Re-Creating Spider-Man Web Shooters - Sound Design Breakdown

Re-Creating the Web Shooter sounds from Spider-Man

In this post I break down the recording and design process of 2 different web shooters inspired by the techniques used in the Spider-Man games, animations and films. I’ll briefly touch on behind the scenes clips from the movies, my recording techniques, the source material, audio layering and the sound design tools I used to create my own Web Shooter sound.

If you haven’t already watched the main YouTube video for this project, check it out here:

Key Sound Design Techniques Used

  • Recording household objects
  • Pitch shifting and automation
  • The Doppler Effect
  • Tremolo
  • Panning 

Resources & Inspiration

Everything I recorded which successfully made the cut for my Web Shooter sound:

  • Shoot
    • Silly String
    • Shaving Foam
    • Dry Shampoo Can
    • My Voice 
    • Masking Tape
    • Content Essentials Whooshes & Impacts
  • Flight
    • Silly String 
    • Shaving Foam 
    • Dry Shampoo
    • 35mm Film Negatives
    • Tape Measure
    • Thin Wooden Stick
    • Fishing Rod
    • My Voice
    • Guitar Strings
  • Impact
    • Cassette Tape
    • Ikea Fake Plant
    • Shaving Foam
    • My Voice
    • Content Essentials Impacts

Resources i found from the sound teams behind the movies and games etc:

Overview

Before I even began the recording and sound designing process I had to take all the resources and inspiration I found to make it easier to understand how to design the sound myself. What I wanted to do was break down the different components of the Web Shooter to make it more manageable. It can often be overwhelming trying to do everything at once but breaking things down into manageable chunks can help massively. 

So for this particular project i broke the web shooter down into 3 main components:

  • Shoot
  • Flight 
  • Stick

By simplifying it like this I can now work on each part individually.

Microphone Setup & Recorder

For a lot of the sounds that got used I had a 4 microphone setup. 2 LOM Usi Pro microphones on joby arms, either side of my Mid Side rig (Rycote SC-08 & BD-10). 

 

I used a combination of the Zoom F6 and the Zoom F8n Pro recorders. Zoom kindly sent over the F8n Pro and I already had the F6 which I purchased back in 2022 before my trip to Australia.

I really like both recorders but the F8n Pro is a little bit of an upgrade in terms of handy features. One feature I love and have been missing since working in-house at a studio was a recorder with a dedicated Slate button. 

Being able to slate your recording session as you go helps you identify good and bad takes which speeds up the editing process massively. I can clearly see on my timeline where I’ve slated the recording so I don't have to manually listen through the take. It helps me pick out all the best bits.

This isn't a paid Ad but I was gifted the recorder. So if you’re interested in checking out the Zoom F8n Pro for yourself, click here (not an affiliate link)

Shoot

As I mentioned in the video, once I knew what I needed to make, I could now build the shopping list of sound design assets to record. Gathering sound props, recording them and editing them so I have a Sound Toolkit of bits to pick from when I start designing. 

The first element of the sound I was gonna tackle was the SHOOT sound. I recorded: 

  • Silly string 
  • Shaving Foam
  • Dry Shampoo Spray Can
  • My voice
  • Masking Tape

Silly String

The silly string can running a bit empty sounded fantastic, I really liked the sounds. My initial first impressions was…well crap. It just fizzed out of the can which sounded nothing like what i was expecting. I recorded those sounds anyway but you can hear the difference below of the almost empty can and the full can:

By taking little snippets of the almost empty can spluttering, I created what became the foundations of my web shooting sound.

Shave Foam

The second sound prop was a can of shaving foam. I’d recommend picking up an odourless one if you plan on recording these sounds yourself. This Gillette one smelt so strong of perfume you couldn't really be in the room with it. However, it did produce some rather good recordings.

For the shoot I was trying to capture that “tsst” sound with a relatively impactful transient. Handling and squishing the shave foam worked for the other parts of the web shooter sound but what really worked for the shoot sound was using a metal spatula. 

I covered the spatula in shaving foam, gripped it really tightly in my hand then released my grip. The shave foam stuck really well to the clean flat surface of the spatula and releasing my hand at different angles and speeds gave me some nice sound variations. 

Things to consider 

Too much shave foam on the spatula led to more of a squelch rather than the un-stick shooting sound I was after. It's one of those where you just have to experiment until you get something you think feels right for the scene.

I also made sure not to completely let go of the spatula in my left hand and kept my other hand firmly gripping the handle. This was so the metal of the spatula wouldn't resonate as i just wanted to isolate the sound of the foam unsticking. The resonating spatula gave the sound too much of a metallic sheen which didn't fit the scene whatsoever. 

Aerosol Can - Dry Shampoo

Next was the aerosol spray. In my case I used a dry shampoo can as I thought the sound was a bit thicker and had more body than a deodorant can which sounded more like a higher boxy hiss. 

I played around with different angles and pressure of the dry shampoo nozzle. Giving me a wide variation of sounds from pass bys, long bursts, short bursts and splutters. It’s good to have multiple versions of the sound for the edit stage.

