Hudson Death Rattle and the man from Saud Kruger
01 May 2021Kara waldeN
Ever hear the phrase, “In space, no one can hear you scream”?I mean, it’s mostly because that last lungful of air has just expanded your diaphragm while the blood in your face simultaneously boils up and out of your mouth. Ew, nasty.
But its also a reference to the lack of sound in the vacuum. You see, space is a vacuum and clearly nature loves a vacuum. She loves it so much she made 99.99% of creation a Vacuum.
Nature must really like it quiet.
Anyway, I digress.
There isn’t any sound in space. So how come you can hear all that good stuff like the guns and the faint popping of un-collected escape pods?
Sound Designers.
You’ve probably never thought of this but every sound you hear that isn’t natural has been made by someone. That loud confirmatory beep you hear when you scan a purchase across the register? That was made that way so subconsciously you know, without a shadow of a doubt that you have not stolen that premade crappy sandwich, and I’m guessing by now you have been preconditioned to make sure you do hear the beep because stealing that sandwich just wouldn’t be right.
Right?
The softer ping you get when you enter your pin into the Bank of Zaonce machine? Yep, that one too.
Same with our space-ships.
That weird little squirty noise when the Friendship drive countdown finishes? And the impacts your weapons make on the hull of those passenger liners? Or Criminals. Its the same noise for both but yes, the request for that noise was at one point put out into the market and Sound Designers submitted their best efforts.
There are league tables for the designers. You can tell for instance that the guy who did the lazor pew pew on hull noise didn’t get the gig for the Krait Mk2 Thrusters. My personal favourite is the disappointing squelch some unknown genius developed for the Manifest Cargo Scanner when no cargo is detected.
If you speak to the Sound designers though, if you contact them and talk about who their inspirations are and who they look up to then pretty much universally they will all go a little misty eyed and wobbly lipped.
Then in a reverent whisper they will say,
Rudolph Abelone
By the way, don’t actually do that, these people are soooo boring. One of them spent an entire hour telling me about the different types of Didgeridoo and explaining his lifelong passion for them.
Up until that afternoon I had never killed someone with a woodwind instrument before, piano wire yes, but believe me when I tell you, that life-long passion for the Didgeridoo did not work out too well for him in the
end.
Anyway, Rudolph Abelone. You won’t have heard of him but you will have heard his work. This is the guy who, while working for Faulcon DeLacey upgraded the Cobra Mk3 Thrusters. His most commercial success was the universally accepted Harmonic sequence that represents the passage of your ship through the Atmospheric force shield. Uh-huh that’s him.
But the reason the sound designer fan bois hold him in such high regard isn’t the sweet tones of a tuned Cobra or the electrifying air plug force shield thing.
No, the real reason is the work he did for Saud Kruger.
You ever pressed the Boost in an Orca?
No, not the engines. They did that by committee with the budget they had left after they paid Rudolph.
No, the sound I’m talking about is the Pong.
Yeah, that guy. Impressed right? I know I am.
Now, I know what you are thinking, why am I telling you about the single greatest Sound Designer in the Bubble?
Well, clearly Rudolph Abelone is a man ahead of the curve and believe it or not he and I share a lot in common.
For a start, we are both geniuses but also, when I started getting into sound design and hiding my little encryptions in complex harmonic formula’s I also started listening around to see if anyone else was doing the same.
Turns out Rudolph might not be as boring as the others. You see I found things that Rudolph left behind and if I’m honest, I think it’s a good idea that I get to him before Hudson and his data theft Feds do.
So I’m taking the band on tour and we are going to visit Mr Abelone and have a little chat about a couple of things.
I hope he likes the Didgeridoo.