Star Wars Style Blaster SFX Device

My friends and I are working on a sci-fi short film and when it came to sound effects, we turned to legendary sound designer, Ben Burtt. What we found was the device he made to create various blaster sounds in all of the Star Wars films as well as for the new Star Trek series. Here's our version.

We started out with a metal slinky and a disposable roasting pan. We measured out a circle in the center of the pan that was the diameter of the slinky.

Then, using a box cutter, we cut out the circle slightly smaller than we had drawn.

Next, we fit the first few rings of the slinky into the hole.

The slinky is fit in a way that only a few coils remain on the outside and the majority hangs down from the inside when it's hung upside down.

After taping the slinky in place, we duct taped the entire fixture to a clamp I had lying around so that we could suspend it from a mic stand.

Next, I wired up a guitar pickup to an output jack so we could record the sound. This step is optional since the roasting pan already amplifies the sound. You could easily just record the effect using a standard microphone.

Here we have attached the pickup, jack, and knob.

We got the best results by lifting the bottom of the slinky and dropping it on a hard surface, but there are a million ways to get a million different sounds out of this thing! Overall, a very successful build!