Faking It: The Obviously Dubbed Telephone Ring
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- čas přidán 25. 02. 2018
- If you lived in North America any time in the 20th century, you probably ran across one of these telephones. The Western Electric Model 500 and its subsequent variants were so ubiquitous that you almost couldn't go anywhere without seeing one, especially in the United States where it was standard equipment from the phone company.
Even if you're not American, if you've seen any of our movies, you'll have seen this phone, too. A literal fixture of American life, this phone was inescapable. But its ubiquity also caused some filmmakers or TV show producers to get a little lazy. This video tells that story.
Here's a link to the video of the Model 500 from 1958. Yes I said 1957 in the video. I am truly sorry. My oversight is abhorrent. I am ashamed.
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A real telephone, recorded onto vinyl, sampled to digital audio, put into a scene with the wrong phone... pressed onto a DVD, bootlegged onto a CD with mpeg encoding, taped on to a VHS cassette in Extra Long Play mode... I fear the ring that we would hear.
uploaded on youtube
2006 youtube and downloaded/compressed
then converted to mov, reuploaded to youtube in 2018 with pitch shift to keep it from being flagged for copyright infringement
Someone has to do it now xd
Congrats, I will now have nightmares over this.
"The only audio file guaranteed not to start an argument" I'm dying.
I don't get it...
That could be sarcasm or it could be CZcams restrictions or it could just be the de facto standard, still slightly confused
@@imark7777777 The joke is that audiophiles will argue about anything that has to do with sound quality.
@@OtakuUnitedStudio AH ok. makes sense now lol
A few years ago I was one of the organizers of a kids summer camp. These kids decided they didn't want to sleep until about 4am. We took shifts and woke up the kids the next morning at 9am (we're not monsters) with a very similar recording that one of the other organizers found online (well, a little bit).. The kids went to bed at 8pm the next evening without any resistance.
When I hear that distinct wobble in the pitch, I say to myself, “now THAT’s the sound of a REAL movie telephone.”
That's honestly likely why they did it. Audiences prefer less realistic effects if it "feels cinematic" after decades of being trained to expect a certain thing.
I have to say, I really do like how a movie telephone sounds.
@yondie491 that sounds so stupid to me! 😂
But then again, I barely watch any movies. Only once in a blue moon does something peak my interest enough to go to the cinema... 😅
I also don't get the preference for 24Hz, as if obvious stutter or extreme blur would make a moving picture look more realistic. What I do get from it is motion sickness during long camera pans/rides though! 🙃👍
@@LRM12o8 humans, amirite?
Back in the '80s I worked in an office where every everyone had a 2500 set. They all sounded identical!! If you were away from your desk and the phone rang, you had no idea if it was your phone or one of the other 25 phones in the office.
I solved the problem by taking a hack saw to the bells in my phone and cut little notches in them. Now my phone ring was unique from all the others.
DIY ringtone
That would bug me enough also to figure out a solution
Former Broadcast Engineer here. Certain sound effects were deliberately altered so listeners wouldn't answer their own phones! Some SFX such as sirens were prohibited by FCC Regs if the broadcast could be heard by drivers who might swerve off the road.
But I've heard your 33-1/3 recording with it's unmistakable wow everywhere, sometimes with a click from a scratched record! (Check out the opening title of the Rockford Files!)
Oh! And # is officially called a "number sign" in the US, and a "hash" in UK. Like what US people end sentences with a "period," and the British do it with a "full stop." Winston Churchill famously remarked, "England and the United States are two great nations divided by a common language."
Spot on mate full stop number sign good job!
We always called It the Numbers # sign in Australia. As in # 3 (number 3) and so on. Sadly the youngies nowadays call it the hash tag. I get that language or symbols change over time though. Also here we say Route as Rout, not Root as the US says it. It weird saying Root 45 when it spelt (to us) as rout 45 (Root has a diff slang meaning in the commonwealth as well).
Actually the official name of a #, is octothorpe. The rest are colloquialisms.
Im still picking up my phone when one rings on movie
@@wonniewarrior I've heard route pronounced both ways here in America. Just depends on which regional dialict you hear it from.
I just spent 15 minutes watching a video about a telephone ring... and damn, it was interesting!
I wonder what I am doing with my life too. I'm scared.
I can't believe I stuck around long enough to read replies about a video on phone ringers.
You are geh
That sums this channel pretty well
Back in my days you could say the same about Wikipedia. Its 4AM and I need to go to Uni tomorrow morning, yet I sit at a computer reading about Cambodian revolutionary party.
It's weird, but now that I'm paying attention to that fluctuation in pitch, I feel like most of the phone sound effects I've heard in movies/TV have always had that fluctuation. And I realized just now that for me, it actually evokes classic films and the cinematic experience. As a filmmaker myself, I may consciously choose to use a recording like that because there's something so familiar about it now.
You get it. Sound designers and directors love these sounds because they evoke the older films they were raised on. They have an almost subconscious richness to them that most people won't notice.
I love the film effect.
I got so many of those Western Electric 500 telephones ☎️, my pops worked for the phone company ,also got the 554 wall sets as well as the 1500 & 2500 as well as Trimlines & the loved princess phone....even had payphones
Only in the film industry do people view deliberately making the same mistakes as their predecessors instead of learning from them and doing better as a good thing! 🤦🙄
This is is why movies suck so much these days: instead of moving forward with new ideas and keeping to push the boundaries of realism with the new tech, they all just rehash the much more technologically restricted old stuff for no good reason!
@@LRM12o8
Wilhelm to you, screamer.
You know, as a sound editor, I know about this problem, and yet I still use the pitch-shiftey sound fx if I need an old timey phone ring. There's something about it that just places you in the time period, and since most consumers don't understand what's going on, I think it does a good job of subconsciously indicating a vintage sound. Of course, I wouldn't use the same sound effect for a modern phone, and sometimes I do run into the problem of having old sounds in my library that I can't use because the pitch is a bit too warped.
