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Making the Sounds of Vista
Bengt writes "The sounds of Vista took 18 months to get right for Microsoft. Artist Robert Fripp recorded hours of sound, and assisted Steven Ball in choosing between several different options. A clapping rhythm was rejected for 'sounding too human', and a techno beat was removed from considering because it was just the opposite." From the article: "If it seems like overkill to go to all that trouble for a few seconds of sound, consider this: Microsoft estimates that the clips such as the e-mail alert will be played trillions of times in years to come. That's a lot of opportunity to annoy, offend -- or, if the job is done right -- please or appease computer users the world over. One major concern was that the startup sound not grow grating after a time. You want a sound that people will love the first time they hear it, but it's a paradox to also say, 'Oh and by the way, we need people to love it the tenth, or the hundredth, or the thousandth time they hear it,' Ball said."
The poor saps are gonna be hearing that a lot... shortly after The BSOD Sound and the We Think You're a Damned Pirate sound.
you had me at #!
I keep my speakers muted, you insensitive clods!
Go to it, boys and girls! http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=6466901
This seems to underscore Microsoft's focus on flashiness over function, to me. I would hope that far more development would go into security, efficiency, and reliability. Adding new and exciting sounds is pretty far down the list of what would make me want to run out and buy a new OS. Especially since we've had the ability customize the sound scheme since what, Windows 3.0?
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
18 months, and that's the best they could do? Sad that it's even irrititating the first time. I'm glad I'll never have to listen to that.
Care about privacy? Read this!
See subject.
"Oh and by the way, we need people to love it the tenth, or the hundredth, or the thousandth time they hear it."
I'll settle for "just not annoy me." If I'm supposed to love it, that sounds like too much distraction already.
I'm impressed to see someone were clear sighted enough to put Robert Fripp on this job. Seeing as how he's an extremely perfectionist guitar player, I'm sure he's the right guy for a job like this.
I'm deaf you insensitive clods
Doctors do Massage in Longview WA now, who knew?
Just don't make it like this guy's startup sound: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Mt1bgsvsWms
AOL's three little beloved words ranks right up there with "I love you" ...
That guy's gotta be wishing he had a better agent negotiating royalties.
Why don't they have a composer come up with a motif and they then use a random seed to resynthesise the sounds within certain parameters each time it plays? But of course that could be innovation and we all know Microsoft don't do that.
I would recommend reducing the volume by a tiny little fraction each startup, so the more annoyed people get with it, the lower at least the volume will be...
Why am I stuck with the musty-sounding Vista start-up sound clip that Microsoft thinks I will like?
- Feed guitar notes into delay, reverb and replay tape-loop system?
- Hire Brian Eno to help you?
- Reform King Crimson yet again?
- Sell out to Microsoft?
Personally, I'm going to wait until the remixed, remasterd versions of the Vista sounds come out with additional material in a special boxed set available only from Discipline Global Mobile...Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
"Microsoft estimates that the clips such as the e-mail alert will be played trillions of times in years to come. That's a lot of opportunity to annoy, offend -- or, if the job is done right -- please or appease computer users the world over."
Even though the the stifling DRM and the draconian activation process is nothing less than heartache, at least they're working hard to make it sound pretty.
And just when they're lulled into a false sense of security, that's when you replace the effects with 'Wally's 101 annoying cubicle sounds'and crank the volume right back up again.
And the investment would be wasted anyway -- startups generally happen only when you ask for them.
(That sound you hear when you turn on your Mac is NOT the operating system starting.)
you had me at #!
If they're so anal about getting the sound "just right", why wouldn't the last step of the install process just ask you to pick a sound scheme out of a set of 10 or so different styles. Hell they could even be the SAME notes, but with different instruments to suit the user's taste.
Or... you let them change it?
Deleted
I just don't have any sounds on, I have a bleep sound when I get a new email, other than that I think a system should be seen and not heard
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
"Bwongg!" - everything's going fine.
"Bu-da-lah-ding, boh-dah-la-dong..." - you've got problems.
But better yet is a decent sleep mode. "..."
You must think in Russian.
