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Finding Deep Note: The Story Behind THX’s Famous Sonic Swell

THX, founded in 1983, is an audio reproduction standard for movie and home theaters, and also for computer and car audio systems. It is a quality assurance system that provides theaters with a certification for a high quality environment, in which a film soundtrack mixed in THX will be heard as it was intended by the mixing engineer. THX has changed the way experienced feature films and tries to ensure that the million dollars audio and video translate perfectly from studio to theaters. It has also solutions for room acoustics and vision in order to make sure that the intention of the filmmaker has been delivered in the best possible way.

Deep Note is an audio mark of THX that was created by Dr. James A. Moorer. In the way of looking for a unique sound effect, Deep Note; a mystifying electronic sound developed by THX. It tests the frequency and dynamic range of a theater’s sound system and make the audience to sense that they are in an extraordinary theater. For the first time, Deep Note was installed in the big 70 mm theaters around the country. After few presentations of Deep Note, the audience started to notice the trailer that was a really distinguished sound. The anonymous inventor of Deep Note started to get famous after receiving some fan emails and publishing the story of “Deep Note”. For creating such a swell of sound in the technological limitations of that time, the team spent two years in designing, building and programming an Audio Signal Processor. With this processor, Dr. Moorer could program the logo theme only in four days. Recently, the new version of Deep Note that plays before films at THX-certified movie theaters was released by THX. Dr. Moorer resurrect the original C program from 1983 to be sure that it generated the score properly. Then he wrote a set of sound synthesis routines to interpret the score and produce the sound. He used the original audio only as a reference to bring up the synthesis engine. The reconstruction of Deep Note with the developed audio technologies optimizes it for 7.1 and Dolby Atmos audio presentations. Do not wait for experiencing the real intention of the moviemakers and do not miss the opportunity of the professional team of TV Installation Houston to catch the technology train.

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