I was really secretly hoping for some crazy frog.
Some phones *did* sound like that, but if I remember correctly, it was usually cheaper phones that became available in the 80s. Some were quite flimsy, and the ring sounded anemic.
Thank you for mentioning not using that sound effect for modern phones. Always bothers me when modern TV shows use phones (mostly smartphones, but modern landline phones as well) sound like a 90s beeping ringtone.
This is an extremely interesting observation. More people have heard the ringing of a Bell 500 with the distortions than without. So to their ears, the distorted sound is more genuine than the real one. If a movie maker actually did a "good" job of making an accurate recording of one it would sound wrong to the audience.
It's not the only place where movies have distorted our sense of reality so much that reality seems unreal.
Terminator 2 used that famous ring with a DIGITAL phone!
I loved the ring when slamming the receiver. I miss that. So satisfying.
I want my iPhone to use the Haptic Touch to detect when I angrily hang up and make that sound 😂
So funny. I miss that too. The other day I really needed to slam the receiver down on someone and had to just end the cell phone call like a wimp. Someone’s gotta think of an app!
@@jimmyb1559 It's like storming out of a tent and trying to slam the flap.
No idea what you say in the States, but here in the UK we still say that someone put the phone down. Mind you, my kids understand the command to "pull the chain" after they've used the loo, when every toilet they've ever seen has a button or handle flush. And our road sign for a rail crossing features a cartoon silhouette of a steam engine, when trains haven't looked like that for over 60 years! I think I may have discovered a theme here...
With the little iphones we have now.. i don't know how to slam the phone down to hang up to show how angry i am at telemarketers.
I'm just glad his name wasn't Alexander Graham Siren.
HA! I like that!
🤣🤣 brilliant
@Eli Z "stealing" is the wrong word there
@Eli Z god damn it. That's not how comedy works...
Isn't that from an old George Carlin special?
I really miss calling for the exact time and hearing "at the tone the time will be ..."
those services are still available
You should really get a hobby.
@@johnd5398 nah you need to more
discontinued in australia a couple of years ago :(
@@johnd5398 do you subscribe to this channel just to shit talk and leave angry comments? Get a life or some friends or something dude goddamn
Those coughs at the “hashtag” literally jumpscared me
"literally"
Highschool teachers would talk about WW2 and make it seem so uninteresting (I love history) But you managed to get me to watch 15 min on a telephone ring.
Bravo
@@LogiForce86 the problem with why in history is that it's always going to be subjective.
if you liked this video, you should check out all the videos he's made about lightbulbs
LogiForce86
underrated comment of the month award
It's simple to examine why. Teachers do a job to make money, rarely do they do their stuff with passion. This guy here does every supposedly boring topic with passion, so it turns out entertaining. Teachers can do the same, if they really find joy in the stuff they teach. Sadly, it's not a common sight.
@@marcfuchs6938 is actually because most teachers are bitter sexless women who failed at becoming anything else. This guy is just a really smart dude with a passion for nerdy shit
Man, ascending and descending phone rings in films have driven me insane for ages, but I always assumed it was just some sort of Doppler effect due to a moving mic. Thanks for the explanation. Now my rage can be properly directed.
It always bothered me too. I figured it was flutter in the filming, thought surely they had an actual bell that a stagehand was operating. Nope, double-flutter. Source tape flutter added to the master film soundtrack flutter.
And I don't hear a difference at all. Lucky me, I guess.
Fun Fact: The sound designer from _Star Wars_ (can’t remember their name, unfortunately) recorded the sound of a lightsaber by recording the frequencies from static & interference on a CRT TV. The changes in pitch you hear when a lightsaber moves were caused by a moving microphone, similar to, as you described, the Doppler Effect.
@@williamreid6255 ...That's actually super neat, thanks ^_^ I don't know why I never looked that up! Ben Burtt is the guy, and I know that because I *did* look him up when researching who the hell decided every single film in the series needed a Wilhelm scream as a running gag, but apparently after looking up how he did TIE fighter sounds and the like I stopped before getting to the iconic saber hum.
@@MisterNohbdy Yeah I know about the Wilhelm scream and all that he did, my brain just decided to off itself when I was leaving the comment last night and so I couldn’t remember his name :(
Edit: Also, I just remembered, the Wilhelm scream (technically) first appeared in the 1951 film _Distant Drums_ where a man was being eaten by an alligator (dw, they didn’t show anything graphic). The most recognizable version of the scream, however, comes from _The Charge at Feather River,_ a 1953 western. The character Private Wilhelm (dk who played him) was sitting on his horse filling his pipe, when suddenly someone fires an arrow into his left leg, causing him to fall off his horse out of surprise, and triggering the most iconic scream in cinema history.
I remember as a kid asking myself, "why would they fake the ring?". I could hear that wow quite easily
Same reason a woman fakes it...
I’ve worked sound for film, both pre and post production, and I will say, I simultaneously sympathize with the frustration of hearing subpar individual sound effects, and with the hard working folks who placed those sound effects. Production can absolutely bust their butts knocking it out of the park in terms of on set sound capture, and post production will still have their work cut out for them in terms of crafting a believable soundscape that serves the story. Sometimes you just grab whatever sound file you can find in the limited timeframe you have. Sometimes you switch to something that “sounds right” which is different from what is “historically accurate.” With something as particular as a phone ring, directors almost always have their hands in the cookie jar, which is completely valid, as it impacts scene pacing, but that throws another iron in the fire. At the end of the day, a phone ring matching the receiver model or even being clean (without flutter or warble) takes a back seat to the serving of the narrative. It’s entirely possible that a director or sound designer first tried a crisp new digital recording, and preferred a distorted recording for its “vintage” sound. WE notice of course, and are offput by that choice, but most folks just hear “old timey phone.” If I were in charge of, say, Wandavision... I’d be rushing out to sample that Dick Van Dyke ringtone for use on my show just for the esoteric reference, with zero regard for the accuracy of the ringtone to the onscreen handsets. Heck, it probably IS an alarm clock and not a phone at all... but that almost makes it interesting, and almost makes it a foible worth repeating for old times sake.
