# Skywalker Sound
**Skywalker Sound** is the sound design, sound editing, sound mixing, and music recording division of [Lucasfilm](https://www.edgepedia.org/lucasfilm), headquartered in the Technical Building at [Skywalker Ranch](https://www.edgepedia.org/skywalker-ranch) in Nicasio, California. It began as Lucasfilm's postproduction division, Sprocket Systems, and has created the sound for the [Star Wars](https://www.edgepedia.org/star-wars) and Indiana Jones franchises, for Pixar films, and for hundreds of other features, series, games, and theme-park attractions.[1](https://www.skysound.com/who-we-are/about/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Origin | In 1975 George Lucas hired Ben Burtt as a full-time sound designer for Star Wars: A New Hope; the postproduction division was organized as Sprocket Systems in 1979.[1](https://www.skysound.com/who-we-are/about/) • [2](https://www.lucasfilm.com/who-we-are/our-story/) |
| Renaming | The group moved to Skywalker Ranch in 1987 and was reorganized as Skywalker Sound in 1989, alongside the release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.[1](https://www.skysound.com/who-we-are/about/) • [2](https://www.lucasfilm.com/who-we-are/our-story/) • [3](https://www.skysound.com/news/sonic-storytelling-go-beyond-the-gates-of-skywalker-ranch-to-the-heart-of-skywalker-sound/) |
| Facility | A 153,000-square-foot Technical Building with a scoring stage, feature mix stages, 15 sound design suites, 50 editing suites, an ADR stage, two Foley stages, and the 300-seat Stag Theater.[4](https://www.lucasfilm.com/campuses/skywalker-ranch/) |
| Staff | Over 200 sound artists, working across film, television, music, games, and immersive media.[5](https://www.skysound.com/services/) |
| Sound library | Nearly a million recordings, searchable through the Soundminer system; the wind-effects category alone contains 11,000 entries.[6](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/05/uncovering-the-sounds-of-a-galaxy-far-far-away-with-mac/) • [7](https://www.wired.com/story/skywalker-sound/) |
| Technical offshoots | The THX Sound System and the SoundDroid non-linear editing tool grew out of the division.[1](https://www.skysound.com/who-we-are/about/) |
| Recognition | A 1997 Lucasfilm press kit credited the company with ten Academy Awards; its artists won the 2026 Best Sound Oscar for F1: The Movie.[8](https://starwarsviscomp.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/se-press-kit-tech.pdf) • [9](https://www.lucasfilm.com/what-we-do/sound-design/) |
## Origins as Sprocket Systems
The division's starting point was a single collaboration. In 1975, as [George Lucas](https://www.edgepedia.org/george-lucas) prepared Star Wars: A New Hope, he hired [Ben Burtt](https://www.edgepedia.org/ben-burtt) to create the film's sound design; Lucasfilm's own history describes the Burtt hire as the founding act of what later evolved into Skywalker Sound.[2](https://www.lucasfilm.com/who-we-are/our-story/) Burtt's work produced the hum of the lightsaber, [Darth Vader](https://www.edgepedia.org/darth-vader)'s breathing, and the electronic voice of R2-D2, and Lucasfilm credits the collaboration with helping redefine the role of sound in filmmaking.[1](https://www.skysound.com/who-we-are/about/)
A dedicated post-production division, named Sprocket Systems, expanded near ILM's Northern California facility in 1979, and it included a computer research group that built digital tools for filmmakers.[2](https://www.lucasfilm.com/who-we-are/our-story/) The division handled all of Lucasfilm's post-production, not only sound, and worked from C Building at the Kerner facility in San Rafael.[3](https://www.skysound.com/news/sonic-storytelling-go-beyond-the-gates-of-skywalker-ranch-to-the-heart-of-skywalker-sound/) Return of the Jedi (1983) was sound-mixed there on Lucasfilm's new dubbing stage, whose sound system became THX.[2](https://www.lucasfilm.com/who-we-are/our-story/)
