Recreating the THX Deep Note

in movies on 2014-04-09 16:39 (#3HQ)

So you've just settled into your seat at the movie theater, and as the film starts to roll it begins with an advertisement for the THX Sound System, accompanied by a sound that's recognizable in a heartbeat, but a bit hard to describe in words [mp3]. That sound is called Deep Note. It was created in 1982 by Dr. James A. Moorer, who used the Audio Signal Processor (ASP), also known as SoundDroid to create it.

The ASP was a complex machine to program and included about 20,000 lines of C code to program. Only one ASP was ever produced, and LucasFilms LTD owns it. So what do you do if you're an enterprising hacker interested in blowing the covers off your speakers at home by replicating that sound? You build your own .

Read more at Hackday.com .

Confusing (Score: 5, Informative)

by tristram@pipedot.org on 2014-04-09 17:47 (#11C)

The ASP was a complex machine to program and included about 20,000 lines of C code to program.

For anyone else who was confused about what this sentence was trying to say, the original statement in the hackaday article makes a whole lot more sense:

The ASP was a complex machine to program. The Deep Note took about 20,000 lines of C code to program.

Re: Confusing (Score: 2, Insightful)

by insulatedkiwi@pipedot.org on 2014-04-10 12:09 (#11H)

Not exactly fruity loops, is it.

Re: Confusing (Score: 2, Interesting)

by songofthepogo@pipedot.org on 2014-04-10 16:17 (#11N)

And for those unfamiliar with FruityLoops, now known as FL Studio, here's what that's all about.

I'd commented yesterday on following along with the recreation using SuperCollider , but it appears those comments got lost in the ether. At the risk of repeating myself, SuperCollider is kinda neat and, using the code in the aforementioned recreation article, did indeed produce something very similar to the Deep Note. It was fun. As an additional amusing exercise, the author decided to see how close he could get to the original sound if he pared the code down to 140 characters:

play{Mix({|k|k=k+1/2;2/k*Mix({|i|i=i+1;Blip.ar(i*XLine.kr(rand(2e2,4e2),87+LFNoise2.kr(2)*k,15),2,1/(i/a=XLine.kr(0.3,1,9))/9)}!9)}!40)!2*a}

It's not as good an approximation as his lengthier code by any stretch, but it's still recognizably something like the Deep Note.

Finally: Deep Note is often the best part of the film.

Re: Confusing (Score: 1)

by songofthepogo@pipedot.org on 2014-04-10 16:18 (#11P)

I was the editor and should have caught that. My apologies. Thank you for posting a clarification.