Are there truly no top quality recordings of these ringers? I have an extremely high quality 32bit float 196k digital recorder and some top notch microphones if that’s what needs to happen.
Exactly what came to my mind - that I would bet they had a mic on the set of the Terminator and then they realized/decided that the accurate sound just didn't feel right for some artistic reason.
Phone the telephone company is responsible for fixing: indestructible.
Phone the subscriber is responsible for fixing: shatters if looked at funny.
Oh, naturally. If you were paying for people's phones, you'd want them to last forever.
But if they're buying them from you.. why put all that engineering effort in? Just make 'em eviscerate if you toss it onto your bed too sternly, and have them buy another.
@@StrayGuitarist "... if you toss it onto your bed too sternly..." For some reason, the image of someone "sternly" tossing their phone onto a bed made me laugh.
@@goopah Hehe, guess it is a pretty odd phrasing. Glad to have made you laugh though, I was hoping I'd be able to pick vocabulary out-there enough to assemble something funny.
The phone company was not only responsible for fixing or replacing a broken phone; they also were responsible for sending a tech to your house to diagnose whatever problem you were having! They really didn't want to do that, so they made the phones reliable.
I grew up with one of the wall units. I miss that ring. However I don't miss the mile long, forever getting twisted into knots phone cord.
1:57 my guy really just dialed 8675309
It's a dead number no matter the area code. If the phone was plugged no one got a random call then luckily. Also, a good catch didn't notice it.
When that song came out, an enterprising pimp would have bought that number.
Lalna Rocks there’s a car garage in my city that actually has that number
Justice Elena Kagan (probably the funnest and funniest Supreme Court Justice, even if you totally disagree with her jurisprudence) once used that number in a Supreme Court opinion
@@HoyaSaxaSD Oliver Wendell Holmes was the funniest supreme court justice, despite the fact that he made a bunch of shit rulings.
My first foray into telephone vandalism included: Swapping the bells in two 1500 so that one would ring with the high tone, the other ring with the low tone, Then removing the plastic dampers from the bells so that the ring had a much longer sustain. (My office had two lines so that I could call one phone from the other to hear the results of my tampering.) I also discovered that the electronics in the AT&T phones were highly potted so what was going on inside was even more mysterious. Thanks for the videos, brings back so many memories.
10:47 i love the "Airplane!" reference there
You missed a golden opportunity to say that the sounding designers of those shows/movies were just... phoning it in.
Now you've cursed us all to never be able to un-notice when this specific phone sound in a movie is badly sampled.
And if somebody pointed out interlaced television scanning, you will not un-see it until you get a flat panel TV.
Unless you watch an interlaced video on that flat panel TV, which will make it oh so much worse...
Those rotary dials where actually quite painful on the fingers after awhile- this is why people so often used pencils, pens, etc.
I used to play with one as a child and I am speaking of a real rotary phone. I can not remember it do that, but I remember trying to catch my finger on the hook/backstop. Haha!
What I do remember using a pencil on is a cassette tape, although you could squeeze your finger into it as well, those little spikes did hurt after twisting the cassette tape in a circle around your finger or you kept pulling and pushing your finger into the wheel grooves.
We need to bring the rotary dial back and force telemarketers to use it.
I had forgotten that, you are so right.
@@tilasole3252 same as you say all over the world.
Or a Tiffany's sterling silver telephone dialer... which Holly Golightly politely refused to buy in her movie with George Peppard.
Phone guy for 45 years. Now retired. That sound is so dear to my heart!! Thanks!
As an aside, the voice quality of the 5xx series had a very distinctive sound to it. It's hard to explain but if you want to hear it, search for an old country music song. Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn singing
"As soon as I hang up the phone"
Conway had two PSTN lines ran into the studio to make this song happen instead of using two extensions off of the electronic system he had as (with him and Loretta being musicians) he knew the sound would not be perfect. The result is classic!
Good stuff!
I miss the job.
people who have only ever had a cell phone will never experience the satisfaction of slamming a receiver into the cradle
I'm almost sad for them
I remember the last time time I did that, when I was somehow caught in the middle of an argument between my husband and his brother. Husband had gone out, brother called wanting to talk to him and didn't believe me telling him he wasn't there and even cussing at me. "He's not here! Good-BYE!" Slam.
@@EverlastingHobnocker I had the ex boyfriend from hell who even after I told him I didn't want to see him anymore, kept calling and calling. finally I said, "Call me one more time and I'm getting a restraining order"
and slammed the phone down
it felt sooooooooooo good
Haw yeah poor relationships yee haw
@@mrmaniac3 emotional satisfaction at ending poor relationships
@@Bluebelle51 fair 🤷
Was nothing like slamming the phone down on someone. It's just not the same anymore
Seinfeld had a great skit about it - *Slams phone down* "Yeah!" vs *Looks for and tediously pokes a button* "Ah, that sure showed them!"
Yeah, we need to make smart phones with a "slam" button that will play something annoying and hang up
Shout "BANG!" before disconnecting your smart phone call.
Nothing like the sassy snap of a flip phone haha
you can slam your thumb down
“if you hear flutter in the sound of a phone, then you know you’re listening to an analog tape recording.”
*phone rings*
sounds like someone rattling a spoon in a ceramic bowl....
Shirley there is a missed opportunity at the end of this video to ask us to ‘ring the bell’. Fantastic work as always - your editing continues to inspire us smaller CZcamsrs!
And don't call me Shirley.
