How Mickey Mouse and Mr. Q Manufactured Emotion

Former Disney audio experience engineer, Mr. Q, reveals how he assisted in developing a complex algorithm to arrange over 15,000 speakers around the Disney World theme park. All to achieve the ideal ambient music for "manufacturing emotion."

The last time I visited Disney World, I was a bit distracted by the nausea that followed one too many rides after five too many scoops of ice cream. The visits before that though, I was entirely clearheaded. Yet not a single time did I notice the always present background music switch tunes.

Mr. Q would be laughing maniacally if he read those words. That's because those words mean that his baby, the project he worked on in the 1990s, grew up to be a success.

Apparently the original Disney World speaker system, set up in 1968, had an unnoticeable flaw: minuscule variations in sound volume along pathways. As someone walked closer to a speaker, music would seem louder than a few steps away. Despite not a single visitor ever complaining about this common sound effect, twenty years later good ol' Mickey decided to do something about it. Some work and a team effort later, they had Mr. Q's system and algorithm:


So how is a system which strives to be unnoticed manufacturing emotion? According to Mr. Q, the "life is sucked out of" the park when the speakers fail. Even a slightly flawed speaker system could lead to frowns, while perfect music ambiance only leaves Goofy's creepiness to achieve that. [Dustin Curtis via Boing Boing]