How the THX Deep Note Creator Remade His Iconic Sound | Hacker News Reader

How the THX Deep Note Creator Remade His Iconic Sound

createdigitalmusic.com

84 pointslogn29 comments

I always thought the THX sound was a cheesy rip-off of the opening from legendary Blues guitarist Gary Moore (RIP), to "Nuclear Attack", "Dirty Fingers" album recorded in '81. [0]

Listen to the sound here ~ https://youtu.be/5XpKaitVy_E?t=19m8s You can see a live version in '83 with the synthesiser in action here (Pinkpop Holland 23.5.1983) ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIw4RqENjDc

    to synthesize it in real time, in 1983, 
    took 2 years to design and build a 19” 
    rack full of digital hardware and 200,000 
    lines of system code to run the synthesizer. [1]

Creating sound using DSP is hard so you need somewhere to start. Is this Gary Moore track the start point? Make up your own mind.

Reference

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Fingers

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Note

> Is this Gary Moore track the start point

The Gary Moore sound is a simple pitch-down of a single (rich) synth patch. There are no rising harmonics in it. Further, it wasn't actually released until '83 at the earliest.

The Deep Note uses a whole bunch of cello patches, each following its own pitch envelope, and resolving on the final 5th. IIRC Moorer generated a large number of versions to demo (as it used a random initial starting sound) and the winning version just happened to have a bunch of voices start on a similar pitch shifting down.

Tip: Deep Note makes an excellent alarm clock. Gradual crescendo, makes you feel pumped up to get going...

Now I just need to find an alarm clock with THX-certified speakers to play it on..

Tip: Whatever sound/song you set your alarm to you will grow to hate.

Right now that Deep Note has good feeling by association, it will grow to be your nemesis as your alarm. Then movies will remind you of your alarm. :(

Might I suggest New Kids On The Block - Hangin' Tough?

I have one of the more obscure iPhone ringtones as my alarm. My wife was trying new ringtones yesterday and when she tried the one I have as alarm I literally shuddered.

previously on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4030149

[Edit: As pointed out by logn, the parent comment is actually a link to a different but realted post, even though it came across otherwise. Leaving the below for context.]

Things often are. That doesn't mean everyone here has seen it, or that it isn't still interesting - especially in this case when it was posted nearly three years ago.

It can still be valuable to look at the past discussion. People who post a link to the old one aren't being mean, they're letting people know that they can look back at what others have already said.

Note too this article is about the making the second version of the sound just released (http://www.thx.com/consumer/movies/120832135). Also he clears up a myth he started about the original code being 20K lines.

I also agree with joshuapants sibling comment and appreciate the context.

The final chord in the new version still has an odd tuning -- sharp for D major, but flat for E flat major. I can't be the first to have noticed. I wonder why he didn't fix that.

Likely because it isn't a mistake.

Almost like it's intentional.

It's detuned. This is a feature in some polyphonic synthesizers.

Do you really think this guy, who lives and breathes sound, did this by accident?

The "why" is likely that the de-tuning creates tension, which amplifies the cinematic quality of the piece.

That really brings back memories. That sound means all the phonecalls, parking and standing line is over and you get to actually watch a movie as it was meant to be seen.

The engineering of the "noise" also had a practical purpose. It sweeps by most every frequency, including the entire vocal range. So it was impossible to continue any conversation without noticing that the movie was about to start. The seconds after that sound were always the most quiet of the entire evening.

You mean you get to watch a bunch of forced ads with the volume turned up to eleven and get told what a horrible criminal you are and then maybe you get to see the movie if your ears are still functional.

Interesting. I think my smallest synth (Dave Smith mopho) has an emulation among its 384 patches, but i can't find it.

_________________________

Those years, 1983-84 were golden years for (now) cheap hardware, Dave Smith demo'd MIDI interoperability, the yamaha DX7 came out in 83, roland juno 106 in 84.

They were preceded by E-mu Emulator (1981) and PPG Wave (1981). PPG is the predecessor of Waldorf, Emu and Ensoniq got swallowed up and force merged by Creative Arts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesizer

I implemented the THX sound in 100 lines of javascript using a web tool made by substack. http://studio.substack.net/thx

Some browsers aren't fast enough. It helps to move the first slider all the way to the right.

I currently wish streaming services will implement Dolby Atmos which is 3D sound. However there is a much simpler easier way to get realistic sound it just uses headphones it's called Binarual audio.

To experiance real 3D sound with head phones Google for Binaural audio videos!

I remember something about the first version of the THX sound being lost because some variables were generated randomly, so they had to try and come up with the original values (or similar ones) by trial and error.

I'd love to see those 325 lines of code open sourced on github, ported to javascript and tweaked into a super awesome sound explosion of until now unheard proportions.

Every EDM song from Guetta to Avicii and Prydz would propably use tweaked versions of the sound to get that extra rise before the chorus kicks in with full bass.

I had the pleasure of sitting next to Dr Moorer's wife on a flight recently. Was really cool talking to her about her husband's work for a few hours.

I always felt that 20 KLOC never made sense to me.

What the heck is a Dell W3 laptop? Did he mean Lenovo W5x0?

Given that there is a photo of him using a Lenovo laptop, you could be right.

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