Sound help: X-wing radio

I've been trying for a while to re-produce the kind of distorion and warble of the in-radio voices for the X-wing pilots, as in ANH. Using Goldwave.

I might as well admit that I'm really just shooting in the dark at this point; I can't seem to figure it out.

Can someone help me out with this? What sort of settings and effects can reproduce this?

Thanks.

 

Hey, you're back! I thought that maybe you'd died or something.

Anyway, are you asking for just the radio-style effect, or other bits?

 

Damn, she's been gone for nearly 4 months.

I knew something was missing around here. I thought it might have been missing a bay leaf or something, but now I know. It was RocketGirl.

I think she's talking about the warbling voice chatter when they're preparing to attack the Death Star for the first time.

 

I'm guessing you're talking about the sort of distortion in the line "say about twenty guns, some on the surface, some on the towers...", etc. ?

If so, the name of the effect you're after is "ring modulation". Ben Burtt was a real fiend for it, apparently. It's all over the place in SW - Artoo's vocabulary is heavily ring modulated, as well as other robot voices ("I have use for you on Jabba's sail barge"), etc.

This demo plugin package includes a ring modulator and it works great. It doesn't list Goldwave as a supported software package, but it doesn't list Audition either and it's working fine for me there.

 

What your looking for is an effect called bandpass; here's where it is in Goldwave:

Effects>Filter>Bandpass/stop

Once your in there keep all the original settings and play around with the frequency ranges. It'll take a little tweaking, but thats exactly how its done.

Every line in my short (which happened to be in the cockpit of an Xwing) used a bandpass effect. Check it out in my sig.

gallion311

 

lol

Yeah, I've been wondering the same thing.

 

For a standard radio or telephone voice effect, that's correct. Bandpass cuts the audio signal down to a narrower frequency range, mimicking the narrow frequency range of a radio or telephone speaker.

The additional desired distortion which - again, I'm just guessing - is what the question is about... that's ring modulation.

 

The additional desired distortion which - again, I'm just guessing - is what the question is about... that's ring modulation.

I think you may be reading too far into the word "distortion"; I'm fairly certain she just used that as a generic way to describe the overall effect shes looking for as apposed to a specific part of the effect.

I might as well admit that I'm really just shooting in the dark at this point; I can't seem to figure it out.

I doubt she'd write that if she only needed to add a tiny bit of distorion to an already working effect...that sounds more like she doesn't even know where to start.

IMO, the Xwing radio effect is 8 parts bandpass; 2 parts distortion...

I guess Rocket will have the final say; but I really read it the other way around.

 

Does anyone know how to do this in Adobe Audition; the sound and the distortion?

 

The plugin package I linked to above works in Audition, though only in ten-second intervals unless you buy it.

Install the package, then open Audition and go to
Effects -> Refresh Effects List
and the new effects should appear in your menu.

As a quick demo of the various fx we're talking about here, here's the same line four times...

1. Original Recording
2. Bandpass filter
3. light Ring Modulation
4 EXTREME Ring Modulation - which demonstrates how a lot of Artoo voice fx were done.

 

Kewlness. And that's how you demonstrate/tutorial soundness.

- The Cat

 

The original X-wing radio sound was made by using a real radio if I'm not mistaken.

 

Yes indeed. I seem to remember from listening to the THX 1138 commentary that most of the radio voices (this counts for THX and may as well for SW - many voice effects sounded identical) were recorded on a regular tape recorder, played back, transmitted and re-recorded through several of USC's AV Department's radio transmitters. Walter Murch and George then did everything they possibly could to muck up the transmissions, fiddling with settings on the radio and "pushing" the range of the devices.

 

Actually, I'd figured out the bandpass; it was the ring modulation I couldn't figure out. I was trying to use the Flanger--which produces a pretty similar sound--but it wasn't quite right.

Thanks, guys!

PS, yeah, I've been gone a while, but I'm back now. Still werkin' on the fan film, obviously, though after some delays getting editing software working again.

 

Damn, you were right FX_guy;

my humble apologies...

 

I wuz just guessin'.

I'd been looking for the exact same effect myself not long ago, and it wasn't until somebody told me about ring modulation that I knew what I was looking for.

 

can you send me a sample of what you want and can you send me the audio file you want modify? I'll see what I can do...

 

<--- agrees with gallion regarding a radio effect...

buuutttt... you can do it any way you like, depending on what the goal is. Could be you want "indescernible" radio transmissions... or far away ones... or "inside-a-ship" ones... or hearing chatter ones, etc.

 

Good to see you're still around - I was just wondering about you the other day...

Good luck with the effects!