Adding sound effects to cartoons is fairly easy in the age of computers. Sound effects are recorded, used, shared, archived, sold, and used again. But in the early days of animation, production crews had to use whatever they could to reproduce the sounds they wanted. And they could get pretty creative! See Disney foley artists making sound effects and then be surprised at how they were used in the finished product.

The archive of sound effects back then were kept in these guy's heads. Imagine the workshop they kept, with all the weird items they built to make specific sounds. What a cool job! -via <a href="https://digg.com/video/have-your-mind-blown-by-the-way-disney-made-sound-effects-in-its-old-movies" alt="Digg&nbsp;" class="on">Digg&nbsp;</a>​ #soundeffects #foleyartist #Disney #cartoon

The Sources of Old School Sound Effects May Surprise You

You know the musical sting, you've heard it innumerable times, and it instantly conveys mystery and suspense, and often a revelation. We write it “dun, dun duuun,” but this is what is sounds like.

We all recognize it, and we know what it means. It's been used so many times that it's now more likely to be employed as parody than as a serious signature. But how old is it, and who thought it up in the first place? A recording of a radio show in 1912 already used it as parody, so it probably existed in live shows before audio recordings were invented. It's not always&nbsp;&nbsp;exactly&nbsp;the same. A variation of it was used in&nbsp;<a href="https://youtu.be/mfhBM_Yay6w">the viral dramatic chipmunk video</a>. But the definitive version comes from&nbsp;composer Dick Walter, who named it "Shock/Horror A." You play it with&nbsp;D#, C and F#.&nbsp;So even though we cannot go back far enough to ascertain who&nbsp;first&nbsp;used it, we can look through how it has been used in the past 100 years.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jan/18/dun-dun-duuun-where-did-pop-cultures-most-dramatic-sound-come-from">It's a fascinating story told at the Guardian</a>.&nbsp; -via <a href="https://boingboing.net/2022/01/20/dun-dun-duuun-the-mysterious-past-of-the-ubiquitous-three-notes-of-suspense.html">Boing Boing&nbsp;</a>#soundeffects #musicalsting #suspense

The History of That Three-Note Mystery/Suspense Sound

Even if you've never seen a loon, you've heard its call. Hollywood uses it over and over until you can easily recognize it from film to film, whether you know the bird's name or not. The sound is so ubiquitous that we have come to associate it with nature, the outdoors, or wilderness when a movie is trying to set the scene. But it drives birders nuts.

See, the loon lives in Canada during the summer, and along the US-Mexico border in winter. Yet if you watch enough movies, you'll think "that bird" belongs everywhere, even on other planets. Vox explains why Hollywood is so obsessed with the call of the loon. #soundeffects #loon