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This page is a
resource for "older" WDW audio, primarily live in-park
recordings.
Although source audio is great for obvious reasons, live recordings provide a more accurate
record of how the parks sounded in context. Very few people experience individual WDW audio in a "pure" state while they're
on Disney property, so the location and quality of a speaker, the size of a
space, the proximity of people or ride vehicles - all of this has a
bearing on how piped-in audio comes across in its home environment. The bleeding of background tracks as
your Horizons car moved from Sea Castle to Brava Centauri, for example,
sounded different in person than in a WED flow-through recording. Similarly,
the old background audio from the Transportation and Ticket Center sounds
better to me with the occasional dull wash of a monorail passing
overhead.
We
can be grateful for modern-day
researchers like Foxxfur, Chris McElroy and Michael
Sweeney, who continue to invest hours in tracking down the details
of
old
WDW sounds for the rest
of us to
consider and
enjoy
with amplified accuracy. Conversely, people
like Jerry Klatt and myself, who recorded way more live 20th-century
in-park audio than was rational, are happy to see our cassette adventures put to broader
use. We never expected THAT when we
stood still on the deck of the Richard F. Irvine with
Radio Shack equipment strapped to our shoulders, trying not
to get any extraneous "bumping" sounds
on the microphone.
There is also a lot of other good WDW audio to be
found on YouTube, where even bad video footage can be accompanied by just
the sounds you've been looking for. Put keepvid.com to work and you're going to
have the greatest park audio collection ever.
The files and links
below are listed in approximate chronological order.
The Magic of Eastern
c. 1969 (separate tracks linked to
below)
A
promotional vinyl release from just prior to Eastern Airlines signing
on the official airline of WDW. Tracks are assumed
to be in the public domain. Not actually from WDW at
all but evocative of something very close to If You Had
Wings. Brought to WYW's attention by Howard
Bowers.
Eastern Airlines /
Astrud Gilberto Track 1 c.1969 2mb,
1:01
Eastern Airlines /
Astrud Gilberto Track 2 c.1969 2mb, 1:00
Eastern Airlines /
Astrud Gilberto Track 3 c.1969 2mb, 1:00
Eastern Airlines /
Astrud Gilberto Track 4 c.1969 1.9mb, :57
Eastern Airlines /
Astrud Gilberto Track 5 c.1969 2.1mb, 1:03
Eastern Airlines /
Astrud Gilberto Track 6 c.1969 2mb, :59
The Magic
Kingdom at Walt
Disney World "Show Pac" Audio - 1976
The soundtrack to a souvenir slide
show by Walt Disney Educational Media which features an
original narration, passages spoken by Mickey Mouse himself and a crazy mix of
1970s Disney music. Did you know that 20,000
Leagues Under the Sea, the ride, occupied something called "Sub Lagoon?" How
romantic! That and many more interesting Magic Kingdom semi-facts await you.
The Magic Kingdom
at Walt Disney World "Show Pac" Audio
9.4mb, 10:15,
dated 1976 by seller, which was probably at a garage sale, and there
is enough in the audio to suggest that 1976 is
correct
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad - Queue Area BGM & Dispatch Live - c. 1982
This was the first
stationary recording I made at WDW, in the ride's north exit passage with my dad's "Realistic" cassette deck in a shoulder
bag, trying not to move for what seemed like forever to a 12-year-old. In truth it was about nineteen minutes. I remember standing there and hoping a cast member wouldn't come by and talk to me, thereby ruining the
experiment. Thankfully that didn't happen. This is the
original queue music loop (more songs were added in later years), plus the occasional sound
of the prospector's original "please keep your hands and arms" spiel.
Big Thunder
Mountain Railrad
Queue Area BGM & Dispatch "Live"
17.3mb, 18:31, recorded c. 1982 ...
possibly 1981
The Frontierland
Shootin' Gallery Live - Recorded
by Jerry Klatt - March 1982
The sounds of this attraction
in its first (1971-1984) incarnation are super-hard to find,
and this recording outdoes them all as an extended sample
of the "goings on." What you hear primarily is the sound
of real guns firing real lead pellets at moving metal
targets, but there are also numerous animal sound effects. Loud, noisy and great
... thanks Jerry! The original Shootin' Gallery closed in
the summer of 1984 and was converted to light beam technology for a
late September re-opening, complete with all new targets, effects and sounds.
Frontierland
Shootin' Gallery "Live" by Jerry Klatt
3.1mb, 3:23, recorded March
1982
The
Walt Disney Post-Show Owl -
EPCOT Center Preview Version - March 1982
In the post-show hallway of the long-gone Walt
Disney Story, an owl once known as "Hoot Gibson" puts on a
tour guide outfit and gives guests a rundown on what they
can expect to see when the under-construction EPCOT Center opens to the
public on October 1, 1982.
The Walt Disney
Story Post-Show Owl "Live" by Jerry Klatt
- EPCOT Preview Center Version
4mb, 4:25, recorded March
1982
The Haunted Mansion - Seance
Circle Live - July 24th, 1988
One of the first
recordings I made that took advantage of someplace I could
access freely as a cast member but not as a guest, a couple years
before I started dropping the recorder off in rides. I
made this one (and a couple similar ones) right after my
Mansion shift ended. This was recorded below Seance Circle, right next to the knocker assembly
that kicks in when Madame Leota says "rap on a table..."
The Haunted
Mansion Seance Circle "Live"
1.79mb, 1:57, recorded 24 July 1988
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea - Queue Area Live - April 1990
You can hear the sub engines running in this
one, which is really nice. This is what the queue sounded like in
the 1970s and 1980s (the recording was made
before they added songs from The Little Mermaid to the loop).
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea Queue Area(Live)
19mb, 16:13, recorded April
1990
Communicore - Futurecom
- Age of Information Diorama Live (barely) -
January 1992
This
recording is one of the most noise-laden pieces of audio around,
even after my brother Brian worked to improve it.
While almost more punishment than reward, it's apparently the
only full recording of the song to reside with anyone who
can post it online. The source recording has to be
somewhere in WED's archives, but who's holding
their breath for that one? Even as I stood there
recording this I knew it sounded bad; the music was
drowned out by all the other sounds in the room, including the
diorama's moving parts. Nonetheless, it's here for anyone who
wants to check in on it. "If you want data, you'll get that
data ... and only the data you need."
Priceless!
Communicore Age
of Information Diorama Audio "Live"
4.3mb, 4:38, recorded January
1992
The Haunted Mansion - 28
Live Minutes - July 5th, 1994
Recorded around 1am on July 5th. This is one continuous recording
that starts right after I sat the recorder on the floor in the entrance
hall (you'll hear a good amount of
those sounds ... even some exit hall music in the background ...
interspersed with the ride stop warnings for almost 20 straight
minutes.) Then I pick the recorder up and go through the ride
with the microphone (mostly) out of the car. This is before
any of the original 1971 Mansion sounds had been
changed in any discernible manner. It's far
from flawless, but it's fun.
The Haunted
Mansion 29 Live Minutes
26.3mb, 28:05, recorded 5 July
1994
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