Lightsaber inspired sound
Hi guys
I am working on an idea inspired by the sound produced by a lightsaber, which would be a constantly produced sound with increases in volume and pitch when required. However, the current methods of producing this sound have not produced interesting enough sounds. The system is in place, but its what is making the sound that is the problem. I have experimented with the phasor~ and noise~ but these are bit too dull and don't offer any fluctuating tones.
Does anyone have any idea of creating a slightly more interesting constant tone, or maybe the solution is to combine several ideas to make the depth of the sound more complex.
Any way hope this was clear, and any ideas are always welcome. I will be delving into my designing sound book after writing this so I might find something interesting in there.
All the best
J
Just off the top of my head, several micro-detuned saw oscillators with subtle amplitude and filter sweeps might get you started. A year or so ago someone posted a link to a description of the THX bass sweep, which is similarly specific, you'll probably get same help if you stick around and search here; and filmsound.org for "burtt interview"
Brendan
and this might help:
and search here for "doppler" too
Brendan
Damn. I'm really gonna have to de-register from this forum - I have WAY too much to do. Anyhoo, this took me ten minutes:
Just bare-bones, but you get the idea; probably no better than your own efforts?
Brendan
Noob_meister's sounds pretty damn close. That youtube video sounds awful though.
It does. And it does ;-)
Yeah I would say that's better than my first effort! I took a slightly different approach which sound more like electic, but still kind of cool.
Thanks for your help though, might have a go at adding to that and seeing how it sounds.
All the best
J
I added some slow low ampl random sweeps to various parameters such as fundamental, noise freq, resonance etc and it sounds more, um, filmic. One element I couldn't get was the high frequency scattered "zing" which Burtt achieved using a high tension steel cable I believe. Some physical modelling of a string for this perhaps?
Brendan
cannot delete attachment - - - - - help!
I was under the impression part of that sound was created by holding a mobile phone in front of the speakers and recording the disturbance sound.
wtmi
hmm...mobile phones in 1977? Not many.
From wikipedia - The lightsaber sound effect was developed by sound designer Ben Burtt as a combination of the hum of idling interlock motors in aged movie projectors and interference caused by a television set on a shieldless microphone. Burtt discovered the latter accidentally as he was looking for a buzzing, sparking sound to add to the projector-motor hum.
The pitch changes of lightsaber movement were produced by playing the basic lightsaber tone on a loudspeaker and recording it on a moving microphone, generating Doppler shift to mimic a moving sound source.
Watch at 3'16" Burtt recording the loudspeaker with a shotgun mic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0WJ-8B6aUM
:) thanks for clarifying! very cool