruction during a foley session. The sounds of smashing glass and metal scraping against metal were added to the soundtrack. But it’s the road test that Rosnick most remembers. ‘I was hoping no cops would come by,’ he says.

A slam dunk

Sound design: Steve Hurej, Producers’ Choice, Toronto

Spot for: Bell Dial-up access

Agency: Cossette,Toronto

ANY Raptors fan would jump at the opportunity to have an intimate tete-a-tete with Vince Carter. But imagine chatting up the star for marital advice during a game.

The job of translating the noise that would prevent that coup fell to Steve Hurej. Sitting at a Raptors game, Hurej taped the audience. Music was on for most of the game so he could only use two-second music splices for the final ad. To complete the sound, he headed to a local high school and taped a basketball practice. ‘There were 100 to 150 layers of sound design in 30 seconds,’ Hurej says of the final track.

True grit

Sound design: Mike MacNaughton, New Music Productions, Regina

Spot for: Access Communications

Agency: Palmer Jarvis DDB, Regina

POUR cell phones, televisions and Internet connections into a blender and what do you get? In this case, an infernal noise.

In the studio, Mike MacNaughton filled a blender with sand, rocks and metal shavings. ‘In the ad, everything gets mixed together and eventually blends, so I wanted a gritty sound,’ he says.

Success came at a price. The blender is no more.

A growl prowl

Sound design: Sonny Keyes, Rival Music & Sound Design, Toronto

Spot for: O’Henry (Hershey)

Agency: MacLaren McCann

‘EVERY studio in Toronto must have hours of the sound of a stomach growling,’ says Sonny Keyes.

When Keyes was asked to recreate the sound for a spot for O’Henry bars, he used himself as a research subject. ‘I knew that if I didn’t eat anything for several hours and then ate a big meal, my stomach would growl.’

Sated and stuffed, he sat down in the studio, placed the mike on his stomach and waited for half an hour. The sounds came, but the demo never made it to air. ‘Everyone thinks having the sound of a stomach growling is going to be funny, but stomach growls are rude,’ says Keyes.