The only thing that I ask is that only the notes that would make a cord are used. That way when I go to my schools library, at least it won't be grating.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
While I'm most likely never buying this OS, I've been a big fan of Robert "Bob" Fripp for quite some time. For those who don't know who he is, He founded one of the premier "intelligent rock" bands, "King Crimson." He also worked heavily with Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel in the 1970's, creating some of the more brilliant music of the time. His solo work (and duo) relies on something he and Eno invented called "Frippertronics" which later evolved into "Soundscapes" in the 90's. I really can't wait to hear what he's come up with on this project, creating very short sound pieces seems a bit harder than the much longer pieces he normally plays.
The title of this post is a bit of a Lark, of course it can.
My choice for the startup sound of course would be the opening section of the song "Discipline" from the "Three of a Perfect Pair" album. And perhaps a good error noise would be Belew singing, "I repeat myself when under stress I repeat myself when under stress I repeat!"
But enough of this banter.
Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
Hopefully it will not be set to the brown note.
If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty
Bob Fripp is playing email alert? Vrooom !
We see this often with computer and programs. Thinking about how long it take a computer to boot up or wake. Thinking of how many key clicks it takes to get from one place to another. Thinking of the opportunity costs of forcing users to enter 30 character validation keys at every turn.
As long they have funded the sound as additional work, and not just redirected the effort from another project, I see this as a good sign. It could mean that MS Windows will be a tool that people like to use, and not just one they have to use.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Fripp always generates a very unique tambre, and it surprises me that his work hasn't been utilized by Apple or Microsoft long before now.
Hurrah, I hope he was well paid.
I heard Brian Eno was paid obcene amounts for the windows 95 startup sound. I guess Fripp wanted in on that.
"One major concern was that the startup sound not grow grating after a time."
How about getting rid of the sound? What else does a startup sound inspire other than the sour feeling of having to restart the PC all the time?
Why didn't they buy guitars from Ernie, too ?
(Some compositions I made.)
you had me at #!
...after all, if it's going to be required then I'd for damn sure better like it.
Speaking of which, why is this news? In other news, I played a new startup sound today, one of my own creation. It sounds like a dying trumpet and comes from my rear speaker.
But seriously, I'm glad they've put some time and attention into the details, but as has been said above, I'd really prefer to have them spend that time/effort/money on making their OS take up fewer resources, be more stable, and be more secure. This simply reinforces the notion that they're attempting to sell Vista on aesthetics and XP bugfixes alone. And for me, that's not hardly enough to justify needing a huge hardware upgrade and a lot of cash for a new OS.
If all my base are belong to you and I attempt to retrieve my base, does that mean I'm freebasing?
That's a shame, given his understanding of the importance of copyright control by the artist in the world of music. I can't find the rant on the back of the recent CD releases but it could come straight from Slashdot...
anyway here's some interesting stuff on his site.
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
I neither said it was "not OK" for Vista to have a startup sound, nor that it was "OK" for OS X not to have one, nor that it was "OK" for the hardware to BONG!
I simply pointed out that the sound you hear, ain't the O/S. (To forestall spurious comment. Oh well.)
you had me at #!
Bootup sound (for slower computers) the entire track of "Moonchild" (12 minutes is about right)
BSOD Sound: "Dig Me, but don't bury me" or the entire track of "No Warning"
Application Crash sound, the entire track: "Nuages (That Which Passes, Passes Like Clouds)"
....when logging into any version of Windows is to turn the damn sounds OFF!!! That's what we have flashing tray, task and window icons for!! The last thing I want to hear while listening to my pirated RIAA music is the "DING!" asking me "Are you sure you want to delete this file?" and other useless crap.
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
This is a perfect example of how Microsoft just doesn't "get it". I know they THINK they get it. But they don't.
Are they still trying to make the start up sound mandatory?
C'mon guys we spent 18 months perfecting it! Why you would you want to turn it off?
Hire a decent musician, spend 18 months and millions of dollars futzing with stuff he recorded and RELEASE A TURD anyway. That's the unique Microsoft development process (tm).
Sure, I could change it if I reallllly wanted to, but they don't provide me with a quick and easy option to do so "out of the box".
What's that you say? Companies branding their products is normal? Oh, my bad.
I'm kind of a Fripp fan, so I got a kick out of reading this:
I know that the current startup sounds make me want to puke, and im sure that i am not alone.
Dont want your customers throwing up everytime they use your product.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The car manufacturer could hire competent mechanical engineers and cut costs in the fabric design department instead. Which might lead to a drab but technically superior car. I think that kind of decision tells a lot about a company and its priorities. Back to computers:
In the OS world, you can have
-a non-userfriendly (at least not beginner-friendly) but technically superb system. Think of classic UNIX as an example.
