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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
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.
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.
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...
Well in fact this is the reason of all the delays! The other problems etc, they were just to give the composer a bit more time. As you can hear, it really was worth the effort!
- 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/
Is it too much of a stretch to think that Microsoft employs both programmers *and* a few sound artists?
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.
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
No offence, but your post (and it's upward moderation) underscores a lot of what is wrong with a lot of open source software to my mind. 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.
You do realise that MS employs both programmers and sound engineers, right? And that devoting some time for a sound engineer to try to make sure the sound scheme is as good as possible does not detract one iota from the amount of effort that the programmers can put in to their parts of the project, right?
On a project of this size, aesthetics and engineering considerations are not mutually exclusive, you can have both. The problems only come when you have too few people, the wrong mix of skills, or too little time/money. None of these are problems for Vista.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
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
So its OK for the Mac trumpet to sound, because its not the OS? Nevermind that it might as well be because you cant turn it off, its mandated by the same people who produce OSX, and its as annoying as anything an OS can produce? Stop putting artificial restrictions on arguements.
No offence, but your post (and it's upward moderation) underscores a lot of what is wrong with a lot of open source software to my mind. 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.
There is a big difference between polish and flashiness, the former applies to functionality as much as anything else while the later does not.
The problems only come when you have too few people, the wrong mix of skills, or too little time/money. None of these are problems for Vista.
There is always a trade off between where you allocate resources, it's simply a question of degree.
"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?
This seems to underscore Microsoft's focus on flashiness over function, to me.
What is "this", which underscores Microsoft's focus on flashiness to you? That Robert Fripp spent 18 months on it? That they did an article about it?
Oh no! How could they've an article about it and so on, when Robert Fripp and that clueless reporter should be working on improving the security of Windows Vista!
Get a clue.
(Some compositions I made.)
you had me at #!
> 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.
I think you have a misunderstanding of how software development works. It's not as if Microsoft Executives said "Stop working on the security, boys, and start frettin' those guitars!" They're independent teams - working on Windows sounds isn't going to pull resources off the programming teams.
> 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.
No, but it's going to contribute to your sense of comfort with that OS; and if that doesn't apply to you specifically, it WILL apply to most Windows users. What's going to make people feel like they're using a well-designed OS? I can guarantee that for the vast majority of people, it's not going to be clever kernel I/O scheduling algorithms or an efficient garbage-collection subroutine. It will be the look and feel of what they see (and hear) every day when they turn on their PC.
> Especially since we've had the ability customize the sound scheme since what, Windows 3.0?
Accounting for statistical outliers, approximately.... nobody does that. So, the default sounds had better be pretty good.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.
With a company the size of Microsoft, it's not the zero-sum game you imply. Your sound team has very little if any overlap with the engineers who make the damn thing work.
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
I don't think it's going to be marketed as a selling point.
Especially since we've had the ability customize the sound scheme since what, Windows 3.0?
But very very few people do. (And I think many of the ones who would've back in the bad old Win3.1 days have probably moved on to OSX or Linux by now.) So the sound becomes an important "signature".
Seriously, if this were about OSX, no one would bat an eyelash. Apple gets huge kudos for thinking about the aesthetic elements of their UI, and for good reason. Now, Microsoft is generally much less graceful with this stuff (like the Fisher Price look of XP) but still, you can't really rip on them for sinking resources into this.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
... why not let me use my own sound clips?
Why am I stuck with the musty-sounding Vista start-up sound clip that Microsoft thinks I will like?
That's been a function since at least Win95, maybe before.
I remember changing sounds in Win 3.1
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
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).
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"? :)
There is always a trade off between where you allocate resources
That depends on how much time and money you have to devote to the project. Time clearly hasn't been an issue for Vista, and given Microsoft's resources, I very much doubt that money has either.