Taking some inspiration from the Silly String recordings i played around with half pressing the nozzle on the can so the can coughed and spluttered. 

The Dry Shampoo recordings ended up a bit lower in the final mix as i really didn't want the web shooter to sound Airy. It needed to have impact and sound full but having some subtle elements of the short air burst helped to sell the illusion of speed. As if the web shooter was shot out really quickly. 

Masking Tape

Something that sounded similar to unsticking my hand from the spatula covered in shaving foam was unsticking my fingers from some masking tape. I didn't mention it in the video but it did sneak its way into the final sound design. These unsticking sounds are fantastic for organic things you see on screen.

Masking Tape

I've used tape unsticking from the roll and my fingers for things like caterpillar cocoons opening up, time lapses of flowers and leaves growing. The organic kinda sounds are the ones I think I love recording the most, it's a bit smoke and mirrors.

Vocalisation

Finally I recorded some (thsst/thpt) shooting sounds with my voice. This is honestly what tied all the other sounds together. You really shouldn't write off your voice for sound design as it can be so expressive.

I set my mic up with a pop filter in front so I didn't pick up any bassy thuds or plosive sounds from my voice. Here’s an example of a plosive sound. Listen to the difference when I say the letter ‘P’ with and without the microphone protection. 

The unwanted thud and distortion comes from a burst of air hitting and overloading the microphone's capsule. By placing a pop shield in front of the mic, we can disperse that air before the sound waves reach the capsule. This eliminates the unpleasant popping sounds while keeping the voice clear and crisp.

With my setup dialled in, I then performed a series of “thsst & thuup” sounds. 

Experimenting with proximity effect. In basic terms, proximity effect means that when you’re closer to the mic it picks up more low end frequencies and when you’re further away from the mic there's more high end frequencies. 

I used the same technique in the Balrog episode when I was scraping a brick on a piece of wood, but this time I swapped out the brick for my voice. 

By performing the sound close to the mic then moving away it gives it a natural filtering effect. As the sound starts off bassier then becomes thinner, or vice versa.

When I was happy with the recordings I got, I mixed them all together with some extra sounds from the Content Essentials library to create my two SHOOT variations.

 

 

Flight

Let's move onto the FLIGHT sound. This was the reason I picked two different scenes to design to, as one scene the web shooter is sprayed and airborne for a long time and the other quickly whips past the camera. 

My recording list for this was: 

  • Silly String 
  • A Spray Can 
  • A1 Cardboard
  • 35mm Film Negatives
  • Plexi Glass from a photo frame
  • A Tape Measure
  • Wooden Sticks
  • The end of an old fishing rod
  • My voice
  • Shaving foam
  • And Guitar Strings

Silly String

The silly string and spray can were pretty simple, I just wanted the airy movement I was trying to avoid in the SHOOT sound. 

For this I recorded static sprays and versions where I moved the can around the mics. Playing around with the Proximity Effect again like I mentioned earlier.

You can use this to your advantage by almost designing the sound in the recording stage. Start spraying away from the mic, move it closer, then move it away. It almost sounds like it's passing by you already. The phasing filtering effect added a lot of movement to the sound making it feel less static. I did end up adding tremolo and panning but most of the movement was from the recording stage.

Wiggly Sound

Part of the flight sound I wanted to create was the wiggle. In the original Tobey Maguire Spider-Man it sounded almost cartoonish, well verging on the edge of it. Part of why I enjoyed the sound so much was because it reminded me of those metal cables holding bridges and pylons up and the sound they make when they’re under a lot of stress.

The idea was that the web has a really high tensile strength meaning it's super strong against pulling and stretching forces. When you hit a wire under tension you get a zap sound, famously used in star wars for the stormtrooper laser guns.

The reason behind that zap is a physical effect called acoustic dispersion. High-pitch frequencies travel faster through solid metal cables than low-pitch ones. You hear the high frequencies hit a fraction of a second before the low ones, creating that downward 'pew-pew' pitch bend.

Replicating this sound in my web shooter tricks the brain into thinking “yes, this web is super strong and it could definitely hold the weight of a human” because you already associate the sound with something really strong. Like the cables on a suspension bridge.

In the video below I demonstrate the acoustic dispersion effect with a recording at full speed and half speed. Listening at half speed you can really hear the effect!

For the wiggle I tried a few sounds, some which worked and some that didn't. 

A1 Card & Plexi Glass Photo Frame

These two sounds didn't really fit into the design. They sounded cool but they were just a bit too cartoonish and springy like a bouncy ball bouncing on the floor. The plexi glass also sounded really synthetic like a modular synth. It didn’t fit for this project but i’m gonna keep that in mind for a future project where I’m designing a futuristic computer system. The wiggle and squish of the plexi glass sounded like a select button. Cool, but not for this project.

35mm Film Negatives 

This worked really well. It wasn't a particularly loud sound so I had to boost the levels a bit but the wiggle was more the sound I was going for. 

