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I have two questions about the sounds from the original Star Wars trilogy that i've been trying to figure out. I'm curious if any of you know the answer.

First of, how were the Storm Trooper blaster sounds made? I know the whole story of hitting the guy wire with the hammer but I've seen other people do the same and while definitely it sounds a laser gun, it still sounds quite a bit different from the actual Storm Trooper blaster sounds. Did Ben Burtt edit it the sound in anyway? Was it pitched down or up? I also do hear something that sounds like a gun I think layered within the sound; do amy of you know if this is the case or not?

Second, how could I recreate Boba Fett's voice filter? I'm specifically talking about the original Boba Fett voice (Jason Wingreen), because I know the new lines were recorded over a phone. Also, if you listen closely, you can tell they forgot to use the voice filter on the line "he's no good to me dead" so disregard that line.

Does anyone either of these? Thanks!

Phone or not, the original voice also sounds obtained mainly via a bandpass filter; add eventually a very subtle touch of distortion and ring modulation, and you're there.

Audacity should be enough, but you could also use Spaceman VST.

Ben Burtt used the technique of suspending a slinky then recording the slap-back vibrations with contact microphones placed at the top of the hanging wire.

I'm not sure exactly about the Storm Trooper weapons, but I know this is how he got the basis of most lazer sounding weapon SFX.

Have you got a reference video?

Headphaze wrote:
Ben Burtt used the technique of suspending a slinky then recording the slap-back vibrations with contact microphones placed at the top of the hanging wire.

I'm not sure exactly about the Storm Trooper weapons, but I know this is how he got the basis of most lazer sounding weapon SFX.

Have you got a reference video?

Sorry about the late reply but here's a reference:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yHfLyMAHrQE
Here's the opening scene of Star Wars. Go to about 3:45 to get to when they start shooting lasers.

Hello again.

Well I can definitely say that those blaster sounds have the slinky method/wire+hammer incorporated into them, but they definitely have something else layered on top to make them distinctive, or possibly two things; you know what Ben Burtt is like. I could be wrong though, i've never bashed a hammer on an electricity pilon wire, I would be arrested these days.

It seems like a screeching sound has been put in, what that is I do not know, and my imagination isn't working right now. I've been doing noise removal for a job all day long, so my brain is in cleaning mode, not creative mode.

p.s. The methodology is mentioned within this article, it explains the wire method (something you already said you know), but alas, have a read anyway because it goes into quite a bit of detail.
5 Ridiculous Origins of Movie Sound Effects

Hey Folks, first post here. I know this is a very old post but "Ben Burtt" was the first thing I entered into the search field so I decided to share some findings concerning these sounds.

Ive researched these sounds quite a bit over the past 20 years or so and have discovered a few things about the trooper laser blast that gives it that sound.

First of all the slinky gets mentioned quite a lot when this topic is brought up. I'm fairly certain the slinky gag was used mainly for Eve's blaster in Wall-E. For the original blaster however, Ben has been pretty forth coming about this being a mixture of tapping on a radio tower guy wire and a bazooka blast.

Throughout my travels over the years I have often kept an eye out for any such wires that look like they might yield a good "laser" sound and about 10 years ago I found a great example near my home in Northern California. Using a small lav microphone, (possibly a DPA), I recorded several variations of tapping with metal tools great and small. I realized, at least in my recordings, the smaller the surface area of the metal tool the better the result - the edge of a wrench being better than say, a hammer. Ben said he used his wedding ring so this makes sense.

When I got the recordings into my daw I noticed they did not immediately sound like what I had heard in the films. It wasn't until I pitched them down by about half that they started to resemble the classic trooper sound. While analyzing the original sound I noticed the appearance of an explosion or artillery blast occurring a few frames after the initial wire hit so I found some library bazooka sounds and layered those in at approximately the same frame count after the wire hit. A very convincing facsimile began to emerge though it sounded very modern- more like what we hear in the prequel trilogy. I found a bigger and bit more distorted bazooka blast and layered that in and it was close but it was missing something. If you listen to the original blaster, and most of the sounds in the original films, Ben was using a lot of tight delay and flange on the tails of his blasts. So I made a copy of the bazooka blast, slightly shifted it and there it was.

Feel free to have a listen to the result here> https://soundcloud.com/user2321871/star-wars-style-blaster-fx?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

I used a library recording of a gunshot with a shell eject unedited just to give it a bit of gun "pop" throughout. You can hear the progression from modern to vintage star wars as the file plays. Hope this helps.

D

These sounds can be simulated on most any instrument by playing tone clusters. The delay/flanging you hear may simply be beating/intermodulation between these different pitches. Just play 3-5 adjacent notes on a keyboard - more for a bigger sound that has more movement in it. Add a touch of reverb.

Using synth: https://freesound.org/people/strangehorizon/sounds/610490/
Using guitar: https://freesound.org/people/strangehorizon/sounds/688204/

Many instruments will sound too dark, but if you stack on enough simultaneous notes, their own overtones will overlap to create that scathing high-pitched transient which blasters are known for.

A big wire will produce a pitchsmeared sound like this because it has size and range. With digital instruments and DAWs you have at least 10 octaves of effective range, which is far more than most any wire or cable could ever carry. The lowest easily-accessible note in most DAWs is C -1, a note of 8.175Hz with a corresponding physical wavelength of 42.1978 meters. Any physical wire or cable of that length probably would be capable of carrying some impressive transverse waves, but good luck recording its full range by any means.

EDIT: After writing that post, I tried to reverse-engineer the "blaster_zap" sound I had previously made... or rather, I played the same tone clusters through a bunch of my own samples to see the results. I didn't get anything that sounds exactly like Star Wars, but this is still a huge assortment of blaster-like sounds, stacked rhythms, power hits, etc. https://freesound.org/people/strangehorizon/sounds/688224/