-or as the other extreme, a pretty, newbie-friendly but unreliable system, like Windows 9x.
Of course the differences are smaller these days. Microsoft is getting better on security and reliability, while modern Linux distributions make getting started a lot easier. But the underlying difference in philosophy still seems to be there, and my trust in Microsoft is still limited.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Let me guess... the BSOD sound is going to be "One More Red Nightmare"? :)
I have been farting for the last 18 months. There are some farts which are too technical and some farts just clap. Anyways people are going to fart trillions of time while using Vista.
Comparison with Windows XP. I do actually find applications making various sounds useful, because it means I don't have to keep checking or stare at them to check for significant events. There are a lot of sounds in Vista that, by comparison, seem like they're trying to "hide" from the user. Some of them are much less noticeable. In particular, I noticed that the "battery low" and "battery critical" sounds were pretty generic and surprisingly upbeat.
I've been a musician for about 13 years now, a composer for 6, and a music snob for many years beyond that, and I can safely say that I think they have succeeded at failing to create a lasting startup sound.
For the era, The windows 95 startup sound was good - especially in stereo. While it was somewhat obtrusive, I think it was the best out of all the startup sounds MS has bundled with a Windows OS.
The 4 note progression, if trying to follow the syllables of "Win-dows Vis-ta", should (disclaimer: in my opinion, mind you), be quite different. The ascension progression should (disclaimer: more opinion) hang on the last note (Think "I want my M-T-Veeeeeeeeeeeeee"). Just dropping the progression and sinking into the background chords in the manner they have chosen rubs me the wrong way.
Now, if they had chosen a progression that doesn't continue to ascend, such as the tradmark NBC sound, I think they would have it. When that "C" is struck, it creates a musical sense of relief and completion (disclaimer: my brain says so).
The ascension feels like it is choking, to me. Almost like the way a person would ask a short question - "Windows Vista?"
Oh well. I disable all startup sounds on computers anyway, as they take up RAM, and tend to not blend with whatever music I'm listening to at the time. :)
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
Microsoft missed a chance to build hype for Vista -- they could have posted all of the candidate startup sounds and then let users pick by majority vote. It would have driven a ton of traffic to their Vista promotional site. (Heck, they could have even pretended like we had a say kind of like the way management does in most of corporate America).
To me the sound they picked kind of evokes an emperor with no clothes - it is four notes long: sol-do-re-sol. Kind of sounds like a rip off of the beginning of the Gates of Kiev.
Now if you really want a cool startup sound, check this one out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt1bgsvsWms
Now that is a startup sound to make one proud.
Maybe they will add a pleasing sound for the Blue Screen of Death, that people will still like hear after the tenth, hundredth, and thousandth time.
If the startup sound gets annoying over time, which sounds probable, why not simply change it over time? Count experience points and award people with a different experience. It works for World of Warcraft. Or so I've heard.
Mr. Fripp also worked with Steve Ballmer:
...
SB: "Here, we can use this sound for the boot up." (Throws chair against the wall.)
RF: "I don't think that one is appropriate, Steve."
SB: "Well here, we can use this sound for the empty trash confirmation." (Throws chair against the wall.)
RF: "Maybe something a little more melodic and comforting."
SB: "Oh, oh, I know, we can use this sound for when the user opens an email attachment." (Throws chair against the wall.)
RF: "Wait a minute Steve. We need to be aurally holding hands with the user, but not intrusive. Maybe something in a minor."
SB: "Wait! This, this is really cool, we can use this sound for when you double click an empty folder." (Throws chair against the wall.)
RF:
Not that it's terrible, but while the background strings are ok, those four tones are like icepicks poking my ears.
:P Good thing they decided to make it optional.
It physically hurts to hear that over and over
(pun possibly intended)
MS insisting that the startup sound be tolerable after 1000 times hearing it alludes to the fact that they know how unstable and badly architected Windows (including Vista) is. There's got to be an internal memo regarding how often in a given time period the average user would hear the startup sound.
And no, this is not a direct correlation to Gnome/KDE startup sounds, which would only be played when Gnome/KDE or X is started, not the entire OS. OSX, iirc, embeds the Mac startup sound in the harware, so it plays long before the desktop reaches memory.
