What is the correct onomotopaeic spelling of the Law & Order sound?

gavel: chopped and screwed

I think there's a gavel in there and then a synth line added to go with it.

to all those who say it is a gavel, I say:

RONG RONG

DUNG DUNG

Belzer calls it a gavel in the USA promo.

-- Alex in Baltimore, Friday, October 26, 2007 1:31 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

it was originally a gavel but the 9/11 commission in league with the vatican and the rand corporation covered it up & made it a jail door

for the record, it's the sound of Det. Eliot Stabler slamming a child rapists' face twice into the table of the interrogation room.

^^^^^ someone put that to a bangin' techno beat plz

it's the sound Yoshi's tongue makes in Super Mario World.

BAN BAN

special poppage unit

l&o virginal intent

Even though it is my own fault that my brain has made a link between Mariska Hargitay and Yoshi's tongue, I am still mad at you, Alex.

good Lord people it's CHUNG CHUNG, I thought you had to answer this question correctly before they give you a driver's license in most states

http://www.joystiq.com/media/2006/05/goonies_truffleshuffle.jpghttp://www.joystiq.com/media/2006/05/goonies_truffleshuffle.jpg

All options here seem to suggest that it's the same sound both times! But there's a total difference in what MIDI would call, umm, velocity.

I mean, it's got the same phrasing as "ch-ching," if instead of "ching" the root were "dung."

This is my compy's "you f'ed up" sound. DUNG DUNG.

I just watched one last night about a writer in some blackmail circle, was surprisingly good. Second ep I've ever seen and fuck if I need another TV show to zone out to but there it is.

nabisco, sorry, but the metrical rhythm of this sound is definitely spondaic, not iambic

QONG QONG

doesn't this sound out as "chung chung" in pinyin?

I think you have that backwards elmo - "ch-ching" would be short-long/unstressed-stressed, in the theme the second beat is harder/longer = it's an iamb

You're right, Elmo, I'm remembering it backwards.

It's almost like a long delay/echo that's been truncated to just two sounds: DUNG-Dung (dung dung dung dung...)

!!!! CONFUSION

you're a dactyl

also john and tokyo rosemary are right: it's CHUNG CHUNG.

J0hn I think Elmo's right! First one shorter but more stressed: DA-dunnng

doesn't this sound out as "chung chung" in pinyin?

Not quite. QENG QENG would be closer to "chung chung."

there's absolutely nothing resembling a hard "ch-" sound in it.

no no! both beats have the same emphasis! SPONDEE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_&_Order#The_card.2C_and_the_sound

This is accompanied by a tone, which has been described as a "DUN dun" or "thunk thunk" sound. It was originally developed to sound like a barred door in a jail cell slamming shut (Law). In promos for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit reruns on the USA Network, actor Dann Florek refers to the sound as the "doink doink"[9], while Richard Belzer refers to it as the sound of a judge's gavel. According to IMDb.com, it "was created by combining close to a dozen sounds, including that of a group of monks stamping on a floor."

Tomboto was right.

i'd call it KUNG KUNG tbh

both beats have the same emphasis, elmo's right. it's just that first one's overwritten by the attack of the second one, which is allowed a slow decay.

no no! both beats have the same emphasis! SPONDEE.

I definitely hear the first one shorter/more staccato but haven't counted the note values so you could be right

ARGH I thought you were saying it was trochaic.

I need to hear this now! I feel there is a definite variation between the two sounds -- length, obviously, but also MIDI velocity! I'm sure of it!

nabisco: follow the link at the top of the thread?

http://www.audiologyillustrated.org/images/spondee.jpeg

If it were just length, the second one cutting off the decay/release of the first, it would sound like a stutter, and artificial. But it doesn't; it sounds more like an echo than a stutter -- the sounds are definitely shaped to be different, so they read naturally. The exact same sound triggered twice ... sounds like it.

I don't have speakers, so I should probably be quiet for a while.

I think remy's closest - the 2nd one is allowed to decay, which in some ears (mine for example) make it sound like a much longer note

see, i don't hear them as notes, but as percussive beats that reverb and decay.

all audio for television is compressed to fuck because otherwise commercial breaks blow your speaker cones

so the first and second are exactly the same except that the compression bites off the decay of the first hit completely, making only the second hit sound sustained.

it's really not like a big fucking puzzle people. Although I am going to start telling people it's based on the I Ching for "incomplete" because it's used to remind viewers that the show is not over yet.

yeah, with a lot of reverb, the second sound will seem to persist longer, but i don't think they are different in any other way.

oh wait never effing mind, I am dumb, I'm talking about the opening notes of the theme song. Which are to me "the Law and Order sound." Y'all are talking about the interstitial/chapter-change sound. I think those have identical note values (percussive beats are also notes!) and emphases.

I love the theme song and its slap bass so much.

lol at J0hn

in my defense I'd like to say that I'm the only guy here who's been to the L&O soundstages and got winked at by Mariska, so catch the vapors

ohhh shiiiiit

That's just a tympani at the start of the theme song, isn't it?

J0hn I still hate you for that, btw.

Because Olivia is MINE MINE.

you'll both have to share her with Yoshi

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

i just walked by another Law & Order shoot this morning and when passing the crew suppressed an almost irresistible urge to shout "DUNH DUNH!" at them.

haha

"other" was robbed. none of the given options were right.

¡Tchkung!¡Tchkung!

it's "DUNG GUNK" obv

BUNKUM

¡Tchkung!¡Tchkung!

Minus the Spanish exclamation points, this looks like a Wade-Giles transliteration of a Pinyin version already mentioned.

Kraftwerk to thread!

ny times weighs in
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/arts/television/04kant.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin

Great is the truth and it prevails

need an iphone app for this

BIG HOOS

hahaha how did I miss "FART BATH" before

'shump shump'