It might be just because I'm old, but I remember a time when youtube didn't have a bell. You just subscribed, and got notified, none of this newfangled algorriphm stuff! Gosh-dang whippersnappers...
Anyway, maybe this video pre-dates the "bell of ensured notification"? I can't actually recall when they introduced that 😆
@sourcererseven3858 "actually"
As a kid, when I mostly watched older movies and cartoons, I used to notice the "wow" all the times. Growing up together with the technology I heard it less and less until I eventually forgot about it. You just brought it back and explained it at a technical level, and every minute of it all was beatifully entertaining and fun. You rightfully earned one more subscriber.
I remember hearing wows all the time in movies when I was a kid, and that was only 20 or so years ago. The memories brought back from hearing that wonky pitch...
Don't get me started on how some modern shows have British telephones making the same ringing pattern as American ones. Phones in the UK had an initial long ring, followed by ring pairs, but it seems that a distressing number of young sound designers are just searching for "telephone ring" on the Internet and using the first one that they find...
Swiss phones have another ring altogether.
Australian phones had the same ring as the British phones
Jonty Speaks Exactly.
@@davidewhite69 there was actually an Australian TV series from the late 60's where the phones were ringing with the U.S. cadence. Stuck out like the proverbial.
I think the phone ring in T2 is as iconic as the "Wilhelm Scream". Or the creaky door that is used in almost every video game and movie.
I think the use of these sounds is 3 fold. Paying homage to the source (even if that is lost to time). These are the sounds we are used to this object making. And finally... people are lazy. If someone has already created a sound you need, why recreate the wheel?
I think there is a fourth fold: This was the early era (relatively speaking) of both phones _and_ TV, so maybe they simply wanted to make sure that no viewers would get confused and try to answer their phone, maybe even shutting off the TV to do so.
Not sure about the timeline, but this may even be prior to every TV being shipped with a remote, and of course the phone would be out in the hall. A far cry from today's "mute TV and pull your phone from your pocket" 😆 Not that anyone still uses ring tones... Or TVs...
It's especially #3. I'd even say 100% #3 and the other two are just poor excuses for the laziness.
@sourcererseven3858 I don't think so. If you couldn't distinguish between the ringing coming from your landline vs out of your TV speakers back then, then you must have been really hard of hearing!
1. Most people could easily locate wether the ringing came from the TV right in front of them, or from the hallway further away.
2. Most old CRT TVs had a really echo-y and undetailed sound. The sound coming from your TV would sound nowhere near as crisp and clear, as the sound of the actual bells in your telephone
3. Also, every single unit had a somewhat different tone to its ring (The ones shown in the video are a half-step apart!), so the tone of the telephone in the movie wouldn't match anyway. Most people would (subconsciously) realize those slight differences in pitch to their own phone, which they've heard ring a thousand times and are very familiar with, even if they couldn't tell a half-tone difference in two unfamiliar sounds.
4. Finally, the volume of the rong from the TV would seldomly match the volume of your actual telephone.
So yeah, I don't believe this was much of an issue at all!
@@LRM12o8 not saying it was an actual issue, I'm saying it might have been a _concern_ the producers may have wanted to address preemptively. Your points are all valid.
Dude, slamming down that handset hard enough to make the bells ring was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SATISFYING! God, I miss that.
"the only audiophile (file) guarenteed not to start an argument“
I had to sit down I was laughing so hard!
i dont get it
@Thu Nell Ⓥ A music lover is somebody who uses audio equipment to listen to their music. An audiophile is somebody who uses music to listen to their audio equipment.
Lol I used to drive my wife mad by picking up on this on TV "hah! That phone's a statesman but the ring was from a viscount" for some inexplicable reason this got me labelled geek
next time, you can point out other inaccuracies, like, "the car sounds like it is increasing its engine speed forever" or "if they were really upside down, their clothes and hair would hang out" or "an electric shock does not make you jump away" etc
hi geek
Because a geek would know a phone ring by the sound
@@GeorgeTsiros well actually a high enough shock will cause your muscles to spasm and launch you
I really hope someone got fired for that blunder.
I had forgotten how grating the sound of the landline ringing was.
Thanks for explaining how this works and how Hollywood uses the sounds in movies.
As I recall, it was mean to convey a sense of urgency. And, be distinct from your old wind-up alarm clock.
"The telephone belonged to the company." Sounds like what Apple assumes with their phones right now with Right-ToRepair.
I remember my parents talking about "renting another phone" so my father could have one in his office back in the late 70's. The telephone industry was a captive market. Still is in some ways, most cable and telephone providers will supply cable boxes and internet modems to the customer that require to be returned at termination of service.
@@abpsd73 At the very least they are required to allow you to buy your own even if the standard for a lot of people is renting it.
I kinda looked at that remark through the other end of the telescope. Today we laugh uproariously at the audacious concept of Apple or whoever owning “our” product, but we accepted it unthinkingly back then. I remember a telephone technician swapping out my old phone for a newer one, and I thought “thank god it’s not mine, or I’d have to pay for that. One less thing to worry about”. So maybe if Apple had vast warehouses of phones and freely swapped out broken ones for new ones, they could win over our sympathies.
Main difference is Apple doesn't own any mobile phone network. The rationale for the telephone companies owning the phones where that apparatuses not fully compliant to the phone companies specifications actually could take down the network (not so much burning it out physically as by causing interference).
Apple say they want "a consistent user experience", but that does not work the same way, as one user doing funky stuff with their own phone will NOT cause *other* costumers to have *their* experience altered to any significant degree.
I remember about 2003 some older friends of mine realized they had been paying a rental fee on their avocado green phone since the 70's. The cost seemed astronomical to me at the time. Something like $10/mo or maybe even more. That was when landlines were still common and you could buy a wired phone outright for probably $10. They probably payed thousands for that one, and had to give it back in the end.