As for the sound itself, the four notes immediately struck me as a blatant attempt at brand strengthening. What made previous versions of the startup sound tolerable was that they were simply amorphous tones, there was no identifiable structure (notes) in them. This version obviously throws that out the window in favor of branding, and won't be tolerable after more than a few plays.
More evidence that Vista is what Redmond wants and what Hollywood will tolerate, rather than what users want.
(mainly for computers for which I'm not the only user)
- Earth-shattering kaboom
- Beethoven's 9th (yes, all of it)
"You can't just throw more bodies at the problem. That just makes matters worse."
The Mythical Man-Month covered this issue. Apparently some here haven't read it.
Now two things. One what MS is doing makes perfect sense when you think beyound just one person (usually the poster). Two the complaint that the OP makes sounds suspiciously like the "Those KDE guys are wasting their time. They should help with Gnome instead" argument. In which case the same counter-argument applies to this situation as the other.
why wouldn't the last step of the install process just ask you to pick a sound scheme out of a set of 10 or so different styles.
Wow.
That comment so totally captures the Linux vs. Windows desktop mindset. Yes, why not add an option in the install process to pick a sound scheme from 10 different styles? And why not also ask them what key they want it in? And what the volume should be? And whether they want it to stay at a constant volume, or whether over time it should fade down? And they may want to choose the "random sound and key" checkbox as well. Oh, and we should be sure to have an option for which device to play it through. And then there should be some radio buttons for playing only on weekends and holidays vs. work days...
"MS insisting that the startup sound be tolerable after 1000 times hearing it alludes to the fact that they know how unstable and badly architected Windows (including Vista) is."
*sigh* Your MS hate is showing. No it means that not everyone leaves their computer on 24/7.
From the article: "You want a sound that people will love the first time they hear it, "
//my kid and her 4 dollar toys-r-us xylophone makes better tunes.
Sorry, didn't happen.
There's 18 months of your life you'll never get back.
I watched the making of the Vista soundtrack by Robert Fripp on Channel9. What gets me is that they are RTM yet they do not have "official" downloads of Vista for us techie types at this moment for consumer purchase. It should have been available for consumer download at the final build.
Also if you want to check out the video you can at channel9.msdn.com
Especially when you just have to check for Slashdot polls to get it.
People want techno (26%) !
a techno beat was removed from considering
A mistake ! At least take a Heavy Metal tune, then ! (23%)
Everything else is worse than silence (19%).
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
I guess the idea of developing several custom sound profiles and consequently providing users with the option to choose a theme they actually like has never crossed their minds. Personally, I fail to see any wisdom in Microsoft's pursuit of mediocrity.
Yes, there a re a couple of ways of looking at applications, and in my opinion you are wrong. You can spot a newbie developer by the proposed screenshots posted before there is any code - a dog ugly app that works is a lot better than something with a lot of grey menu items you can't touch becuase they are not implemented. Something that does everything is good - but as far as I see it you get the app working and then you add the eye candy. I find it funny that apple were supposed to be the ones pushing form over function - but now they are ahead on both because they were putting a lot of effort into function.
As for the little bits of polish - that is often a sign of a lot of work being put into the appearance. A lot of open source software doesn't really have the resources to put a lot of work into that in parallel to developing the function.
If you consider the Enlightenment project as an example - long ago it started as a talented newbie with artistic ability putting a bit of extra polished form onto X since he wanted a prettier window manager than fvwm. Then it needed a rewrite to get extra function - no problem the original wasn't that big. Then it developed to look very nice and do a lot of things but there were things the developers really wanted to do with accelerated 3D and a lot of things non-trivial in X - real animated icons and real translucent windows without hacking up fakes (which sort of look OK but have limitations). This meant years of writing many libraries and only then doing the actual fairly small window manager over the top of that - you couldn't see any of their form until they had something solid and functional underneath it.
Not only does Linux have a number of start-up themes, but also, judging from the number of downloads, there is a genuine community interest in them as well. For instance, see:
1 2584
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=
There are more here:
http://www.kde-look.org/index.php?xcontentmode=25
(granted, some of them are bland copies of XP/OSX themes, but there are also some that are very much worth downloading)
is i just me or are these vista sounds teeth grinding high? PAT
SEO Test: TIGI und SEBASTIAN - Online Shop - V
NC state controls and owns the facility so they get to control the decor. In this case the entire arena was done and NC State didn't like the shade of red so all the seats were torn out and replaces with the right Wolfpack red. I have to say that if the color was the wrong red it would really suck.
