Happy Star Wars Day — even if you didn’t know that was a thing. Apple is celebrating the nerdy holiday by showcasing the widespread use of Macs and iOS devices at Skywalker Sound.
Festivities include the release of a “Behind the Mac” YouTube video and feature article about the audio artists at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, along with a special online “Today at Apple” session about creating Star Wars sound effects.
Apple showcases sound artists’ use of Macs and more for Star Wars Day
Apple is celebrating Star Wars Day by showcasing the lineup of Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, Mac mini and iOS devices that Skywalker Sound artists use in their work.
Cupertino released a “Behind the Mac: Skywalker Sound” YouTube video about Skywalker Ranch’s audio artists, along with an in-depth feature article about their work.
Apple is also promoting a special online “Today at Apple” session about Star Wars sound effects called “Virtual Studio: Create Creature Vocals with Skywalker Sound.”
“With the power of approximately 130 Mac Pro racks, as well as 50 iMac, 50 MacBook Pro, and 50 Mac mini computers running Pro Tools as their main audio application, along with a fleet of iPad, iPhone, and Apple TV devices, Skywalker is advancing sound artistry and reshaping the industry,” Apple said in the article.
From Mac SE to Mac Pro and beyond
Skywalker Sound’s artists have used Macs throughout their working history, including the entire sprawling Star Wars franchise.
“I started out with a Macintosh SE, way back,” said Ben Burtt, known for sound-design work on the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. “Word processing was a huge leap forward for me as a writer. Sound editing in a way is really the same as word processing; cutting and pasting files. All the experience I had on the Mac immediately gave me training for what came along in cutting digital sound.”
Burtt’s stable of Macs has grown, too.
“I started cutting using a Mac with Final Cut in the late 90s, and now have four Mac computers,” said Burtt. “Each handles a different process: one for picture editing, sound editing, manuscript writing, I’m completely surrounded. They’re labeled Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta.”
In with the new, but not out with all the old
Even though Skywalker Ranch keeps up to date with the latest Apple gear, the sound designers don’t necessarily abandon older technology.
“I love to play with digital systems that are clocking wrong, meaning the way the bits are flowing,” said supervising sound editor and sound designer Al Nelson. “It’s broken, it sounds like bad radio. I have a really old PowerBook, and it has certain old software I like to use; I can feed recordings into it and digitally break them.”
In terms of software, the team mainly uses Pro Tools for audio recording and editing. They also use Keyboard Maestro, an automation tool, and Matchbox, a post-production application.
You can see all of this in action in the “Behind the Mac” video on YouTube. The upcoming “Today at Apple” session will demonstrate it, as well.
Apple will host an online session called “Virtual Studio: Create Creative Vocals with Skywalker Sound” at 5 p.m. PDT/8 p.m. EDT on Monday, May 9. In it, sound designer Leff Lefferts will take participants through some of Skywalker Sound’s projects. Then an Apple Creative Pro will show how to use GarageBand to create sounds.
The online session is free, but attendees must register for it on the “Today at Apple” website.
Photo: Apple
