How The THX Noise Was Created

devilsbrigade writes "The blog MusicThing is running an interesting interview with Andy Moorer. Mr. Moorer is the man who created the sound called Deep Note, now heard in every THX-enabled movie theatre. The interview is originally from last year, but the tech-heavy discussion is still a timeless analysis of a great sound." From the article: "The score consists of a C program of about 20,000 lines of code. The output of this program is not the sound itself, but is the sequence of parameters that drives the oscillators on the ASP. That 20,000 lines of code produce about 250,000 lines of statements of the form "set frequency of oscillator X to Y Hertz. The oscillators were not simple - they had 1-pole smoothers on both amplitude and frequency. At the beginning, they form a cluster from 200 to 400 Hz. I randomly assigned and poked the frequencies so they drifted up and down in that range."

Comments

Now the art is

[Too many errors, bai]

to turn that sound into an onomatopoeia. Any takers? "Bhhwuhhhhhhhhhhoooooh"

pfft ... 20k lines of C

[Anonymous Coward]

could've done it in 5 lines of perl

I always thought it was

[Orrin Bloquy]

THEEEWWWWAANNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG

You know, a slowed down version of the sound of what happens after George Lucas unzips his fly.

They created it by

[geekoid]

recording the sound inside my head when my former wife talks.

Could you add one more line of code

[Unknown Poltroon]

to please for the love of god turn the damn thing DOWN A NOTCH?!?!?!

Re:Could you add one more line of code

[animaal]

My date was mortified; still got laid, though.

Do you know for sure that she got laid? She might only have told you she did out of spite ;)

I like the THX signature sound so much...

[E-Lad]

That depending on the movie that follows it, that sound is the best part of the sitting.

Brown note...

[GillBates0]

I randomly assigned and poked the frequencies so they drifted up and down in that range."

No luck finding the Brown note, I presume? Somehow "poked" and the "brown note" bring colorful images to the mind.

Re:Blasting Speaker Noise

[Locke2005]

Their stated goal was to demonstrate the clarity or depth or somesuch without being overpowering...

But there actual goal was to get everybody in the theater to SHUT THE FUCK UP and listen to the movie, which requires a burst of sound so loud that nobody can talk over it.

er, um...

[hackwrench]

where exactly did you go to kindergarden?

So, in other words ...

[ScrewMaster]

I randomly assigned and poked the frequencies so they drifted up and down in that range.

He fiddled with it until it sounded nice.

Re:THX, DTS, etc.

[blackraven14250]

Probably the THX logo.

it can't be that complicated...

[ALpaca2500]

How'd you make this crunching noise, in this part of the song, here?

Well, it's, it's really a combination of... I used celery. I broke celery sticks, and then pitched it down, and I added lots of reverb. I guess I'm giving away some trade secrets here.

But nobody will ever really know exactly how much celery you used.

I also added corn starch, and then we went and crashed our van. And recorded that. And I mixed it in.

It sounds incredible.

Simpsons

[PoitNarf]

My favorite use of this sound was in a Simpsons episode. Video here:

http://media.putfile.com/The--Simpsons--THX--Parod y--DIVX

I bet he's a real party anmal

[Linker3000]

I can imagine Mr Moorer is a real chick-puller at parties:

"Hey, I invented this really really famous sound - it goes like...well..actually I have it here on my iPod, or you can come back to my place to hear it on my home theatre if you want? Here take this copy on CD, it's free..."

Think Rick Moranis in Ghostbusters!

Re:This Is Very Old

[nurd666]

Ug Make Fire! Story next on RockDot.org

Super Mario World's keyhole sound

[tepples]

deepnote.mp3: No such file or directory (ENOENT)

I would plug in Super Mario World (either on cartridge or on an emulator), head to Donut Plains, grab the cape, fly up near the end of the stage, and stick the key in the hole. This causes the game to play a humorous sped up version of "Deep Note".

Here's how it *really* went down

[popo]

George Lucas: How'd you make that sound Andy?

Andy Moorer: We electrocuted a sperm whale.

George Lucas: God damn that sounds great.

Andy Moorer: [Giggles} I *know*

George Lucas: Thing is... we need a story that's not going to bring those Greenpeace punks down on top of us.

Andy Moorer: I coded the sound with 20,000 lines of C?

George Lucas: Nice. Let's go with that.