The nice thing with professionals is that they got god decent equipment...
...but mayby they should have tried it out on a crappy computer soundcard. Anybody tried it out on a notebook.. Geee... its killing me...
Disabling the Windows sound theme has been traditionally one of the first, if not the first things I do post install. I do appreciate the quest for fine polish and careful attention to details that the user will experience and appreciate. However I have to agree that funamental utility and functionality should be the highest priority. That means things like security and stability. I don't think anybody really believes Microsoft when they say that they have resolved the fundamental security issues inside their O/S. I suppose if I were Microsoft I would have to hire a sound designer/artist/engineer to put this much thought into the sounds since 99+% of the market might never understand the difference.
Still amongst technical people it's fair to complain about the attention to sound schemes vs security and such. We know it's more important than the bells and whistles and we've been lied to so many times before we have no reason to believe them now. You can argue they have enough resources to do both, but you're going to have a difficult time arguing with people who believe the O/S has and continues to have fundamental critical flaws. This means that the company is either incapable or unwilling to get it right. Of course that becomes too wide of a debate being diluted and subjective. I think for the time being we'll be maintaining the unix=good, windows=frightenly broken camp... I don't expect a consensus anytime soon.
"Oh and by the way, we need people to love it the tenth, or the hundredth, or the thousandth time they hear it"
So make it sound like "Hey Macarena!", that never got old...ever after the thousandth time I heard it.
is no sound at all...
That's one thing I got so used to in ubuntu. No sounds, except login, logout. No beeps and dings and chords and clicks that happen all the time in Windows. It's really unnecessary, you can generally tell something's gone wrong when you see a dialog box on the screen.
After using ubuntu for a few months, I have to disable all the sounds in Windows because they're just too damn annoying (pity I don't have the option on the school computers)
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
So, will this not work?
u lt\SystemExit\.Default\"u lt\SystemExit\.Current\"u lt\SystemStart\.Default\"u lt\SystemStart\.Current\"
wshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_USERS\.Default\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Defa
wshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_USERS\.Default\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Defa
wshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_USERS\.Default\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Defa
wshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_USERS\.Default\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Defa
(From Turn Off Tour Windows And Other Annoyances)
Or will we not dare to use it because Robert Fripp took 18 months of his life to give us these sounds?
that they'd spend so much time on something that I, and many others will go out of their way to avoid ever hearing.
Not counting the Mac/Linux/Anything-but-windows crowd, there's a bunch that will leave volume turned down or speakers unplugged from beginning of install until they've had a chance to disable ALL sounds.
We don't live in a 70s sci-fi show, we don't need our computer to beep, chime, ding, or otherwise make noise to let us know something happened.
'Oh and by the way, we need people to love it the tenth, or the hundredth, or the thousandth time they hear it,' Ball said."
Why would anyone other than maybe a service technician hear the Vista startup sound a hundred times, let alone a thousand?
I've had the PowerBook I'm typing this on for a year and I've probably heard the startup sound fewer than ten times -- right now the uptime is 42 days and I think that's prbably a bit below the average time between system updates. It gets taken between home and work every day, btw, and slept and woken multiple times a day.
All these sounds do is hog some memory and add an extra delay for an application. The way things are set up, it plays the sound first and then proceeds with the application. Same with those dastardly themes and special effects for menus and stuff. Most of the folks who want to get the maximum mileage out of their processors and memory and blazing speeds tend to disable the sounds and go for the minimalistic themes with plain window borders (not those flashy 3d buttons, just plain gray ones), no wallpaper, no sounds, and heavily trimmed down boot up applications. Be it Windows or Linux - these sound schemes are good for people who love to spend those extra five seconds for every mouse click. And if you need notification for certain events, you can download any sound you want and just plug that for that specific event notification.
Face your daemons!
Call me a geek... but many of my computer's sounds are borrowed from Star Trek or other SFX.
Many of these I have loaded into "Cool Edit" software and tweaked to my liking. Whenever I've built new systems, these SFX are setup on them, along with a specific set of winow colors. (Red for inactive, green for active, etc.)
"Start Windows" - A car cranking and starting. (duh! Right?) Sorta like "Terr-rr-rrvooommmm!"
"Exit Windows" - A guy's voice yelling "I QUIT!" followed immediately by a door slamming. Everyone who's heard it, loves it, and asks "Is that you?" It's not, and they don't believe me. Oh well.
