How Disney’s World-Class Theme Park Sound is Designed

There are 12 Disney Parks around the world, filled with rides and attractions carefully engineered to maximize the enjoyment of park guests. Here, John 'JK' Kestler — Sound Editor/Mixer/Principal Audio Media Designer in Walt Disney Imagineering's Sound Department — talks about what it takes to make the sonic magic happen for park attractions, and shares details on designing sound for some of Disney's most popular rides.

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Interview by Jennifer Walden, photos courtesy of Walt Disney Imagineering

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John “JK” Kestler is no ordinary sound designer. He’s more like a sound wizard. In fact, he’s the Yen Sid of sound. As Sound Editor/Mixer/Principal Audio Media Designer at Walt Disney Imagineering, you can’t really be anything less.

Before becoming the sound sorcerer he is today, Kestler dabbled in different areas of the sound industry, each experience adding to the expertise and mastery of skillsets he’d ultimately need in designing sound for Disney theme park attractions.

Kestler has designed the sound for the top three “World’s Best Theme Park Attractions” according to Theme Park Insider. Here, he shares details of crafting the sonic experiences for Disney’s “Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure,” and “Avatar Flight of Passage.”

He also demystifies his job a bit by breaking down what it takes to create the sonic experience of a theme park ride, from collaboration to final implementation.

So buckle up! and enjoy the ride…

John Kestler, Star Tours Mixing 2007

How did you get started in designing sound for theme parks?

John “JK” Kestler (JK): I actually worked so many jobs in sound: live concert mixing, studio recording and mixing of music, TV and film sound, and an occasional haunted house for some community centers.

The term of employment was originally for three months. It’s been twenty-two years now.

So, when I was on hiatus from TV and film sound editing, I met with a young lady whom my wife met who was looking to fill positions for a few theme parks that were opening at once — Disney California Adventure and Tokyo DisneySea. After a short phone call, I came in for an interview for a project hire position at Walt Disney Imagineering. It was clear to them that “I got it” from my previous experience. The term of employment was originally for three months. It’s been twenty-two years now.

How does theme park/attraction sound design compare to designing sound for linear media like film and TV?

JK: There is virtually no comparison. The thing I love about theme park sound is that you design to the attraction. The sky is the limit but ride noise and acoustics are always a huge challenge.

We almost never conform to any film or studio standards on channels. We often do 32.3 shows as compared to 7.1. Actually, it can be more like 32.3.8 where the 8 are haptic transducers with special content to kick or vibrate a floor or seat.

Timelines are another thing altogether. Gone are the days of a looping music soundtrack that is routed to the entire building. Most of what we do is score action from scene to scene and either make ways to loop ends to accommodate moving timelines or find ways to hit or trigger beats in the next cue.

My specialty is using multiple planes sonically of nearfield onboard sound and scene speakers to create depth in a mix. The Haas Effect is your friend.

Mixing ‘Rise of The Resistance’ with Jonathan Moran, J. Kestler, and Mark Johnson

What are some unique things to consider when designing for a ride/attraction?

JK: Acoustics! This is the first thing you have to address with a show team. You need to educate the creative team that reflections can ruin the show and hurt dialogue intelligibility. Theaters and ride boxes have unique shapes to create a canvas for visual stimuli and video projection. Often this creates parabolic reflectors.

You need to educate the creative team that reflections can ruin the show and hurt dialogue intelligibility.

Hand in hand with acoustics is isolation from scene to scene. Often this is not possible but if you can get ride or show automated doors, it helps tremendously.

Another is hiding the speakers. You will rarely be able to identify a speaker location visually in our attractions. Working with the set design team to integrate speakers where they are needed is challenging but often very rewarding.

WDI Studio A, John Kestler, 1999

What does your workflow on a ride/attraction look like typically? Can you walk me through your process from collaborating on a new project to working in the DAW (what does your Pro Tools template look like??), mastering the final sounds, and finally implementing them in the space?