## The move to Skywalker Ranch
In 1987 the company moved to the newly built Technical Building at Skywalker Ranch, a property about 40 minutes north of San Francisco that Lucas conceived as a retreat from Hollywood studio backlots, and it soon took the Skywalker Sound name.[1](https://www.skysound.com/who-we-are/about/) • [4](https://www.lucasfilm.com/campuses/skywalker-ranch/) Lucasfilm's company timeline dates the formal reorganization to 1989, when the division began working with an expanded list of filmmakers beyond Lucasfilm's own productions.[2](https://www.lucasfilm.com/who-we-are/our-story/) Sound designer Gary Rydstrom, who joined in 1983 while it was still Sprocket Systems, recalls the relocation: "I can't think of another place in the movie business that combines classic architecture, natural beauty, and cutting-edge technology".[3](https://www.skysound.com/news/sonic-storytelling-go-beyond-the-gates-of-skywalker-ranch-to-the-heart-of-skywalker-sound/)
The Technical Building sits behind a restored winery facade among vineyards and the man-made Lake Ewok. Sound is at least half the moviegoing experience, a maxim Lucas repeated often, and the building was designed around it.[6](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/05/uncovering-the-sounds-of-a-galaxy-far-far-away-with-mac/)
## Facilities and services
Skywalker Sound's services page lists seven feature mixing stages, a scoring stage, three Foley stages, and a staff of more than 200 sound artists; the ranch summary lists six feature mix stages within the 153,000-square-foot Technical Building, alongside 15 sound design suites, 50 editing suites, an ADR stage, two Foley stages, and the 300-seat Stag Theater.[5](https://www.skysound.com/services/) • [4](https://www.lucasfilm.com/campuses/skywalker-ranch/) The Stag Theater serves for mix reviews, producer screenings, and industry premieres, with dual digital projectors on a 49-foot-7-inch screen.[5](https://www.skysound.com/services/)
The scoring stage's main room measures 60 feet by 80 feet with a 30-foot ceiling, accommodating a 100-piece symphony orchestra, and its adjustable acoustics allow reverberation time to be varied from 0.6 to 3 seconds.[5](https://www.skysound.com/services/) The Recording and Scoring department is headed by recording and mixing engineer Leslie Ann Jones.[5](https://www.skysound.com/services/) The Foley department stages performances of original sounds, from footsteps to complex prop movements.[5](https://www.skysound.com/services/)
## The sound library and working tools
Editors and designers search the company's library of nearly a million sounds through Soundminer, a system built for descriptive keyword searches; the collection includes 11,000 distinct wind effects alone.[6](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/05/uncovering-the-sounds-of-a-galaxy-far-far-away-with-mac/) • [7](https://www.wired.com/story/skywalker-sound/) The library grows with each project, as editors and engineers contribute to it over years.[10](https://elpais.com/television/2024-12-12/asi-se-ha-creado-tripulacion-perdida-la-serie-que-sigue-la-estela-del-universo-star-wars-cabezas-de-elefante-naves-en-miniatura-y-sonido-hecho-a-medida.html) Workstations run Avid Pro Tools as the main audio application, connected to a central machine room of roughly 130 [Mac Pro](https://www.edgepedia.org/mac-pro) racks plus 50 each of iMac, [MacBook Pro](https://www.edgepedia.org/macbook-pro), and Mac mini computers.[7](https://www.wired.com/story/skywalker-sound/) • [6](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/05/uncovering-the-sounds-of-a-galaxy-far-far-away-with-mac/) In 2014 the facility replaced most speakers in its editing bays and the Stag Theater with Meyer Sound cabinets.[7](https://www.wired.com/story/skywalker-sound/)
## Iconic sounds and projects
The company's credits span blockbusters and independents. Films edited and mixed there include [Terminator](https://www.edgepedia.org/terminator) 2, [Jurassic Park](https://www.edgepedia.org/jurassic-park), Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, Contact, Fight Club, and [Finding Nemo](https://www.edgepedia.org/finding-nemo).[11](https://www.mixonline.com/recording/skywalker-sound-367038) Its artists created the voice of R2-D2, the roar of the Tyrannosaurus rex in Jurassic Park, the voice of WALL-E, and the whip-crack of Indiana Jones.[1](https://www.skysound.com/who-we-are/about/) Recent work includes the sound of the robot Roz in The Wild Robot, supervised by Randy Thom, the company's director of sound design.[12](https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2025/02/wild-robot-sound-design/681856/) The division also works outside film: Walt Disney Imagineering partnered with Skywalker Sound to prototype and validate a custom speaker configuration for the Soarin' Across America theme-park attraction.[13](https://www.techradar.com/streaming/entertainment/how-do-you-mix-over-1-000-audio-tracks-from-inside-a-ride-vehicle-how-disney-imagineering-produced-and-mixed-the-soundtrack-for-soarin-across-america-and-why-it-stands-out)
