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I am joining the Army National Guard to become a medic, when I get done with training I will volunteer to be an EMT so I NEED a siren that will get people out of the way, this ecto siren will not be the only one I use, but I want a barrage of Sirens and Lights, so I can also be in parades, shows, and just have fun, while seriously saving lives!

Um... okay.

http://www.galls.com/

The Ecto siren is not a real siren.. sorry to burst your bubble.

Like AJ said, the Ecto siren is not an actual siren but you could just put a clip of the siren on a tape/MP3 player/something capable of playing audio and run it through a loudspeaker attached to the outside of the ambulance. Maybe if you found some sort of magnetic speaker, you could use that instead of permanently attaching something like that.

With respect, I disagree. I have a friend who is an EMT/firefighter. He gets loads of catalogs for things like sirens and lights. He told me, while we were looking at diagrams to potentially build an Ecto-1, that it was the Q-model of a certain brand the name of which I cannot remember at the moment. If i heard it I'd know it. (I think the name had something to do with stars)
Also, it may not be an actual siren anymore, however- according to some other people I know, the current model sirens built into Police cruisers in South Carolina have a feature in them where the driver can change his siren at will- IE the pitch, notes, and frequency of the siren. This could easily be used to reproduce the sound of the Ecto-1 siren. For all intents, the driver/shotgun rider in the cruiser is a DJ making up the sound of their siren as they go.

Very true, but the actual siren of the Ecto- 1 does not exist, Columbia's sound guys designed it specifically for the movie. If you listen closely at certain parts of the movie or watch the making of features for Ghostbusters, the siren actually being used on the car sounds completely different than the one we all know and love. The device on top of the car is a real one, but the sound is just ADR that was custom made by the sound FX guys at Columbia.

Cool nuff. I thought i'd heard it somewhere else though. In the Blues Brothers at the long car chase in the end, wasn't that siren very similar to the Ecto's, or am I just losin it?

I'm gonna go with "losin' it", haha, but arent we all?

Could be an existing siren was altered (sped up/reversed/etc...I do know I've heard something vaguely similar here around town).

I believe http://www.galls.com has siren sound samples somewhere, playing around with those in Goldwave might garner something at least close.

stanztheman wrote: I'm gonna go with "losin' it", haha, but arent we all?

We build model proton packs and dress up in Ghostbuster outfits for fun. We're all a bit nuts...

Does anyone have any idea HOW the sound guys created the siren effect? I think just replicating what they did might be a lot easier...maybe.

Haha, yes we are all nuts. It sounds to me like the siren is made from an old oscillating[sp?] siren, with a flat spot on it. Seems to me like the rotators inside start off slow, speed up, then hit the flat spot only to start off slow again. All I know is the original Ecto 1 could not make the sound by herself, her siren was just dubbed into the sound of the film. If you guys take a look at the Ecto 96 page in the Ectomobile forum, you will see how I rigged the Ectostang to do the siren. There's a complete wiring diagram and everything to rig your existing stereo to roof or even inside hoot mounted speakers.

Quendor wrote: Does anyone have any idea HOW the sound guys created the siren effect? I think just replicating what they did might be a lot easier...maybe.

I'm pretty sure Ken Heugel's site carries some nice and clear Ecto siren audio files...

Got a link right here:

http://www.hprops.com/sounds/

Looks like I'm late to this one but everyone else in the know took care of it. Yes, the physical siren itself was real but the sound was doctored. While playing around with sirens one day ( at a local company that sells old, used vintage emergency equipment ) I found one that was pretty close. Instead of giving it raw power we put an automotive flasher between the (+) leads to see what would happen.

Nope, no Ecto siren. It warmed up but then warmed down as well, ultimately just making a weird warble. To get the Ecto-1 sound of "warm up, completely cut off, then warm back up again" one would truly need to edit sounds digitally and play it back, just like they did in the movie.


Dude, if you need a cool siren for a parade, just get a soundclip of Gilbert Gottfried saying "Son of a BITCH!" and loop it.