This episode was written & produced by Colby Hartburg.
What do you hear when you walk into a Casino? It can feel like chaos, but each sound is carefully curated to draw you in and make you stay. One collection of sounds are scientifically and artistically designed to keep the gambler, gambling. Slot machines. This episode features interviews with Willie Wilcox, Chief Sound Designer at Scientific Games in Las Vegas, Laura Taylor, composer and sound designer for a number of slot machines across the US, and Karen Collins, who has led extensive research into the sound and music behind these games. Is it addiction or entertainment? Maybe it's both. Pull the lever and listen for yourself.
MUSIC IN THIS EPISODE
The Habit (Instrumental) by Reagan James
Glass House by Utah
Nonchalant by Watermark High
Punk Drop by Zi
Sofia by AM Architect
Whats In Front Of Me (Instrumental) by Lael
Love With Your Life (Capital Kings Remix - Instrumental) by Hollyn
Check out Defacto Sound, the studios that produced Twenty Thousand Hertz, hosted by Dallas Taylor.
Follow the show on Twitter & Facebook. Our website is 20k.org.
Consider supporting the show at donate.20k.org.

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View Transcript ▶︎

[SFX: Casino Ambience]

You're listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz...The stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds. I'm Dallas Taylor.

The sound you just heard…is what casinos use to lure people in…and keep them there. There’s the sound of the cards [SFX: Cards shuffling], the chips [SFX: Chips], the craps table [SFX Craps table], but there’s one game that is particularly effective at keeping people playing. The slot machines.

[SFX: Slot machines]

[music in]

Modern Casinos earn over 70 percent of their revenue off of slots. That’s a dramatic increase from the 1970’s, when it was less than 50 percent in most casinos. A lot of that has to do with the advancements in gaming technology. Slot machines today are very different than their predecessors.

[SFX: Old slot machine]

They’re now more like video games…

[music out]

[SFX: Newer slot machine]

And there’s plenty of science and sound design that go into their creation.

Laura: There are different styles of slot machines. Obviously when you go into a casino you have a smorgasbord of slots to choose from.

This is Laura Taylor, she’s a sound designer for slot machines.

Laura: You go into the Vegas casinos, or in a smaller casino, there'll be a little corner, you'll have that gigantic Britney Spears machine with the huge curved screen.

[SFX: Music Britney Spears “Hit me Baby One More Time”]

Or you can play a Batman game, or you can play a Godzilla game, or Kiss…[SFX: Kiss “Are you ready to rock”]

It's another way to make revenue for a licensed property.

We’re probably all familiar to the traditional slots with the three wheels. You pull the handle, you wait for the cherries to line up, you win[SFX: ding ding ding!] or…you try again.

[music in]

Those are called “Stepper Machines”. But today, there’s a massive variety in slot machines. Willie Wilcox, who’s Chief Sound Designer for Scientific Games out of Las Vegas, helps break it down.

Willie: So the other kinds of slot machines, other than like a traditional stepper machine, you start getting into the new video machines, which can be stereo machines and you can also get into video versions of surround sound games.

Today’s slot machines are all about themes. As Laura mentioned, popular music is a big trend, but also movies, such as James Bond, Rocky, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. And all of them require sound and music.

[music out]

Willie: In order for somebody to be able to sit there and play for a long time, you don't want them to get sonically fatigued. We're generating music that is engaging, that is anticipatory, that enables somebody to sit there for a long period of time without being bored, without being irritated and feeling like somebody is taking their index finger and tapping you on the forehead and making you not want to be there.

That’s a lot of pressure to put on these sound designers. The sounds need to draw in players, but also be comfortable to listen to for long periods of time. The last thing casinos want is for you to leave due to listener fatigue. Not only that, but they’re also competing against all of the other sounds in the casino. The popular music,[SFX: Casino w/pop music]the chatter,[SFX: chatter/laughing],and the other slots[SFX: slot machines].

Willie: You're looking for music that's going to keep the player engaged [SFX: engaging music], but not detract from what they're doing. The real attraction is always the chase, always chasing what it is that you're looking to win, and making identifying sounds that help you realize that.

So if you had your eyes closed and you weren't watching, you would know from the sounds that you're hearing what's happening in the game. It should be that simple and that conclusive.

Laura: The number one rule is don't be annoying. That's always in the forefront of my mind, because somebody's going to sit down at one of these machines, and hopefully they're going to play it for a very, very long time, and they're going to hear the same sounds over and over, and so I don't want anything high-pitched. I don't want anything shrill, and I don't want anything boring.

[SFX: Slot machine music]

Laura: There has to be a lot of motion to it. It's not going to 80 beats per minute. It's going to be 130 or 140, something that moves, something that drives. Maybe if they wait long enough, you start getting little audio hints. A ding [SFX: ding], a whoosh [SFX: whoosh], just something to draw the player's attention back to the machine.

Another question slot designers have to ask themselves is how many speakers there should be and where to put them.

Willie: It's extremely important to pay attention while you're designing these slot machines, that when a player sits in a chair, and the two sets of stereo speakers, your left and right speakers that are facing the player, are positioned in a good listening position, which is just pro-audio 101.

If you have speakers that are shooting out into space, that means that the player next to you that's playing is going to hear all your speakers. [SFX: slot machines in background] Do you really want to hear what the player next to you is doing or do you want to hear what you're doing?

So speaker placement is extremely important, so is speaker type. If you have too small of speakers, then you've got a lot of super high end frequency responses, and not a lot of mid-range and lower frequency responses, which make the sound much more fatiguing to the ear, especially at the louder levels.

Designers can add additional speakers to create an even more immersive experience for players. Here’s Laura.

Laura: There are surround sound chairs whe

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