Spotted on Music Thing : "I know there has been a debate about the original Dalek voices being true ring mod or just a fast-gated VCA but I thought..." Possibly the geekiest sentence I have read in a long , long time.
They used a ring modulator right from the start. Ring modulators have been around since at least the 50s (they were among the electronics used for Forbidden Planet which had, I think, a fully electronic soundtrack) & the BBC radiophonic workshop had loads of gear like that. I had the chance to fuck around with some of the RW gear back in '86, they still had TWO working mellotrons among other glorious ancient devices.<br/> <br/> There, as a sound tech, I suppose I am more geek than geek, huh?
Chy
i always thought it was phase-shifting. the aAaAaAaAargh noise sounded like spike milligan gargling. we all used to run around the playground with our arms welded to our torso at the elbow, waving the hands kataleptically like this. <br /> <br /> g
george
I upended a plastic clothes basket and stuck an old perfume spray bottle of my gran's thru one of the holes to make the eyestalk, when I was about 3 or something. Got inside, ran around yelling 'exterminate!!' crashed into a wall. aah, memories!<br/> <br/> Daleks never freaked me out, but those sontarans, the potato-head guys, they scared the living shit out of me. I literally used to hide behind the couch. <br/> <br/> I've heard that the new dr who is very good - the first episode has been leaked onto the bittorrent networks. <br/> <br/> I dunno when 'real' phase shifting was used properly in audio, phase shifting is just a more extreme version of flanging, and in the old days, all flanging was, was the engineer running his finger lightly along one of the 'flanges' of the tape reel, creating a 'wowing' effect during playback, recording or whathaveyou. Dalek vox fx is definitely a ring mod or vca filter. <br/> <br/> I love all that shit, I can gab for hours about this crap. Always was into sound effects & how they were made. The Tardis dematerialisation sound was a bunch of filters, whooshy moog stuff, & a really old set of piano wires in an old joanna being scraped with a drumstick. Brilliant!
Chy
the tardis sound was indeed fine. definitely did not improve with digital synths.
george