interior ambience (sound only) that low rumble...

[jefferiestubes8]

All of Trek TV & movies have been released in DVD in 5.1 surround which give a good enveloping expeience for the interiors of ships and the dialogue is easy to hear through the center channel.
The videogames were mixed for stereo for the most part.

Of the Trek TV series, films, and videogames which ship interior ambience do you prefer?
Yes I'm talking about the background rumble on a ship's interior. Technically it is a sound effect that is added in post production as a "background ambience" but on Trek it defines what deck & department of a ship we are within.
Just the rumble not the computer voice or computer beeps, impulse engines or warp drive "revving" up/down, alarms, or klaxon sounds.

It is minutae so please respond if you actually can share something about the sound and which on you prefer & why.
I've never compared the episodes for a Starfleet shuttlecraft interior and a Romulan or Klingon ship interior with Starfleet large ship interiors.
I haven't played Trek videogames so I don't know how the interiors sound.

As a fan who has watched Voyager for all 7 broadcast seasons I was used to the ship interior sounds.

 

[Yeoman Randi]

Interesting that you asked this question. My husband and i have opposing views on this. I love that low rumble that you always here and would think it would be a nice, white noise in the background. My husband always comments when we are watching something Trek how much he hates the noise. He thinks it would drive him crazy if he had to live in an environment with that low rumble. I suffer from tinnitus, so for me it would be great to have that other noise to focus on. That would help me deal with the tinnitus!

 

[jefferiestubes8]

interior ambience - low rumble...

I love that low rumble that you always here and would think it would be a nice, white noise in the background.
My husband always comments when we are watching something Trek how much he hates the noise. He thinks it would drive him crazy if he had to live in an environment with that low rumble.

I think it would be very realistic to have a rumble of some sort. I would not call it white noise as that is a simple wide-bandwidth sound.
I mentioned this on a discussion of an episode the interior environment of the spacecraft Antares on the TV series Defying Gravity this summer

near the the water purification system. It had the ships ambience but it also had fans which were like a HVAC system and would be very realistic with C2 scrubbers and ventilation/heating systems required on a ship similar to the Intl. Space Station. If you haven't seen it here is the thread/link to the 28 minute video tour of the ISS. If you listen closely to the ISS tour you can hear how the ambience changes in different compartments. It is louder near the beginning of the video.
It reminds me of how Voyager's and Enterprise's ambiences changed.

In the Defying Gravity episode you can hear the sound of one or two fans which make up the sound. Possibly inthe sound design of that compartment they added a rumble noise [along] with the fans.

Even if a ship didn't have an engine that made a lot of noise i.e. ion plasma rocket (VASIMR) the sound of the heating, ventilation A/C as well as water purification and ship water waste treatment would generation shipwide constant noise and rumble similar to a corporate office tower with a HVAC unit always-on.
I think the ISS video above shows that even without an engine that realistically you would have background ambience rumble constantly.


For comparison of sounds you can watch that episode of Defying Gravity Ep: 105 here:
http://abc.go.com/watch/defying-gravity/224690/230734/rubicon


The "Broken Bow" pilot of Enterprise had a loud sound for Engineering that was not your usual background rumble. It was a little too loud.

 

[SFRabid]

I need to start paying more attention. Years of playing music in bands followed by sitting in an office with 4 servers, 2 PC's and a Mac have been detrimental to my hearing. I do notice when things are wrong. Where are all the pops and cracks we should be hearing when life support is repaired and the interior of the ship goes from freezing to comfortable? In battle we hear the sounds of explosions and beams falling, but we never hear the snap of supports breaking away or the slow crunch of something compressing under the weight.

 

[Jadzia]

I love that low rumble that you always here [...] I suffer from tinnitus, so for me it would be great to have that other noise to focus on. That would help me deal with the tinnitus!

I can make you an mp3 of rumble noise if you like, if you feel you'd find some benefit from listening to it? It's technically called brown noise by the way.

 

[Jadzia]

I've just made 10 minutes of rumble noise. Slightly more hissy than the sound of TNG engineering, but it's fairly similar.

rumble.wav is 100MB.

Within a .rar archive it is 23MB.

rumble.rar is here. Download link at the bottom of the page.

 

[Yeoman Randi]

I love that low rumble that you always here [...] I suffer from tinnitus, so for me it would be great to have that other noise to focus on. That would help me deal with the tinnitus!

I can make you an mp3 of rumble noise if you like, if you feel you'd find some benefit from listening to it? It's technically called brown noise by the way.

aw, thanks, but i've been keeping music playing all the time (or a movie in the dvd player) for years now. Its the only way i wont go mad. Plus it makes the voices in my head happy too! But thank you VERY MUCH for the offer!

 

[Tom Riley]

I like the rumble sound. Whenever I'm at work and I'm near the generator room or any of the other equipment rooms I can hear a similar rumble and I enjoy it.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

I once stayed at a hotel that had a very loud air conditioner in it, generating this rumble noise. I thought it would put me off my sleep. However, I slept soundly despite it.

Apparently, many people find they sleep better if there is some "white noise" and sometimes "brown noise" softly in the background. White noise generators have even been used as sleep aids.

 

[Canuck69]

I have always enjoyed the rumble in the backround in TNG. I watch it in surround so I can here it, it pulls you into the show more to hear the ship running, kinda makes you feel like you are there.

 

[T'Girl]

Just the rumble not the computer voice or computer beeps, impulse engines or warp drive "revving" up/down, alarms, or klaxon sounds.

I like the sound effects of TOS best of the various series, the sound of "impulse engines or warp drive "revving" up/down" I think is something different, in one of William Shatner's novels he referred to the rising bass hum/ fall whine as being the inertial dampeners ramping up and down. Listening to episodes after reading that it make quite a bit of sense.