"Crtitical stop"- The Star Trek computer voice, saying "Unable to comply!"
"Program error"- A 1-time character in Star Trek saying, "I have failed!"
"Exclamation" - The Star Trek computer alert dound, a sort of metallic, shrill "Bli-di-dit!"
"Question" - The Star Trek "Tactical" station SFX, a metallic jangling like sound with a beep behind it.
"Open Program" - a quiet, very brief little "Tick", borrowed from the Explorer "Navigation" sound. Edited to be much shorter & softer.
"Close Program" - A softer, shorter version of the "Done" SFX, also borrowed from Explorer.
"New Mail" is the default Win98 "Notify" softened a tad. (Sounds much like the one in XP)
Most of the other Windows events are silent.
I've also customized AOL and other programs' defaults to be something meaningful. The idea is that I can be away form the machine, (or the application is minimized) if I hear a sound, I know what just happened. It hearkens back to the days I used to play "Defender" in video arcades in the 80's. That game had a number of unusual SFX, each one of them having a distinct meaning in the gameplay... you knew what was happening offscreen by the sounds. Very helpful.
Willie...
I'm glad to see that Microsoft is working on the really important stuff, now that all their security problems are all solved.
Mute is the only option, not Change.
5 .html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060924-781
imho Eno/Win95 > Fripp/Vista
Anyone else thinking of Ferris Bueller's synthesizer?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
This is me karma whoring. I caught two shows of the Adrian Belew Power Trio last week in Solana Beach and Long Beach. This gave excellent ops for me to indulge my burgeoning photography bug so I've posted learnings, thoughts, and pictures from Tuesday and Wednesday.
Actually, it's nice to know that MS is paying attention to the details.
That's a bit like a car manufacturer worrying about the color of the seats while the breaks are still leaking.
Answer: 1. Do you know if the breaks are still leaking before buying it? 2. Is that mean you will buy a car with bright pink bluish color?
If you delay pleasure infinitely, the pleasure will be infinite. (YM)
...ear. I'm in my mid 50's. I remember back in the late 70's, before the IBM PC and DOS, CP/M was the closest thing to a standard. Even back then, some word-processor programs had a clickety-clack sound via the speaker each time you hit a key. And the beeps and boings were extremely annoying. I'm talking about business stuff like word processors, not video games. Some people were so pissed off, they went and disconnected the speaker, or simply cut the speaker wires if they were soldered in.
At work I have to use Windows. I started off with the soundcard disabled. Unfortunately, Windows was too smart, and routed all its "alerts" via the PC speaker. I don't really want to cut up my employer's computer. So I installed the sound driver, and "forgot" to hook up the speakers. Now Windows XP is happy as it sends all sorts of beeps and boops to a non-existant set of speakers, and I don't hear a thing from it. At home, I use linux. I'm listening to internet radio while I'm typing this message. I obviously don't want to hear beeps and boings from the OS. And besides, I reboot so infrequently, that it's not worth any effort creating a startup sound.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Kind of reminded me of this story...
Wow, my first reason to go for Vista, Robert Fripp.
He rocks.
"and yours was pretty low."
you had me at #!
My lin box never reminds me that I am booting.
--I am a fan of zelda cuz I replaced windows boot sound with "Hey! Listen!"
In geting everyone off MS Win98 I will agree - but I still see win2k as better in some ways and win2003 as better in all others.
It appears to be nearly every single time I use it - the behavior where the screen goes blank and the taskbar disappears and then reappears is an explorer.exe crash - you completely lose the desktop shell but at least it restarts nearly every time - it is much nicer behaviour than the blue screen but it is still unstable. I'm sure the applications are mostly at fault for clobbering the shell - but those same applications do not cause this behavior in win2k. Another possibility is bad drivers - portions of the operating system kernel out of the control of Microsoft. The other thing is I'm the guy that get called in when things are not right and the MS Windows guys are overloaded - so I probably see more broken systems than unbroken and nearly every non MS system in the building has an uptime dating to when electricians turned them off to check their power cables.