All these years later and I finally find out we could have changed the volume so easily...
Have you now learnt to read instruction manuals ?
Omg, I totally forgot you could even do this!! 😂
I knew this because as a kid I disassembled the phone and put it back together.
@@millomweb the bt version did not come with a manual
@@dogwalker666 Pretty sure all BT phones came with a manual.
I wonder if the incorrect recording in the Dick Van Dyke show was a deliberate decision by the producers to avoid confusion with their viewers mistaking it for their own phone ringing during the show. If basically during that era everyone's phone sounded the same then this may have been considered a customer service action to deliberately have an incorrect ring sound.... or it could have just been laziness :)
That's a good thought, but wouldn't the ring in the show sound quite different than a phone ringing in your living room, because sound quality on 70/80's TV's was pretty shitty, right?
I don't know, I wasn't around, but I think you'd hear an obvious difference between a Low-Fi recording played back over (by today's standard) horrible speakers and the sound of the actual thing.
There's a whole lot to this, and some of it is still valid. FM has its own requirements (because not everything will take up the same amount of bandwidth when played on FM) or in the case of USA, signal notes to trigger ads, nuclear alerts, and what have you. There is all sort of strange side-channel stuff :)
Good point! Ringing phones, and to a lesser extent car horns, on TV were and still are a pet peeve of mine.
Many homes back in the day had a set of bells on the hall or kitchen that sounded similar to ring in this show. These ringers had a 4 inch bell and also had a chine mode. WE F1A. czcams.com/video/jFayaKP7w1w/video.html
@@bgundercover That's kinda what I remember as well. If you had those 4-prong wall sockets for your phone (VERY cutting edge compared to all phones being hard wired to the wall), I think the phone company would install a wall-mounted ringer to let you know you had an incoming call in case you had unplugged your phone and forgot to plug it back in again. Could that be what we were hearing in the Dick Van Dyke scene?
I use CZcams since age 12 and this channel is my favourite so far. I cant stress how good your videos are, Alec!
Definitely making me feel old
Wow, nostalgia is amazing - I love that tone shift, I always thought it was just American phones, I actually thought there was something wrong with your phone because they sounded so bland. Even after you explained the travesty of what they’d done, I still preferred the slow warped ringing sound from the vinyl recording, like the whammy bar on a electric guitar
I never noticed this until now but at 2:31...that's the New Emergency Number from The IT Crowd hahaha
I cant believe you noticed that, i had to go back and look. He even had a pause before the last 3
This is my second watch though and I only noticed it now. I’m disappointed in myself.
Brilliant!
I noticed when watching the first time without seeing the comment
I noticed it within 4 digits
I bet that wow and flutter was actually sought after by the film audio crews... it made it more "cinematic"! ;)
@Pooh Xi and then there's me, buying ripped jeans on Amazon, feeling _incredibly_ called out.
RoJax_TheVoice TM *installs a broken windshield* later losers
I think a few movies do it that way
@@aterack833 homie over her living in 3020, try to keep up y'all
That’s so true. I thought that the wow was the true sound of an old phone.
Damn you!!!! You added added to my already too extensive library of common movie mistakes I will involuntarily look for while watching a movie, instead of enjoying it like a sane person would.
The Matrix series used Model 500s in various places.
Some shows purposely use wrong sounds for various reasons: licensing, copyright, reality immersion, or just to dig at people like you and me for noticing it.
Model 500s are so resilient that they're the only phone guaranteed to outlast a Nokia cuz they're still in use today, unlike Nokia phones.
Side note: Cable MTAs will not accept pulse-tone dialing. I work for a cable ISP and had to tell a customer their kitchen phone can only receive calls, not make them. They were cool with it.
The two bells weren't always quite in tune. This caused a beat frequency unrelated to recording problems. It bugged me so much as a child I took all six house phones apart and sorted the bells to get the best ring from each pair. A little known option on 500 sets were alternate bells pairs for use in offices with nearby phones, even on the same desk. AFAIK it was seldom requested.
You had SIX phones in your house? When I was little having more than one was a luxury. Kids who got their own phones were the cool rich kids.
Lease fees were pretty low in the 70's. I was so much of a phone nerd my parents leased two gadgets from the business office for me. A speakerphone and a card dialer, which used cards you punched out with your friends numbers to save you all that button pushing. It was great for calling into radio station contests. For three years with the exception of clothes the lease fees were my christmas and birthday presents. I think it saved my mom and dad money compared to the toys I would have got.
My dad worked for the phone company. We even had the clip-on phone that they used on the telephone poles.
Lucky, I always wanted a real butt set.
Shouldn't that cause more of a tremolo (fluctuating volume) effect than a vibrato (fluctuating pitch) effect?
12:46 In episode 2F09, when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone he strikes the same rib twice in succession yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we- to believe that this is some sort of a-a magic xylophone or something??? Boy I really hope someone got fired for that blunder!
It is unbelievable that I watched argo litterally yesterday. This video wasn't even in my feed! I was just digging through your back catalog for something interesting!
The visual joke on the Pound key is so subtle and so perfect lmaooooooo. I absolutely love your sense of humor, from subtle jokes like that to your often deadpan delivery to your running joke about "the power of buying two of them" with its recent incredible payoff in your video following up on the dishwasher detergent thing (for anyone who hasn't seen it, go watch "I messed up. You're using too much detergent." right now, it is so worth it even tho the video is long).
9:09 You can also see that he starts turning before the ring actually starts. Whoever added it in post didn't time it very well.
I think I can hear a subtle cue ring a beat before the recorded ring.
"Ghostbusters, whaddya want!"
Best film line ever
Ghostbustahz
Right up there with "Picking up or dropping off?"
From one of the best films ever.
And now I know why I love going back to watch "older" videos on CZcams. Thank you!
thank you for the pound key gag. That was hilarious.
Actually, he could have gone a number of ways with that one.
