This happened as he was walking by a television set, holding a microphone that hadn’t been turned off.Īs he passed the set, a strange sound emerged: a buzz that he quickly noticed and recorded.
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Lightsabers needed to sound different when they were in action.īurtt puzzled over how to create this sense of drama until one day, he came upon a solution by accident.
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What he remembered from the experience, among many things, was the sound the projector motors made: a consistent thrumming sound full of energy.Īs he worked on the lightsaber sound, this humming came back to him and he envisioned a resting lightsaber emitting this gravelly thrum of static.īut it was not enough. When Burtt was in college, he was often put in charge of a projection booth for the school. The Star Wars movies had not yet been shot, and all he had to rely on were a few pictures of dark images wielding sword-like weapons that held an unearthly glow within them.īurtt used these pictures to enter the world of the Jedi and the Sith and subconsciously heard the sound the lightsabers made as they swished through the air and crashed against each other.īut the sound itself was finally created through a mixture of memory, genius, and accident. When sound designer Ben Burtt was assigned to create the distinct noise of the lightsaber, he had an interesting problem in front of him. What has changed is how this sound is created.
It is interesting to note that the sound the lightsabers made in the older movies is the same as that of the newer movies. Star Wars movies have been around since the ‘70s, and along with them, the iconic lightsaber and its dramatic sound. What Was the Original Lightsaber Sound in Star Wars Like? This is good news for fans who want to use their imagination to come up with bizarre and fun spellings for every sound a lightsaber makes. Like all non-human sounds, she said, there are no exact symbols to portray it. Ellen Broselow, professor of linguistics, she agreed that the spelling of the sound is open to interpretation. When one lightsaber collides with another in a fight? KKKKSSSSHHH or BJJJJJ or Wowwwww. When being dropped on a floor, the material of the flooring determines the sound: Bang for metal flooring and Thuk for wooden flooring. Some say a resting lightsaber has a sound that goes like, ‘Nnnnnnn.’ In fact, there is a discussion board online full of enthusiasts listing down their interpretations of this fantastic sound – there are over 2,000 comments on the board! How Is the Noise a Lightsaber Makes Spelled?įans are divided when it comes to how to spell a lightsaber’s noise. How Are the Sounds of a Lightsaber Replica/Toy Made?.What Was the Original Lightsaber Sound in Star Wars Like?.How Is the Noise a Lightsaber Makes Spelled?.