Darth Vader respirator sound effect

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I’ve decided that at least once in my life, I ought to go in costume to the opening of a Star Wars movie. Well, my (hopefully) last chance is coming up, so I’ve been making a Darth Vader costume. No problem; I come from a very artsy crafty family, and the costume itself is coming along just fine.

But the costume wouldn’t be complete without the respirator sound effect, and here I’m stumped. How should I produce the sound effect? So far, I’ve considered:

1: Just make the sound myself, vocally. Except that this would sound bad, and I couldn’t talk while doing it.

2: Getting an MP3 of the sound, and playing it through a pair of headphone-jack speakers (I would put this in the boxy chestpiece of the costume). This would work great, except that I don’t have an MP3 player nor a set of speakers for one. I might be able to borrow a player, but how much do cheap speakers cost?

3: Creating a custom ringtone somehow for my cell phone with the sound effect. This has the advantage that I already own the equipment, but I don’t know if it’s even possible, or, if it is, how I would do it.

4: Again using the cellphone, set the sound as my voice mail message, and calling it on speakerphone. I know this is possible, but the drawback here is that I don’t think I can loop it, so it’d only be a short duration, and anyone who tried calling me then would be really confused.

And yes, I know that it’s possible to buy an official Vader costume which has the sound effects built in, but that’s cheating. I make the costume myself, and I make the sound effect myself. I’m sure that the other artsy crafty dopers would understand.

Any suggestions?

2

Rent yourself some SCUBA gear and record your own Vader breath on audiocassette, then play the tape back as you walk. You could easily hide the tape machine within your chest apparatus.

If you want to go all out, skip the breathing machine, shave your head, paint it white except for blue eyesockets, apply fake scars, and go as dying converted Vader. You’ll stand out for sure, plus you can see the movie with your own eyes.

3

Hmmm…I’d go with the MP3 player option, myself. Good sound quality, compact, easy to use (and loop the sound.) And you might check Radio Shack or a drugstore for some cheap speakers—I can’t imagine little ones costing a lot more than about ten bucks, but I don’t know for sure.

4

Not sure at all, but I do remember making recordings of myself speaking as a Dalek for a short while with a programme off the front of a PC magazine :smiley:

5

That would be tempting, except I’ve already finished the helmet/mask. That’s an awful lot of work to go to waste. I am planning, though, on taking off the mask once in the theater… Didn’t Dark Helmet have something to say about not being able to see a thing in it? :wink:

For the MP3 option (or alternately, tape recorder, except I don’t even know anyone who has one of those any more), does anyone know of a place to get such a file, or would I have to make my own?

6

Go here and scroll down to “-Darth Vader breathing.” That’s a pretty good one. It’s a wav file though; you might need to convert it, or to find an mp3. I found it by Googling Darth Vader wav… which I now realize should have been “mp3” instead.

Good luck!

7

[Triumph the Insult Comic Dog]

Which button calls your mommy to come pick you up?

[/TtICD]
:stuck_out_tongue:

[standard SDMB disclaimer that this is meant as humour and not a slam against fans but some will take it that way anyways regardless of the fact that I’m a Star Wars fan myself in addition to being a Trekker, so I get it both ways and anyone who doesn’t see it this way can kiss my Wookie]
Now that that’s out of the way, be sure to get the dying sound from RotJ so if someone in line is boring you, you can let them know. If you do get the sound figured out, please post what you learned. It could be a great tool for leaving phone messages or voice mails.

8

You could lug it along under one arm, or take it on and off every so often. I guess. I never saw Spaceballs

Where did you get your specs? I wouldn’t mind having a Vader mask myself.

9

Did it all from my memory, images I could dig up, and my own limited artistic ability. For the helmet, I paper-mached a dome over an inflated balloon, then taped on a cereal-box cardboard “skirt” around the bottom of it. The mask consists of four equilateral triangles with two tall arching curves over the top, plus some rounded parts around the edge. The front part of the face was yet another piece of cereal box, scored along polygon edges to bend right, with yet more paper mache around the edges. I spraypainted both black, then put on a coat of spray polyurethane over that to protect against moisture. The eyes in the mask are from a cheap pair of sunglasses, rubber-cemented into place. I have some pictures; if I get a chance to scan them I’ll post them.

