Фантазия фильмі үшін жасалған дыбыс жүйесі

Sound reproduction system
Fantasound was a sound reproduction system developed by engineers of Walt Disney studios and RCA for Walt Disney's animated film Fantasia, the first commercial film released in stereo.

Walt Disney's cartoon character Mickey Mouse entered a decline in popularity in the mid 1930s. Disney devised a comeback appearance for Mickey in 1936 with The Sorcerer's Apprentice, a more elaborate edition of the animated Silly Symphonies series set to the music of The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Paul Dukas. and a live, long distance demonstration of multi channel sound a year later.

In January 1938, over 100 musicians assembled at Culver Studios in California for the recording of the nine minute Dukas piece. The plan was to create a multi track recording that allowed the separation of sound channels which would allow the dynamic balance of the music to be adjusted on reproduction. To increase reverberation, the stage was altered acoustically with five double plywood partitions that separated the sections of the orchestra, creating the world's first baffles. Although a satisfactory recording was made, in the days before widespread use of headphones and click tracks to control the speed, the musicians could not hear the other instruments clearly enough and this affected the tempo of the piece. Poor control over the separation of low frequency sounds presented a further problem on playback of the music. and the process began in earnest. Fascinated with the rich sound he heard from the playbacks at Culver Studios, Disney felt the conventional sound systems at the time sounded too tinny and inadequate for the experience he wanted Fantasia to be. "We know that music emerging from one speaker behind the screen sounds thin, tinkly and strainy. We wanted to reproduce such beautiful masterpieces so that audiences would feel as though they were standing at the podium with Stokowski", he said. The goal was to reproduce a full symphony orchestra with its normal volume range and acoustic output in the theatre. The set up used for the recording of The Sorcerer's Apprentice was abandoned, placed around the orchestra captured the music which was transferred onto eight optical recording machines located in the hall's basement. Several safety measures were enforced to prevent the risk of fire as the Academy was constructed of wood. A maximum of 18 rolls of raw nitrate film stock were allowed in the venue at any one time, with a film delivery truck parked outside the hall being converted into a storage unit for a sufficient quantity of film. Six of the channels recorded different sections of the orchestra which provided a "close up" of the instruments – cellos and basses, violins, violas, brass, woodwinds and tympani – while the seventh channel recorded a mixture of the first six and the eighth captured the overall sound of the orchestra at a distance. Each microphone was channeled to a central switching panel, where an operator would read the score and mute those that were not in use to keep noise and leakage to a minimum. Engineers in the basement used headphones for sound mixing and cathode ray oscilloscopes for level indicators, while those who picked up the distant orchestra sound used horn monitoring. In the 42 days of sessions, over ninety miles of sound track were recorded. After being developed, the film was shipped to the Disney studios in Burbank, California where tone and other adjustments were made prior to mastering. Led by William E. Garity, the chief audio engineer at the Disney studios, technicians developed a multi channel reproduction system that was dubbed Fantasound, a process that was to be a desirable alternative sound system. The first task was to create the illusion of sound "moving" across neighboring speakers. It was found that by placing two speakers roughly 20 feet apart it was possible to produce a "moving" sound, but the effect could not be achieved through simple volume control. The problem was solved with a three circuit differential junction network named the "pan pot" (panoramic potentiometer), that allowed sound to progressively travel using constant fades with a left, center and right speaker configuration. The second issue was dynamic range, the difference in volume between the loudest and quietest sounds. The dynamic range of typical film soundtracks at the time was limited to a poor signal to noise ratio of about 40 dB. This was tackled by increasing the volume during loud passages and reducing it during quiet ones, to which the dynamic range would increase. A tone operated gain adjusting device, or "Togad," was built that varied the volume of the replayed sound under the control of a tone of varying amplitude. This device was the predecessor of the automated mix down systems found in modern recording studios.

Fantasia debuted as a roadshow theatrical release under Walt Disney Productions at The Broadway Theatre in New York City on November 13, 1940. Twelve of the thirteen theaters were legitimate theaters converted for the purpose, not movie theaters, due to the need to close the theater during installation of Fantasound. With these expenses and its large budget, Fantasia was unable to make a profit during its initial release. Fantasound never expanded beyond the initial roadshow engagements in New York, Los Angeles (where the automatic Mark X system was used), Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Baltimore, Washington, Minneapolis, Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Eight of the roadshow engagements used the Mark IX systems.

Fantasound marked the first use of the click track, overdubbing of orchestral parts, and simultaneous multi track recording. Almost a fifth of the film's budget was spent on musical recording techniques. Fantasia was re released multiple times, with the full length version making a return to theaters in 1946. Stereo sound was not restored until its 1956 release when it was also presented in SuperScope, an anamorphic widescreen format similar to CinemaScope. To create the stereo soundtrack the original tracks were transferred across telephone lines from the optical Fantasound equipment to the new magnetic recording equipment. These were housed in separate buildings and could not be brought together. This wire transfer resulted in some loss of treble response, but the copies retained the original dynamic range. For Fantasias 1982 issue, the original recordings were abandoned altogether and a completely new soundtrack was recorded using digital stereo technology in Dolby Stereo, conducted by Irwin Kostal, who later composed the score for Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983). The original soundtrack returned when Fantasound was also recreated in Dolby Stereo for the film's 1990 theatrical release. Disney audio engineer Terry Porter spent six months restoring the Stokowski soundtrack. He used remastering technology to remove some 3,000 pops from the four track magnetic copy from 1955, with tools also used on phasing, hiss and distortion. "I proposed to management that we could piece the soundtrack together in a way that re created the impact of the original roadshow. When we play it back it exactly simulates the way their equipment played in the theaters back then." The result, named "Fantasound 90," was only set up in two theaters, one each in New York City and Los Angeles. The six channel surround print that Porter created was also used as the basis for the master soundtrack of the film's DVD release on November 14, 2000. A mention for Fantasound appears in the film's closing credits.