Unwilling Adventurer

“Think of the phrase ‘The ripping of the fabric of time and space’. I wanted to get that ‘tearing’ sound. So I went to a piano that had all its front taken off and it was just a frame with the strings.  I took a key, my front door key and scraped it down one of the strings.  That gave the ‘rippy’ sort of sound. We then took that and changed the speed of it so we could get different pitches. We cut those together, literally cutting the tape with a razor blade and sticking it together. We played it through feedback machines and you play the sound back upon itself as it’s recording so you get this ripple effect of the echo.  And if you do that when the sound is being played backwards, the echo appears to come towards you. If you then turn it around so that the sound is going forwards, it appears to be going away from you. I wanted to get that ‘coming and going’ sound, the rising and falling.”

-Brian Hodgson, describing how he created the materialisation/de-materialisation sound of the TARDIS. A sound that is of course still used today. (Taken from the DW origins Documentary)