SpaceCat - 4/3/2007 6:40 PMStrangely enough, as I'm reading this thread I'm watching the old John Travolta movie, "Blow Out" about a sound engineer- working back in the days of tape and outboard analog processors..... that was my time. Following my brief time with NASA in the early '70's, I spent about ten years as an audio engineer mostly in live theatre and some contract work for independent film makers. I left 'show biz' about 1984 to get back into ocean science & submersible technology- so I missed the 'digital revolution' in audio.But my funny story is this- sometime back then I had a client who needed a "spectacular" rocket liftoff sound. He did not want anything 'stock' or recognizable. Tried all sorts of things...... until just on a lark....At the time I had a 1977 Dodge pickup that still had the little wing-vent windows. With a microphone fixed near one of these windows and my trusty Nagra reel-to-reel on the seat beside me, I very slowly opened, then closed, said window while zipping down the Interstate at about 60 mph. This recording was then slowed down two tape speeds on playback- resulting in something that could have passed for the simultaneous firing of 20 F-1 engines...lol. The customer was thrilled, I got paid... everybody was happy!
When I roll my plastic wheely-rubbish bin to the gate on collection day, across the coarse-chip scoria drive, it sounds exactly like the crackle and roar of the Shuttle SRBs!!
I'll try to get a recording of it soon.