JK: We collaborate with our internal WDI (Walt Disney Imagineering) Sound Department and many outside vendors. Each one has their specialty. It is not unlike a film spotting session at first but, unlike having a storyboard reel, you might simply have some artist renditions of spaces or scenes.

My job as an Audio Media Designer is to gather what the creative director’s vision is and transform it into a sound system and a sound design effort that will give them more than what they asked for. We work with our AV Engineers to define a system, the playback source, synchronization needs, channel counts, speaker models, etc. I will present artwork and we will look over blueprints of scenes.

We work with our AV Engineers to define a system, the playback source, synchronization needs, channel counts, speaker models, etc…

When it comes to sound design a bit later in the process, I will already have channel counts and how I will need source Pro Tools sessions delivered. We will go through art, animatics if they have been created, 3D models, etc. to give them an idea of what they are creating for.

By this stage, I can already clearly imagine what each scene sounds like and all of the technical challenges of the scene and transitions to the next. That vision really helps me communicate with the sound designers, since that is what I did along with mixing attractions for 14 years before focusing on Audio Media Design.

‘Rise of the Resistance,’ making onboard notes, J. Kestler and J. Moran

What are some challenges/solutions for creating and mixing sound for a live environment?

JK: Again, acoustics but also the schedule is another big challenge. Often you are vying for time in the attraction and, as a sound mixer, you need it to be quiet. Often we work late at night to get the most productive mix time.

If we have onboard and offboard sound we need to schedule those efforts as well as show programming time.

We would hear nothing without show programming. The end of our day is for communicating with show programming and riding the attraction to see if it all sounds good. Then it’s notes and touch-ups at the beginning of the next night and on to a new scene.

WDI Studio C, premixing ‘Avatar Flight Of Passage’

Are there industry-best practices for mastering levels? Sampling rate/bit depth? File format? Maximum loop length??

JK: No, not really. Hardly ever do we get the advantage of 96k in the noise floors that we are dealing with in a dark ride. Our theaters are different and most of our music is produced and mixed at 96k for those.

We calibrate scenes to 85 dBC so we are mixing to that, but often we will turn the entire scene down with the help of our AV Engineer so that listening fatigue is less over a long shift mixing.

I like LONG loops of ambience…as much as two hours…and unique content throughout!

Some of our older playback gear had proprietary file formats but most of it is standard audio formats these days.

I like LONG loops of ambience. I don’t want anyone in a long queue line to hear the same exact thing twice. So unlike movies where you can get away with two-minute loops, I will do as much as two hours…and unique content throughout!

Let’s look at some of the Disney theme park attractions you’ve designed sound for:

Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at Disneyland Park in California and Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida is a multi-stage experience. The park guests move through a series of staging areas — the message from Rey, loading onto the transport ship and the attack, unloading onto the First Order ship, grouping up into ‘interrogation groups,’ and then it’s onto the ‘break out’ ride through the ship to the escape pods. So fun! How did sound help to make park guests feel like they’re moving into very distinct locations — for example, when they unload onto the First Order ship, how did you use sound to help them feel like they were stepping onto a big ship in space?

JK: First of all, I have to give a shout-out to my mixer Jonathan Moran who has really excelled on my projects. And our Skywalker Sound partners who provided so many great classic and original tracks.

Kestler mixing ‘Rise of the Resistance’ with J. Moran

It all starts in the queue area. At that point, you are in a hidden Resistance-base. You hear general base chatter on the radio that is more procedural — like someone having to go check on the GNK droid again…but you will hear an occasional report of a First Order spy spotted in the hills.

Then you enter the building part of the queue where you start hearing calls of more concern and get a greater sense of urgency that something is going on. Maybe they are mustering for an evacuation?

When you reach the scene with Rey, you get your mission and now understand what all of the fuss is about.

We are ushered to a Transport Ship to evacuate the planet Batuu with our secret. The ship’s engines rev up with plenty of low-end rumble and we take off and experience a scene that could be considered an entire attraction in itself. By the time we are captured by the First Order and taken aboard a Star Destroyer, the ambience has become foreboding. There is almost a depressing rumble to it along with themed music to drive your emotion through to your incarceration….and you will have to ride the rest to discover the rest of the surprises, ha-ha!