I like how that the wrobbling sound you hear in the corridors cuts off when you enter the captain quarters, that make sense too. When I tried to reproduce the background rumble sound of main engineering, I placed a microphone against the side of my purring cat, same sound, I wonder if that's where the sound effects guy originally got the sound recording.

There was one battle scene where when the ship was hit you heard the sound of a pair of crashing cymbals, did the hull make that sound?

 

[timothy1701]

That does make a lot of sense for the hum to be the inertial dampeners! I always did think the warp engines were pretty far away from the bridge.
In the TNG technical manual, the writer says at ne point that a lot of the sound effects came from everyday, mundane sources...like a cat!!
As far as which series sound I like the most? TNG. It was the first trek I saw, and the first one that I noticed the sound in.

 

[M.Robison]

Wow, I thought I was the only person that found the ambient noise on a star-ship soothing. I have three separate mp3 files that I run on a loop whenever I am reading or kitbashing models or just trolling through the interwebs.

I have a specific one that is the Enterprise-A and D bridge noise spliced together. Oddly enough my 4 month old son was fussing nonstop after getting his first immunizations and as I was trying to get him to calm down I tunes was running and that particular file played. Knocked his fussy butt out in about 5 min flat.

Now I cant' get him to sleep at night without playing it. Seems it backfired on me...meh

 

[jefferiestubes8]

I have three separate mp3 files that I run on a loop whenever I am reading or kitbashing models or just trolling through the interwebs.

I have a specific one that is the Enterprise-A and D bridge noise spliced together.

Wow. i hadn't thought of that. just sample the actual sound from the DVD and loop it.
Why the Ent-A?

I have Adobe Audition software and it will generate white, pink, or brown noise in mono or stereo and there's a few other options.
I could just take Trek rumble noise samples and copy & paste them to fill 30 minutes and save that and burn a CD.
Hey has anyone been to Star Trek Experience show at these museums? Does the Ent-D full size replica set have the sound playing over hidden speakers?

I've been traveling this week and a lot of hotel AC/heating in-wall units that are on all night create a brown noise sound.


Does Ent-B & Ent-C have a similar sound to the original Ent-A?
I haven't seen STII & STIII in a long while.

Can anyone do a comparison with the Excelsior in STVI TUC? I know it's a different class ship...

 

[Ziz]

I love that low rumble that you always here [...] I suffer from tinnitus, so for me it would be great to have that other noise to focus on. That would help me deal with the tinnitus!

I can make you an mp3 of rumble noise if you like, if you feel you'd find some benefit from listening to it? It's technically called brown noise by the way.

Not to be confused with the brown note.

 

[Green Shirt]

Thanks, you just made me crap my pants.

 

[M.Robison]

I have three separate mp3 files that I run on a loop whenever I am reading or kitbashing models or just trolling through the interwebs.

I have a specific one that is the Enterprise-A and D bridge noise spliced together.

Wow. i hadn't thought of that. just sample the actual sound from the DVD and loop it.
Why the Ent-A?

I have Adobe Audition software and it will generate white, pink, or brown noise in mono or stereo and there's a few other options.
I could just take Trek rumble noise samples and copy & paste them to fill 30 minutes and save that and burn a CD.
Hey has anyone been to Star Trek Experience show at these museums? Does the Ent-D full size replica set have the sound playing over hidden speakers?

I've been traveling this week and a lot of hotel AC/heating in-wall units that are on all night create a brown noise sound.


Does Ent-B & Ent-C have a similar sound to the original Ent-A?
I haven't seen STII & STIII in a long while.

Can anyone do a comparison with the Excelsior in STVI TUC? I know it's a different class ship...

I can actually touch on some of these questions.

1. When I created my Ent A-D loop I used the D to get a sample of the rumble, as it is more noticeable in TNG than in the Ent A movies. I used the ambient beeps and blips from the A because I guess I have a soft spot for the old gal.

Actually the loop I used contains a rather "unnoticeable unless you listen for it" beep in the back ground that repeats, and it is from the scene in ST VI TUC where the Ship is warping to the conference after rescuing Kirk and McCoy and Spock is counting down the 2 min until beam-down range.


2. As far as I can tell the Excelsior has its own sound all together. One thing I like from TUC is the short blip that sounds when the comm is activated between ships, like when Chang cuts in as he fires on th Enterprise.

3. Lastly, I grew up in Las Vegas and was in my 11th and 12th grade years in HS when the Experience opened up at the Hilton. Being the trek geek I am I got a casting spot as a crewmember on the bridge, through my theater teacher.

The set there was incredible as far as the sounds and such. I have many fond memories of sitting on the bridge after the show went dark (shut down for the night). I returned for the wrap party for the show in 2008. Happy to say tho that the Experience will be back in Las Vegas in 2010 at the Neonopolis Mall....

Hope I didn't bore ye...

 

[Tom Riley]

Happy to say tho that the Experience will be back in Las Vegas in 2010 at the Neonopolis Mall....

And I am glad for that. My step mom had promised to take me out to Vegas for my 21st birthday, and I intended to go to The Experience. I was so disappointed when I heard it was closing in 2008, as I was only 19... But, 2010, I'll be 21 in July, I really want to go.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Here's what I don't get. In a 24th Century holodeck, you can't hear the rumble, it's either screened out technologically, or the holodeck is soundproofed.

So why not soundproof the whole ship against the rumble?

 

[Yeoman Randi]

I have always enjoyed the rumble in the backround in TNG. I watch it in surround so I can here it, it pulls you into the show more to hear the ship running, kinda makes you feel like you are there.

Same here!

<snip>
Not to be confused with the brown note.

um......ew!!