@@eddierayvanlynch6133 -- Just be glad he wasn't Square and didn't try to call it the Octothorp. That would have put his Sharp wit Equal And Parallel To a game of Tic-Tac-Toe. Oof.
@@eddierayvanlynch6133 Well, that button actually started out being marked with a hollow diamond.
Especially when it switched from”#” to “£” !
How about "The Obviously Dubbed Children Laughing" sound effect. You know the one.
Every movie playground establishing shot sounds exactly the same.
Dennis Comella ah yeah the Diddy laugh...
Not to mention the same screech you hear every time you see a hawk fly across the screen.....or an eagle......or a falcon.....
All the owls sound the same, too.
@@theuglybiker You are ruining all of my favorite films!
Or the infamous WIlhelm screAAAAUHHHH-UHHHH-OOOH
GAHH THAT ONE BUGS THE CRAP OUTTA ME
"Ghostbustas, whaddaya want?"
Yes, my father created a demon summoning portal inside our house, which his witchcraft books clearly said should only be made outside, and our house has been haunted ever since, even though he is no longer with us.
So much New York
the only audio file guaranteed never to start an argument... oh jesus one of the best lines of your whole channel!
I absolutely LOVE the editing of the phone button from "#" to the British Pound Sign at 1:30!
Just another one of those little details that help make your videos awesome!
Personally, i hate the metallic "shwanng" sound inserted when someone is supposedly drawing a sword.
A scabbard is padded for the protection of the blade, you know.
John T. DiFool Me too! I own many different blades and attend renaissance festivals so I'm very familiar with how quiet it is.
is it truly quiet? I understand it may be very well exaggerated for emphasis, but I feel like in the year 1,200 for example that it would be more of metal on metal, maybe lined with fur or leather but that would end up blood soaked and not rinse out very well.
@philip more like metal on wood/leather
I dislike that it, like the "Eagle Cry" is the *same* sound. I watched a movie where they actualy foleo'd different sliding sounds and at least it was different new sliding sounds. They might be wrong but they didn't pull me out of my suspension of disbelief.
Not to mention that it's not even an eagle. The sound that every movie uses for an eagle is actually a red-tailed hawk.
By now it's basically a staple like the Wilhelm scream (which also drives me bananas when I hear it).
I was tempted to title the video "The Wilhelm Ring", but I was worried not enough people would get it.
You severely underestimate the capacity for autism on the internet. lol.
The Wilhelm scream instantly kills my suspension of disbelief more than just about anything, perhaps only being rivaled by "clay pot shattering."
Coming to a Dwarf near you...
Tom5tom Entertainment I was going to say the same thing. The ring tone "mistake" in Terminator 2 was almost certainly an Easter egg, considering how obsessive the sound design was in that movie.
Low key one of the channel’s most savage videos.
Do more like this.
I'm not used to seeing Cheers footage that clear. Awesome video all around as usual
And I'm surprised that Paramount didn't throw a strike at him for using that footage. After all, Cheers (just like Frasier, Happy Days, MacGyver and Becker) is a Paramount Television distributed show.
When I hear that ringing sound, I always expect to it to be followed by "This is Jim Rockford. At the tone, leave your name and message. I'll get back to you."
That's the one that I thought he'd go with -- The Rockford Files phone ring was really distinctly "off". You could tell even on an old 1970s TV.
I bought a house in 1991 from an old lady who never went outside til the day her kids put her in a home. When I changed over the utilities I found out that she had been paying RENT on that old black phone (Hardwired into the wall) for 40 years...
Niklas Theelder I found out the same thing when I visited an older friend of mine back in 2003. I did the math, I can’t remember the amount now, but it was well over $2K.
WOW! That was an expensive phone! I bet some show-off apple fanboys will get jealous off this, lol!
When my grandfather died and grandmother went into a nursing home, we found out they were still leasing/renting their phone. It was 2003!!!!! The bill, $15.00 every three months.
I worked for a guy in Auburn, WA who, upon moving his shop discovered he had been paying $5 a month lease on a model 500 for nearly 30 years. Robust phone but hardly worth that kind of money.
Tanya Hyde Most of those 30 years you had to lease the phone. Owning a phone back then was against the law.
I must say you have some great videos. Its like the perfect combination of history and science together.
The airplane references are out of hand my friend🤣 I've seen so many of your videos and it would seem there's at least one every video
A car guy like me knows that a lot of cars in movies don’t actually sound like the soundtrack they use including the engine starter sound. Also a lot movies use the same generic car alarm sound when arming and disarming a car.
Great video. Thanks for posting.
Not to mention they all sound like they're revving to 8000 rpm, with squealing tires, when only going 15 mph :/
H Kr Squealing tire on dirt roads :D
Or the same car alarm chirp
I've never actually heard any car in real life make that particular "chirp-chirp" noise when the alarm is set. They all either make no sound (and just flash the lights) or make some other noise, usually a beep.
Or something on the History channel where they use a recording of a diesel-electric locomotive, with multi-chime air horn, to accompany silent footage of a steam locomotive. Ai-yi-yay!
2:30 Don’t think I wouldn’t notice you calling the Emergency Services. Did you know that they have faster response times and better looking drivers? It’s best not to email them though...I so wasn’t expecting to see that IT Crowd reference, especially since I didn’t notice it when I first watched this video when it came out, but I am so happy I did. Great video as always, and I love this channel!
He even went back for the 3 😂 can’t believe I missed that before
I'm so glad I wasn't the only one who caught this! At first I saw him just dialing numbers and thought it was random, but I started paying attention right around when he dial 911, and what really tipped me off was him coming back for the 3. Once I saw that I backed it up and watched to make sure my suspicion was correct. Brilliant.
I can't believe I missed that, to busy having memories of using these types of phones as a kid in the early 80's.
"better looking drivers"
this company is inferior, their drivers aren't sexy!