I recorded quick wiggles, longer ones and consistent ones. Giving me enough variations to play with in my sound design. I’d like to try this again with a really long piece of 35mm Film as I think it might sound even better. All I had to hand was cut up pieces which were already developed. Maybe I will sacrifice a roll in the future for sound design purposes.

Tape Measure

Something that did kinda work but i didn't really expect much from was a builders tape measure. Especially when it was extended really far as it gave the sound vibrations more time to travel down the tape measure. 

I tried a few experiments and lengths and the best one for this project was standing on a chair, holding the tape measure at about 2+ metres in length then shaking it. I was trying hard to avoid rattling sounds and only wanted to capture the zappy boing sounds. The initial transient of the sound wasn’t so great but the tail end of it matched the scene well. I decided just to drag in the tail ends of all the recordings and layered them up individually.

Measuring Tape

Fishing Rod & Willow Stick 

Two good wigglers were an old fishing rod from the recycling centre and a dry willow stick. These two gave a pretty classic swooshing sound like a whip or sword whoosh but shaking them consistently sounded more like bird wings or something fluttering away. 

What I also did was versions where I shook the sticks up and down and then left and right. I find that if the swoosh/whoosh sound is recorded up and down in relation to the microphone I can add my own panning later. If I record the swoosh/whoosh going sideways past the microphone I'm stuck with it either going from left to right or right to left. There are plugins like BOOM re-centre which can resolve this but I think it's best to give yourself as much flexibility as possible by recording a few different variations. 

Final Flight Sound

After some more mixing, here's the two final flight sounds:

Stick / Impact

The final part of this web shooter sound was the IMPACT. The satisfying thud and splat of the web sticking to something. 

Cassette Tape

In a behind the scenes clip from the original trilogy, one of the foley artists demonstrates how they created the impact sounds. He used a handful of quarter inch audio tape and a chopped up leather strap. 

I didn't have any quarter inch tape I was willing to scrunch up and sacrifice but I did have quite a few cassette tapes I could dismantle from my cassette loop era.

Fuji Cassette Tape

I unspooled some of the tape and gathered a bunch in my hand just like the foley artist. The natural whoosh of the tape being swung into my hand helped blend the FLIGHT and IMPACT sounds together as the whoosh acted like a little riser before the IMPACT.

Fake Plant & Shaving Foam

I didn't end up recording any leather straps but I did record a fake plant and some shaving foam. I wanted my version of the web shooter to be a little bit wetter. 

I used the Shaving Foam handling recordings I captured earlier with the spatula and synced them up to the cassette tape and fake plant impact. 

Vocal Recordings

Just like the other elements of the web shooter, recordings of my voice tied all those sounds together. A few thud and squelch sounds performed with my mouth seemed to fit nicely.

Failed Recording - Mushy Peas & Peaches

Narration: I will say I did try recording some even wetter sounds like mushy peas and tinned peaches. But they didn't work so well as it made the web way too gooey and slimy. 

There is a slimy sticky aspect to the web shooter but mushy peas and peaches resulted in a sloppy goop. Not the vibe.

My successful shopping list for this IMPACT sound was:

  • Cassette tape 
  • Fake Ikea plant
  • Shaving foam sticks
  • And my voice

Sound Design & Plug-ins

For the most part I kept the plug-ins and effects to a minimum. After all, I wanted the web shooter to sound as organic as possible.

Effects i used for this project were: 

  • Tremolo
  • Compression
  • Pitch Shifting
  • Transient Shaper
  • Panning
  • Tremolo

Tremolo

Used predominantly on the FLIGHT part of the sound, Tremolo exemplified the fluttering and Doppler Effect I was going for. I automated it to start quick then get slower as the web flew away from or past the camera. 

Compression

Same goes for most of my projects but I used compression to glue all the sounds together so they felt like one.

Pitch Shifting

I used pitch shifting and automated it in tandem with the tremolo and volume to give the illusion of the Doppler Effect. 

Transient Shaper

Used on the SHOOT bus and on the final mix to add more impact and sustain to the sound. Initially the SHOOT sound wasn’t punchy and snappy enough but a transient shaper really helped achieve that “thwip” sound. 

Panning

Last little bit to add more movement and energy to the sound. It was especially useful for the fast paced web shooter whipping past the camera as a quicker pan gave the illusion the web was flying past super fast.

Final Thoughts

I always enjoy recording organic sounds and manipulating them to sound as natural as possible. I feel like it's a fun challenge to try and keep my sounds grounded within a specific sonic universe. Spider-Man’s web shooters are already so well established which also made this challenge fun. There are so many fantastic variations to the sound in video games, animations and live action films and it’s impressive to hear how sound designers continue to put their own unique mark on such an iconic superhero sound. 

There is also a free Silk Shooter Sound Toolkit available on the website if you wanna download that to re-create your own sounds. Please tag Rare Finds Sound Design in your edits as I love seeing what people create from our recordings.

As always, any purchase you make on the website helps to support videos like these and new sound libraries. Me and the homies really appreciate it. Big loves and peace out.

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