Now MS windows brought cheap computers to the masses (including me) for which I am very grateful but don't confuse that with being well done, innovative, secure and all the other things it isn't. What is really important is the applications - if they run on nothing but MS Windows that is where they go - but if it is a multiplatform application there are a lot of better options if the user is technically skilled. If the user is not technically skilled and has done some stuff with MS Word in high school then you give them the PC with that and make sure there is someone to help when things go wrong - or give them win2k or even NT4 instead of an unstable computer operating system designed for people to run on home computers as a hobby. I LOST features on a secretaries computer "upgrading" from NT workstation to XP "Pro" - so she had to shift her shared files to a unix fileserver instead so people had the same access to her shared files.
They have had a very long time to do it and very little in the way of progress even in the last six years. I am very glad to see their improvements because they will alway be a major part of the computer industry barring similtaneous extreme stupidity by thousands of very intelligent employees. The other thing you are forgetting is that things that are not yet profitable get developed as OSS but almost always have to be ignored by commercial software unless there is a really obvious market later.
It works just fine in Firefox for me. Maybe an extension problem? Mind you, some of the MIDIs have a really horrible sound at the start, but I don't think that's Firefox's fault.
Mod parent up, this is some classic psychology right here. Pairing a neutral sound with something you like, such as the parent's example of a friend logging into IM, is a great way to make you like the sound. You begin to associate it with the thing you like, and it can become a secondary reinforcer. Yay for psychology!
Victory or awesome!
It's baffling to me that they put a year and a half into developing these sounds, and bring in a legal team to help decide whether the startup sound should be mandatory.
I completely agree that it's the little things that make all the difference, but when anyone makes this big of a deal about every stupid little thing they really start to lose touch with their users.
Making the startup sound mandatory and unchangeable, and then spending 18 months to be sure it isn't annoying really illustrates how terribly wrong things have gone at Microsoft.
For the record, I don't use Linux. In my experience it's too much of a pain to get set up.
I don't like Macs either. I'm perfectly okay if other people prefer to use Linux or Macs, but I'm an old school Windows kind of guy.
And I do mean old school - like Windows 2000 (since it's such a pain getting my video card running with Windows 3.1). The feel of freshly installed XP leaves the impression that they're aiming for the "Look ma! No Brain!!!" crowd.
With all of the ruckus about Vista, I sure as heck won't buy a computer with Vista on it. And you can bet I will be one of the last holdouts at work refusing to upgrade to Vista when that time comes - and at this point, I'm not certain that such a time will come. I could actually see my company starting to move away from Microsoft on the desktops - they haven't had a MS server for years.
That they license "Oops I did it again." - Louis Armstrong
Since most of the times you hear it won't be because you wanted to.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
You can't just throw more bodies at the problem. That just makes matters worse.
Isn't it one of the tenets of Open Source, that with enough eyes on the code, bugs are shallow? Why would that work for Linux and other Open Source projects, and not for Microsoft?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
OMG to hear that every day? Send them back to the drawing boards.... that annoying me already.
- Dragonlord Warlock (aka Dion) "So many computers.... so little time...."
MSDOS and windows are great examples of TIMING, IBM would have put out the PC with somthing on it on the same time frame or very shortly after. Gates had the savvy to recognize the opportunity as it arrived, and make a running jump on it. OS/2 did windows BETTER than windows did windows, IBM was just incredibly short sighted in trying to control the market via hardware, and then tried to lock OS2 on to their hardware as well...
Digital's ALPHA running any number of OS's was a superior solution as well but they did not see any future in 'desktop' machines, and paid the price as well...
I feel REALLY old now....
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
It's interesting that computer UI is so far behind gaming in this respect. For years we've been facing the problem of how to make the same sound effect, played over and over again, not be grating.
The solution gaming has come up with is quite simple: re-record the same sound, and play back one of many variations. Sometimes these are complex changes, like the sound of a sword swinging and hitting many types of different material. Sometimes the changes are completely subtle, like how a game may have 10 different sounds for a footstep, yet all of them sound almost exactly the same. And sometimes the sound is just pitch-shifted slightly: this is the tactic when you're RAM limited.
I'm just kind of surprised that this isn't supported on the OS level by Windows yet. Considering the amount being invested in the sound development of the OS, and what goes into each and every application, it should be easy to have a WAV wrapper which is really 5 or 6 recordings of the same basic sound. Add in a modulation parameter for slightly randomized variable playback speeds, and you have an interface audio schema that will never get grating, with far less than 18 months required.