Thank you for calling it the pound sign/key. That honestly made my day
The allusion to the movie Airplane is succulent. ♥️
"These phones were designed to be in service for decades..." These phone could survive a nuclear weapon blast.
Now that you've pointed it out I'm going to hear this every time.
I must say - the sound of the wow actually adds something to the emotion. I wouldn't be surprised if the choice of using a slightly distorted sample is on purpose.
Yes it really does
Back in '89, I had an old dial telephone on my desk at work. I also found a tone generating dial pad in my desk. It took me about five minutes with a slot screw-driver to swap the dial for the number-pad. The components were completely interchangeable. I used that phone until the office updated the phone system about a year later.
Never thought I'd be sitting through a 15 min video about phone ringers, but here I am, and it was surprisingly fascinating
My grandma used the same rotary phone from the 50s all the way up to 2001.
So did mine. At some point they put a new slip behind the dial with a fully numeric phone number on it, but it had a tear in it for some reason and you could see the old number with the named exchange (HEmlock) below.
It worked out to the same number, so I don't know why they bothered.
At what point did you go from nightcore uploads to /k/ memes?
Mine too. Until the day she left her home for the older living apartment… that same phone sat there year after year so dutifully working…. And I remember the pulse (ahem!) Rotary dial phone that it replaced. I use to like swirling that stupid dial to call numbers. Even though it would have been a terrible thing if you had to call 911.. Probably why they chose the number 911 because 9 means you mean it, it's not an accidental nudge but 1 1 makes it faster to dial on older phones rather than 9 9 9… lol.. Just a guess.
They lasted forever unlike today where everything is meant to wear out. I would kill to have my old wall rotary back.
hooking up these old phones can be hard to do these days.
as most "modern" phones only use 2 of the 4 wires, and many modern home phone systems no longer put current on the other 2 wires.
With these older phones that can cause issues as often they drew current for the bell ringing system from the other 2 wires.
So if you hook one of these old ringing phones up it might not ring properly.
I always felt like they wanted us to notice those sounds.
There's tons of recycled sounds and every movie kinda becomes a "can you spot the recording"
It was definitely done out of budget cuts and simplicity at first but it then turned into tradition, and it's still done today just to maintain that connection to the movie medium heritage.
That's how I see it at least.
That is definitely the case with the willhelm scream, it's an homage to the first sound designers and foley artists
Funny story from working at radio shack back in the day when they sold phones. They had two that looked almost identical to a 500. One was $19.99 the other was either 29 or $39 I can't remember which.
Everybody would walk in and pick up the handset on the $19 one and feel how cheesy and cheap it felt. Then they would pick up the expensive one and it felt good had a nice heft, it was just clearly a better handset so 9 out of 10 people would buy the expensive one as soon as they felt the difference. What they didn't know was that radio shack was using the same handset. There was a small iron bar glued inside the expensive one to make it feel heavier and better made.
We also had a list of things that we were required to try and upsell. Everything from phone amplifiers to longer cords to detanglers. There were normally seven things that you could add to a phone with a single sale if you could talk them into it. The only thing I ever really offered was the longer cords if they needed it and the detangler because I hate Tangled handset cords.
Sound designers sometimes use certain classic sfx as a a sort of Easter egg/inside joke. The old slightly warbly Universal Studios telephone ring is one of them. "Hello, this is Jim Rockford. At the tone, leave your name and message and I'll get back to you."
"those with a very good ear for pitch... or the pedantic" That cracked me up
"How hard can it be to make a new, digital recording?"
How much of the population are disturbed by a phone giving off the wrong ring?
I actually find the movie ring sound more right somehow. Ive never had one of these dial phones, so my entire perception of how they should ring relies on these old movies
For half a century now...
www.hollywoodlostandfound.net/sound/uniphone.html
There are dozens of us!
You’d be surprised. Once you learn the difference between a trimline ring and a standard 500 ring, well you always hear it when it’s wrong.
Sooo nice to see that you analysed this. I notice since many many years that the telefon bell rings in most of american movies identical.
OMG I LOVE YOU. The "wow" always bugged me, and I never knew why, or what caused it!! Also: I've always thought the DVD Show phones used the type of bells that were in gas stations then, separate and located in the bay for loudness. ALSO: If you do a video about "Automatic Electric" phones from CA and FL way back when....I will send you big bucks!!
I was pulling the old phone system out of a building so I could put a VoIP system and bossman threw the 5 line version of this phone across the room. When I heard the bells clang I asked if I could keep one. I now have 3 of them and the 1A2 key system that ran them in the original installation.
I had a five line system in my home until the mid-80s
I have three of these phones in my house and it’s 2019 and they’re all functional
In a way, i envy thee.
Pilot Paul me too.
A black one, a Brady Bunch™️ green one, and a clear one.
They don't make 'em like they used to!
I've 1 trad phone. It has a very nice ring AND never needs new batteries !
Yes the system is still backwards compatible with loop disconnect.
Oh damn, there was a 554 in the basement of the house i basically grew up in. I used it because i could even though there were newer phones in the house since i thought it was super neat. Rotary phones were neat as hell too.
I grew up with a Rotary dial in my basement. Even though I was born in 90, it was the only phone that worked when the power went out.
Bring back the land line and rotary dial. If you have the old pre 50's you can dial the numbers by hitting the hang up button. My friend taught me how to do it. The buttons were flat on top and was easier and the finger didn't slip off. The newer ones were hard to click the pulses.
Also I used to play Yankee doodle on the DTMF buttons. Cell phones are boring. Ok guess I could have my own phone system at home by using a phone line simulator. Makes a good intercom and can program my own numbers to dial. I could make a CZcams video. Oh the last thing I missed is when you made a long distance phone call like from Pittsburgh to Lakeland Florida you could hear the computer sounds before the call was connected. 73
We had a Bakelite phone. Felt solid and heavy. The cords were covered in woven black cotton.