What were some specific sonic characteristics for each staging location?

JK: There was a conscious effort to drive urgency and excitement throughout. But you cannot always be driving, driving, driving! The silent respites are the most important parts. The feeling of relief sonically helps you reset for another charge of urgency. The “Flight or Fight” instinct is something you want to exploit in your sound.

There are so many signature Star Wars sounds! Did you have access to the film sounds for reference? (As with making a video game from a film, I’m sure the actual film sounds were useful for reference-only). What were your challenges in recreating those signature sounds for the ride?

JK: Fortunately, we had our great partners from Skywalker Sound who provided us with authentic sounds and created most of the new sound design for us.

Occasionally, we had to add our own sweetener effects to help emphasize a sound. One example is the sound of a laser tearing through a Star Destroyer wall, or Kylo Ren landing on the roof of your transport.

What were some of your favorite opportunities in designing sound for “Rise of the Resistance?” Was there a specific section of the ride you enjoyed designing for the most?

JK: Often, we get a “kit of parts” from our partners like Skywalker Sound. Our challenge is to arrange it in a way that works for our system and gives each guest a unique and equally satisfying sound from various locations.

The key is knowing when to distribute effects to present the show to all and when to pan a sound through all those channels to “wow” the guest…

A great example is the Transport Ship from Batuu. There, we used a 24.3 channel system to not only smoothly distribute dialogue and effects to all guests, but to give a unique show up by our pilot as well as a totally different show for those looking out the back window. The key is knowing when to distribute effects to present the show to all and when to pan a sound through all those channels to “wow” the guest with a spinning TIE Fighter.

Many sound effects had to be created on-site to accomplish this. So, if you have the chance to ride it multiple times, move around and enjoy the extra work we put into that.

For the “Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure” at Shanghai Disneyland, the transition to ‘under the sea’ was really cool! What were some design challenges there? How did you use sound to help riders feel like they’re being submerged and moving through an underwater environment?

Mixing wireless in a boat ‘SHDL Pirates’ with David Kneupper and J. Moran

JK: I always approach a new attraction with a fresh approach for what it needs and don’t rely on what I know or have a comfort zone with. This was absolutely the case with this attraction. This was hugely challenging and took some groundbreaking efforts with the system, mixing, sound design, and music. This particular attraction had a system that was designed before I was asked to join the team….and that was before we realized how much dialogue there was.

Let’s just say we relied heavily on a great onboard sound system to create depth in our mix with the music and especially the underwater ambience.

We also did some groundbreaking things with programming and synchronization.

During the ship battle above water, how did you use sound to help immerse park guests in that experience, to generate a feeling of danger and excitement?

JK: The transition from Davy Jones’ locker up to the surface is an intense moment with a cleansing moment at the end. This is the silent reset I alluded to previously. You come up and it takes a moment to find your bearings before you realize you are smack dab in the middle of a ship battle.

…we created a triggered scene and made the cannons individually triggerable.

The music helps here tremendously. Once we float directly between the two ships, the full battle rages. Unlike “Pirates of the Caribbean” attractions in the past that have had a predetermined scene on a loop, we created a triggered scene and made the cannons individually triggerable. This allowed our creative director with a Show Programmer to sit in the scene and choreograph it. They also could address the chance you could be in the scene longer and we had to make the music accommodate that while still being entertaining and engaging.

Were there any particular challenges in mixing for this cavernous environment? Or in dealing with water elements that are kind of like white noise and just eat the frequency spectrum real estate?

JK: Fortunately, we had good acoustics and a ride system that made water noise less of an issue except where we wanted it. So, on the plunge from the surface, and the resurface, we had to make it sound like you actually did it but there were very few actual water sounds from the boat sitting in the water. The final rush out to the last scene was not too difficult except we had music to deliver, so acoustics in the area help to soak up the white noise.

