Lightning Sizzle

How it's made

Source

rapid heating of a nearby lightning channel drives a broadband pressure snap; white noise rises in 0.25 ms and decays over 28 ms, with weaker return strokes 15-75 ms later.

Body

turbulent expanding air adds a broad 150-1100 Hz pressure body lasting 160-300 ms; no pitched oscillator or narrow ringing cavity is used for this open-air discharge.

Events

branching channels make 22-78 irregular 1.5-9 ms noise bursts, weighted toward the onset; each branch has its own bandwidth, strength and position, decaying as the channel loses energy.

Layers

fine high-passed discharge impulses sit over a fluttering 2-11 kHz noise sheath; its upper cutoff falls toward 3 kHz during the tail, leaving a granular rather than tonal finish.

Envelope

onset is immediate; the sheath peaks at 7 ms, falls rapidly then sputters away by 0.5-1 s. All layers end with a 45 ms closure and DC blocking; the effect is dry and narrowly spread.

Variation

seeded streams vary branch timing, bandwidth, strength and pan. Length controls cooling; branching controls event count, brightness sets bandwidth, and body sets the air-pressure balance. Presets offer a clipped snap, a branching strike, a longer fine sizzle and a heavier channel crack.

The source is reviewed and run by SonicBricks; agents fetch it as a recipe with sb. It is not published on this page.