My grandfather built and maintained teletype communications systems during WWII, and went to work building out the original telecommunications infrastructure in the US after the war. I still have all his old telephony theory and practice books that describe the mechanical switching systems for the pulse rotary system. That same type black rotary phone sat on his home office desk for my entire life, and most of my mother and aunts as well. I will never forget that ring, or the fact that it never broke, and still works to this day. One of those things they just don't make like they used to.
@5:23 This shot is a famous error in the film, "he is talking on a handset which has an RJ (Registered Jack) style connector. These style jacks were not introduced until the mid 1970s as ordered by the FCC."
"The hasht--*COUGH COUGH COUGH* excuse me. Pound key (British Pound sign)" hahaha
If you listen more closely he never says the t. Because the key itself is just called the hash key. Hence a social media tag marked with a hash being named a hash tag.
Actually, that's not the British Pound sign. This is the British Pound sign "£".
Carbage Man -
Watch the video at 1:30 - the # changes to £ - it is symbolic of his dry sense of humour, if you'll excuse the pun, and comments on this misnomer of many Americans. It comes so quickly after the (also very droll) "hash cough cough cough" that was probably missed by many.
@The Sixto Show Rewired Yeah. I have to say that I don't actually get why this is funny.
Yeah, that was an odd way to pronounce "grid".
That recording is what sound effects aficionados call the "Universal telephone". It's used all over the place.
What always bothers me is how they use the same radio communication (found in the game among us) the same ‘horror’ shriek/scream(the 2 screams in a row) and the same laugh/scream as heard in rollercoaster tycoon.
Great video btw!
Someone added it to the IMDB page, even going as far as mentioning that it was a vinyl recording
probably the same dude as the uploade of this. AKA the only person who ever noticed in the first place, or cared enough to time it.
He was like "did you hear it, it's really noticeable isn't it?" and I'm like "sounds perfectly fine to me"
Not to mention that he didn't even mean the ring itself, but rather the chiming out. With someone talking over it!
OmikronWeapon I noticed it before he showed what part it was. It’s not hard to hear the pitch changing. But then again I’ve always had good ears, I can hear things others can’t all the time. Then a few seconds later they hear it, and go “wow, how’d you do that?”.
That 200Hz sine wave sounded like you're about to dial into the internet
Indeed!
Sometimes you absolutely crack me up. This video was one of those times. Pound key! Thanks! Dave J (Have to mention, I grew up on off-center vinyl discs, so everything digital just sounds fake to me).
Hey, I'm really glad to see your channel being a success… Like you, I really appreciate a lot of the engineering that goes into some of this older stuff, even though I obviously appreciate the flawless high fidelity output of modern-day technology. :-) This little throwback to the movies though does leave me with one question that I'm honestly kind of surprised you didn't address… like you (I think) I am a child of the 70s and 80s… Is it just me, or do I never remember seeing one of those old Western Electric telephones with a "buzz" instead of a "ring"? Those phones were ubiquitous throughout those two decades, but I never once remember seeing one with a buzz…Even the multiline office phone… You know, the version that had the red "hold" button on the left, and the five white multiline lights on the right? Interestingly enough though, so many television shows… And it was TV shows I recall, not so much the movies…Oftentimes had a buzz on the telephones instead of a ring. Care to do an update on that? I would just be fascinated to learn what you can find out about that!
2:30 "0118 999 881 999 119 725.... 3" I subbed for that reference
What phone number is that?
@@buddyclem7328 The new number for '999'! Search it in CZcams for the clip it's referencing from 'The IT Crowd'.
He even done the pause, brilliant!
Now with better-looking ambulance drivers!
I only caught it because he came back for the "3".
The model 500: I remember it well, especially problematic for people with edema or who just happened to have large fingers. I knew people that had to use an unsharpened pencil to dial, and for them, the 1500 was a Godsend.
They need to order a dialing wand
Pens were commonly used - they don't transmit pain as much when slapped against the finger stop time & time again !
"Large" fingers. More like you actually have the fingers of an adult.
Wow. Seriously, I'm not just fluttering. I'm an audiophile who grew up with all that old high tech. The analog era was the germination of the digital one. It was fun to experience the growth of technology in that golden age; much the same as now with the ballistic trajectory of progress with digital. Imagine what lies beyond.....
It is pretty amazing how long that rotary phone lasted, the model 500 wasnt going to be put down w/out a fight. We had a model 500 at my mom’s house as an emergency phone in the garage till i left for college in early 2000’s. She moved shortly after so it might still be there. I knew some friends who had the phone in their garage, shop, guest room, etc till 90’s also.
Growing up we had a wall model and when my dad saw there was a $400 phone bill, between my mother calling my grandmother in Florida and my sister calling her boyfriend in Alabama, my dad ripped the phone off the wall and threw it across the room. The only damage was a small piece of plastic cracked off, but it still was in perfect condition.The floor on the other hand had a huge dent. Plus we had the "cordless" model. The 50' cord, stretched to 100'.
It seemed cords knew no bounds. As a kid, I figured I would just keep seeing longer ones throughout my lifetime and it would be perfectly normal.
Your father manages his anger very well.
It was quite a chore untangling the kinked cords, especially when it looped on itself somehow and needed the Leyland brothers to figure it out.
@@MetroPolo1 Did you really have a dad if he didn't rage out every so often?
@@raskalraidex Fair point!
I amazed how you take some of the most boring technology and make it not only interesting, but I just watched nearly 15 mintues of phones ringing. Unfortunately, I will now notice the flutter and wow in those movies. Thanks buddy, thanks a lot.
Seriously though keep them coming, love your stuff.
Thanks for pointing out the Ringers in T2 and the pitch thing.. I never noticed/realised it.. now it's all I'll be able to focus on!