Looking at “Avatar Flight of Passage” at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park in Florida, as with “Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance,” there are different staging areas before the ride. How was sound a vital part of making these areas feel immersive and different, like you’re at a research lab on an alien planet?

JK: Again, the story arc is important. You start by entering in through the external planet atmosphere as the planet and nature has started to reclaim the lab building (note: the timeframe of this land is several decades after the events in the original Avatar film). Once inside, it resets to a sterile and very scientific atmosphere. But as you go, you sense it is becoming more intense…more exciting. You are getting closer to the core of the experiment. But here, unlike others, it is a positive energy and not foreboding.

As guests link up with their avatars, there’s this definite sense of growing anticipation for the ride to come. Visually, not much is happening, the lights dim and flash a bit. It’s the sound that really gets you going. Can you tell me about your approach to creating that feeling through sound?

JK: This is very much the cleansing moment. You are in a big machine but you are unsure about what you are about to experience. It is thrumming but otherwise very sterile. Then you get a very intense “local” sound of you transforming. Once you have transformed, the entire world opens up!

Mixing Iososno for ‘Avatar Flight of Passage’ with J. Moran and J, Kestler

Once the ride kicks off, the trip unfolds on a massive screen in front of the park guests. I believe it’s a 3D film they’re watching? What format was this experience mixed in? Was it Atmos? How did you use the surround field to help immerse the riders in that experience?

JK: We worked with Skywalker Sound and the original sound designers for the Avatar film to create breathtaking sound effects. However, Jonathan Moran and I spent many hours trudging through the brush of canyons to capture very wide ambient tracks with our eight-channel recorder.

The main ride experience was mixed in Iosono utilizing wave-field synthesis. Iosono sent us a technician to help calibrate the system for a very uniquely shaped room with a divider in the middle. We had to “fake it out” to optimize it. They also helped us double the number of sources to 64 for this experience.

The main ride experience was mixed in Iosono utilizing wave-field synthesis.

In a wavefield synthesis system like that, you have Plane Waves and Point Sources to work with. We added a bit of Z-axis manually as well. The key is to know what to assign each sound to.

I wanted the ambience to be very unique. I did not want statically routed surround ambiences that only crossfade. We made the sound unique in that it is always flying by and made it with the 64 sources at any given time all traveling by you. I think we achieved something surprisingly special with that.

What were some of your favorite opportunities in designing sound for “Avatar Flight of Passage?”

JK: Reflections. In the sound of the forest, you mostly hear reflections. The reason is the silence. Joe Rohde, our creative executive on this project at Walt Disney Imagineering, wanted the “sound of silence.” Once I decoded that statement through many recordings and reviews, I realized it’s not the silence; it’s the reflections you can only hear because of the silence. We searched and searched and finally found a great plug-in Slapper that gave our flying Point Sources the reflections off of the trees and ground, and even off of the ocean. It’s multiple small delays in surround, as if they all have different little objects like tree trunks to reflect off of. A surround reverb did not do it.

Designing sound for theme park rides/attractions is probably a specialty that’s overlooked by most students of sound. What advice would you give to someone looking to get started in this field of sound work?

JK: I’ve done them all but Attraction sound is by far the most challenging career in sound you can choose. It takes long hours (like they all do) and often in foreign lands with exotic foods and surroundings. You are working weird shifts for many hours and sometimes sweltering in the Hong Kong heat and humidity or freezing in the cold dry night of the Shanghai winter. You will spend a lot more time away from home.

You also often wear all the hats — dialogue recordist, sound designer or editor, music mixer, etc…so it’s never dull.

However, it has been the most rewarding for me. You are never stuck doing the same thing over and over in the same format in the same studio without a window. You also often wear all the hats — dialogue recordist, sound designer or editor, music mixer, etc…so it’s never dull.

Once you become an Audio Media Designer, you also get to build your own sonic vision and the system to play it back…pretty cool!

A big thanks to John “JK” Kestler of Walt Disney Imagineering for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at designing sound for theme park attractions and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

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