NoClueBoy, if I go with a cellphone method, it’d be the button labelled “Address book – Mom” :). But she’s a few iles away (1 ile = 1000 milli-iles), which is a bit far to be picking me up.

And thanks for the sound file, jackelope. An MP3 player should be able to handle a .wav, I would imagine. The only reason not to use .wavs ordinarily is size, but with a four-second clip, I can’t imagine that it matters much.

10

And, y’know, worst case scenario, you could use a freeware or shareware app to convert the wav file into an Mp3.

11

You know that you’re now obligated, by law, to give us pictures of how you look in this costume?

12

I’m sure you know this anyway, but if you get the whole breathing sound thing worked out, you should probably make sure you turn it off before going into the movie.

13

Hmmm… I must be a natural sound-effect machine, I find that by constricting my tongue to the roof of my mouth and pursing my lips, I can do the breathing sound effect quite well, and loud too.

I’d do it on my own if it was me.

But I do like the idea of it coming out of the box on your chest.

Please post a picture.

Brian, (who has also made several homemade Star Wars, Star Trek costumes, and once, a Dalek)

14

Ah, yes, BMalion, but can you do it while also talking? With Vader, it’s continual.

mhendo, my current plan is to be in full costume while going into the theater, and then once I’m in my seat (with plenty of time before the movie actually starts), I turn of the breather and take off the helmet. The point of the costume is not to piss off the other geeks.

And rest assured, there will be pictures, as soon as possible. I know how these things work. And besides, like any artsy-crafty sort, I like showing off.

15

Ah memories. Circa 1978 I too wore a Darth costume. (I was 8 years old and it was for Halloween, but that is not to belittle your predicament.) We bought the boxed mask/plastic jumpsuit costume combo from Kmart (or wherever those things were sold - do they even still make them?) Naturally we only used the mask and my mom painstakingly sewed the rest of my costume - cape, etc. I told my dad “but the SOUND! I have to make that SOUND!” I have NO IDEA what made him think of this, but he grabbed a Flair pen from the side table, popped the pocket clip out of the cap (leaving a small hole) and said "Here, breathe through this.)

The result was uncanny.

I think what you REALLY need for authenticity though is to have the Imperial theme (dun dun dun dun-dun dun, dun-dun dun, etc) blasting while you stomp around.

16

assuming you have a CD burner on your PC (and since you’re here, i’m definitely assuming you have at least access to a PC)…

go to WalMart. i picked up a cheap portable CD player and small boxy independent speakers, all for around $25 around Halloween last year. (special effects setup for Haunted Barns, but that’s another story.) convert your .MP3 file to a .WAV (or whatever format works best for music CDs). if you have any sound-editing software on you PC, splice together a number of the .WAV files to make a big, long-playing version. burn this extended file multiple times onto the CD (preferably until you fill it up). insert CD into portable CD player. insert batteries into player and portable speakers. set CD player on endless loop play. put all portables into chest piece of costume.

make sure you have easy access to inside of chest piece, so you can turn off CD player once in theater.

17

vogue has the right of it.

You should get TWO CD players, one with cheap crappy speakers for the voice effect like lachesis mentioned, and one with great big awesome speakers (that you could hide inside some kind of droid-lookin’ thingy) so you can play the Imperial March as you walk around.

18

The local Wal*Mart is selling a mask with the “voice changer/breather” for < $30.

Go get one, and tear out the parts you want to put into your own!

19

Sadly, no. :frowning:

and my Darth Maul was less than perfect because I couldn’t wear my glasses and was rather blind.

20

The June issue of Empire magazine has a big feature on SW EPIII and the magazine makes the Vader breathing noise when you open the front cover. It’s the same mechanism that you find on musical birthday cards. I’m not sure how you would hook up the device into your costume but I assume if you are creative you could find a way. It’s a very small unit that produces the noise but is sufficiently loud for your purposes. Not sure if Empire magazine is on sale in America or not but if it is then you can’t go wrong to try it out for about $5.