One of the reasons that the show’s effects are so distinctive and memorable is that they are often musical, and that goes back to the first composer who created music for the series, Alexander Courage,” says Bond. “When Courage was working on the show’s first pilot, ‘The Cage,’ he was assisted by a man named Jack Cookerly, one of the session keyboardists, who had modified one of the electric organs of the period to make strange ‘electronic’ sounds.”

“A lot of the sound effects were generated by musical means at the end of recording sessions with the orchestra,” says Kendall. “Cookerly had a device he called a ‘music box’ — a reconstructed Hammond organ — that laid the basic tracks for the transporter effects, the medical scanners in sickbay, and other sounds.”