## Technology spin-offs and automation
Two significant tools came out of the division's own needs. Tomlinson Holman, the audio engineer who designed Sprocket Systems' theater, developed the speaker arrangement that became THX, a name standing for "Tomlinson Holman Crossover" and echoing Lucas's first feature, [THX 1138](https://www.edgepedia.org/thx-1138); for [Return of the Jedi](https://www.edgepedia.org/return-of-the-jedi)'s release, Lucasfilm inspected theaters and certified the first four THX installations, and Computer Division scientist James A. Moorer created the THX "Deep Note" logo sound.[14](https://www.lucasfilm.com/news/lucasfilm-originals-thx/) The SoundDroid non-linear editing tool came from the same computer research group.[1](https://www.skysound.com/who-we-are/about/)
More recently, the division developed the Coda Automated Media Ecosystem, which generates soundtrack versions and language packages from a master mix such as a [Dolby Atmos](https://www.edgepedia.org/dolby-atmos) theatrical mix. A single release can require as many as 765 language audio packages; Coda automates their creation, cutting a deliverable process measured in weeks down to faster than real time, and it has been used on premium Disney+ releases including [The Mandalorian](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-mandalorian) and Moon Knight.[15](https://movielabs.com/case_study/skywalker-keeps-the-humanity-in-automated-soundtrack-mastering/)
## Leadership
Josh Lowden serves as Senior Vice President and General Manager, overseeing operations; he joined Lucasfilm in 1999 at Industrial Light & Magic, transferred to Skywalker Sound in 2001, and was promoted to General Manager in 2013.[16](https://www.lucasfilm.com/leadership/josh-lowden/)
## References
1. [About, Skywalker Sound](https://www.skysound.com/who-we-are/about/)
2. [Our Story, Lucasfilm](https://www.lucasfilm.com/who-we-are/our-story/)
3. [Sonic Storytelling: Go Beyond the Gates of Skywalker Ranch, Skywalker Sound](https://www.skysound.com/news/sonic-storytelling-go-beyond-the-gates-of-skywalker-ranch-to-the-heart-of-skywalker-sound/)
4. [Skywalker Ranch, Lucasfilm Campuses](https://www.lucasfilm.com/campuses/skywalker-ranch/)
5. [Services, Skywalker Sound](https://www.skysound.com/services/)
6. [Uncovering the sounds of a galaxy far, far away with Mac, Apple Newsroom](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/05/uncovering-the-sounds-of-a-galaxy-far-far-away-with-mac/)
7. [Inside the sound studio behind The Empire Strikes Back, WIRED](https://www.wired.com/story/skywalker-sound/)
8. [Star Wars: Special Edition press kit, Lucasfilm](https://starwarsviscomp.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/se-press-kit-tech.pdf)
9. [Sound, Lucasfilm](https://www.lucasfilm.com/what-we-do/sound-design/)
10. [Así se ha creado 'Tripulación perdida', El País](https://elpais.com/television/2024-12-12/asi-se-ha-creado-tripulacion-perdida-la-serie-que-sigue-la-estela-del-universo-star-wars-cabezas-de-elefante-naves-en-miniatura-y-sonido-hecho-a-medida.html)
11. [Skywalker Sound, Mix](https://www.mixonline.com/recording/skywalker-sound-367038)
12. [What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?, Radio Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2025/02/wild-robot-sound-design/681856/)
13. [How Disney Imagineering produced and mixed the soundtrack for Soarin' Across America, TechRadar](https://www.techradar.com/streaming/entertainment/how-do-you-mix-over-1-000-audio-tracks-from-inside-a-ride-vehicle-how-disney-imagineering-produced-and-mixed-the-soundtrack-for-soarin-across-america-and-why-it-stands-out)
14. [Lucasfilm Originals: THX, Lucasfilm](https://www.lucasfilm.com/news/lucasfilm-originals-thx/)
15. [Skywalker Keeps the Humanity in Automated Soundtrack Mastering, MovieLabs](https://movielabs.com/case_study/skywalker-keeps-the-humanity-in-automated-soundtrack-mastering/)
16. [Josh Lowden, Lucasfilm Leadership](https://www.lucasfilm.com/leadership/josh-lowden/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Screen production organizations › Film studios and distribution › Studio facilities and backlots › Studio facility operations and special topics*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license