The ______ Agenda
I don't have a startup sound on my Mac, and I manage to get along just fine.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
This article was stratigically positioned so that any music geeks would already be at their Friday night gigs, and therefore unable to comment on it! Consider the user/contributor!
more fun to have a nasa countdown to launch styled startup set of sounds "initializing bootloader" "starting system services" yada yada.
MS could pay as much attention to the stability of Vista rather than spending months on creating a sound. This isn't "attention to detail", it's unnessesary shite.
The little bits of polish really do matter to most people; they may not notice it when it's there, but they sure as hell notice when it's missing.
Yes, and Linux distributions have all those features. Ubuntu, RedHat, and SuSE can jingle on startup and shutdown with the best of them.
On a project of this size, aesthetics and engineering considerations are not mutually exclusive, you can have both.
You can also end up with neither, despite putting in a lot of money.
"while the breaks are still leaking."
I hate to be a spelling Nazi, but that one really makes me wince.
No sig today...
1) Hire a decent musician
...
2) Spend 18 months and millions of dollars futzing with stuff
3) RELEASE A TURD anyway.
You missed out:
4) Hype it, get it on all news channels and tell people how much it cost to make.
5) Underline the "cost" part several more times.
5) The sheeple are afraid to actually say "it's a turd" in case other people think they're uncultured, cloth-eared nitwits. Instead they toe the "safe" line and go around saying how great it is, how much it cost, and how privileged they are that Microsoft went that extra mile - just for them!
Hey, it works for Britney, Disney, HiFi accessory manufacturers, etc.
No sig today...
"The problem with companies like GM (and apparently Microsoft is starting to fall into this trap) is that they are dominated by their marketing departments. Marketing departments don't listen to the technical departments, and many bad decisions are made. For example, the marketing department at GM said everyone in America wanted an SUV (and this demand itself is fueled by non-stop marketing barrage telling people that bigger is better, safer, etc.), so the company cranked them out. Then the price of gas spiked."
And what makes you think the technical department had more of a clue what the consumer wanted? Consumers DID want big cars and SUVs. The gas spike could have happen at any time, but again it could have not happen as well. That's what happens with outside forces you don't control. Also GOOD engineering has nothing to do with the type of vehicle produced. e.g. SUVs. SUVs can be made using good engineering. Your complaint is against bean counters, not marketing.
First thing I do on any new desktop: disable the sound scheme. Oh, and I disable the PC speaker driver in Linux kernel.
http://scobleizer.com/2006/08/24/the-startup-sound -in-vista/
davecb5620@gmail.com
The sound drove me apeshit the first time I heard it. I'm going to have to replace that sound in any Windows box I run across now.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
i wonder if they are still using the same ripped copy of wavelab (radium) that they used on XP
I've heard that taking screenshots might be enough to cause a full-system shutdown.
According to this, the startup sound can now be disabled. If you want a different startup sound, you can disable the "Windows Startup" sound, and specify a custom wav file for the "Windows Logon" event.
Sure, just get Apple to come up with a Windows startup sound. Apple's startup chimes are modest, moderate, and above all brief. The Windows sound... my god, I hated it from the first time I heard it. It's boastful, vainglorious, arrogant, and every time I hear it I'm reminded of everything wrong with Windows.
Another great job of a Microsoft overlooking the biggest issue of their operating systems. I wish they would work 18 months on the reason why their Email clients don't abide by RFC's or why their OS's can be taken over in under 12 minutes plugged into the internet.
Way to go, again.
Everyone (and then some!) is gonna know those sounds.
:)
Even my cat knows the windows shut-down sound means bedtime !!
The Vista Startup Sound is the first four notes of New York, New York (it's a Helluva Town) from from the 1944 Leonard Bernstein musical On the Town .
link
you had me at #!
For several years now, I've been naming my linux boxes after King Crimson songs (Red, Starless, BBoom, Neurotica, Thrak, etc.). Now that Fripp has gone over to the Dark Side, I may have to rethink my naming scheme. Dammit! :)
Tech1: OK, we spent over $3m and 6 months on the Vista sound. Now it's time to begin work on the startup sound for the next version of Windows. Bono's unavailable, Madonna's running an orphanage now and no-one old enough to buy an OS listens to RnB/Rap any more and Jazz lost its streed credit after Woody.. well, yo know... So, any ideas?
Tech2: Umm, does it actually have to make a sound? Couldn't it just sort of start up silently?
Tech1: Doh!
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
hackers managed to crack Vista via a security hole in the startup sound playing subroutines.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil