How the iconic THX Deep Note was made

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/01/26/how-the-iconic-thx-deep-note-was-made.html

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I remember going to the cinema, it was some time ago though, my memory is fuzzy.

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I don’t remember it from cinemas, only home video. I suppose I just forgot encountering it in theaters.

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Cinema? Cinema? Nope, sorry, you’re going to have to give me some hints, here.

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D major… the happiest of all keys.

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Totally true, the Butterkist jingle is in D major.

(Fact made up, may not be true.)

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In the olden days people used to go to big rooms to watch television. It was a long time ago though, I think it was back when they wore powdered wigs and ruffs.

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I’m going to the cinema, right … oh, damn - just another lockdown fantasy. I was so nearly there! Sigh.

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Watching this, I kept thinking they must not have noticed the use of synthesizers in music for the last 50+ years. I’m sure I’ve heard the slow building of a chord in music somewhere, but I can’t remember exactly where. Of course the use of 5 channels in a theater auditorium makes a big difference, so the frequency response, dynamics, and movement make it more exciting. But all of those things have been done for ages.

What’s the big deal?

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Well… looks like it is an open chord D with A, except right at the top there’s an F# making it DMaj. But only in the sheet music - I can’t hear any major 3rds in the THX showreel.

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I have bookmarked this page from 2009 on how to recreate the THX sound using the programmatic sound system SuperCollider:

It is, effectively, the direct descendant of the original effort: programming “oscillators” to perform a particular sound variation.

It’s a super approachable and interesting explanation of the concepts that went into making Deep Note, in a step-by-step tutorial.

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The randomness at the beginning conjures (for me) an orchestra tuning up before a show.

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Cool how the random rising waves come together to sound like a Shepard Tone, giving the illusion of rising in pitch much more than it actually does.

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The sequence informs us that before THX, and the Tomlinson Holman crossover, movie sound was muddled, uncorrelated, and indistinct, but THX tunes the sound.

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As opposed to D minor, which I hear is the saddest of all keys.

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Yes, I heard that

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Someone at a sound art event I was at a while back had a version of the code used to generate this sound, they could just run it and generate a slightly different one each time. Some of them sounded hilariously wrong

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Thanks for the post. The full story can be found on my web site. They don’t let me put a link here but if you take my handle, jamminpower, and surround it with the usual stuff you will find it. Go to “Music” then “THX”.