Yes, of course for most projects there are constraints on how much effort can be expended, and the same is certainly true of Vista. However if you think for one second that resources have been diverted from making the OS secure (as in the OP's complaint) in favour of the sound scheme then you're a fool. That's not to say that it *will* be secure; just that if it isn't, it won't be because they paid some guy to make it make pretty noises.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
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.
It is in the roms that used to have part of the os in them. There is also the crash sound that you hear if the system does not pass the book up checks.
It's foolish to think they took resources away from technical development to focus on sound engineering. We're not talking about some jobless geek's weekend project, this is Microsoft. If they need a sound guy, they hire a sound guy independent of the dev team.
I think my issue is that if they spent 18 months working on a bunch of sounds, someone (or a group of someones) had to have been paid during that time. How much of that cost relates to the sticker price of Vista ? Do the sounds make me more productive ? Do they justify the added cost ? One person's labor of love does not translate into a business need. Besides, one of the first things I do when I install Windows is clear out the sound events because, well, I'm not blind. I can tell when email comes in because I'm staring at the email client. I can tell when someone IM's me because their stupid window pops up. I can also tell when I just clicked a link on a web page without that annoying click sound, because I just friggin clicked on it myself. I'd rather be hearing my own choice of music, or the carefully crafted sounds of a video game, unencumbered by all these spurious noises.
The same applies to other software developers too. I don't remember which one it is, but there's some burning software out there that plays a little xylophone jingle when the burn is finished. That was nice in 1996 when it took 80 minutes to burn a disc, and you had to leave the PC alone while it was doing it.. a polite tone to call my attention from the other room was appreciate. When the burn takes 5 minutes and I'm still sitting at the machine, I don't need it to go "ring-a-ding bing bong" and make me instinctively reach for the mute key. Or the girlfriend's printer that says "Printing started" in a loud SoBe collegiate voice, and "Printing complete" at the end. Gee, thanks! I didn't notice I had just clicked the "Print" button, and I was wondering why all that paper was coming out of that thing.
Noise pollution, that's what it is.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
(mainly for computers for which I'm not the only user)
- Earth-shattering kaboom
- Beethoven's 9th (yes, all of it)
or if you're in denial and believe in your own superiority over everyone, like how some open source people have become. Note the replies that came after your post.
Let me quote:
and
And many more to come.
I'm almost certainly will be modded as troll, but I don't really care. This is exactly the reason why open source will never rule the world, the mentality of "we are superior" and "strike down those that say otherwise". Or even "silence those that criticize the obvious flaw in our thinking". Oh, and the lemmings mentality that praise everything Apple.
Instead of discussing WHY MS put so much effort in this area, it is instantly scoffed at and judged without the slightest clue. Scoff all you want, people. These guys are making millions of dollars each year, while most of you DO NOT. There must be something they're doing right, so if you want OSS to succeed, steal some of it instead of dismissing it like 5 year olds. Nevermind their monopoly tactics, their product DOES have some merit of its own, which are left as exercise for the readers.
The response of slashdot to criticism is very predictable. Watch how my comment is modded down to oblivion.
Exactly. There's nothing wrong with some eye candy. Users nowadays EXPECT it! MS actually made some docs or guidelines for programmers stating this very clearly. Features alone doesn't cut it. The best app in the world, with a Win 3.11-like theme looks like a unprofessional app, e.g. 7zip - it's VERY good (handles most major formats, has very good compression ratios, free, etc), but the GUI - especially the icons - *SUCKS*. It looks like ass (like an early Delphi 2 app), so most people still use winrar - and even winzip in a large portion (even though it's expensive and bloated crap that does little more than handling just zip files). The day 7zip gets a revamped GUI (including some nice icons), winzip is so totally dead. Even winrar would suffer a great deal.
And having an artist create some flashy theme hardly prevents developers from doing their job of making a good app. Nowadays, you need *BOTH*.
7zip should have some fund raiser to pay some graphical artist, or have some contest about creating themes for it or such.
The ability to change the Start-up sound in Vista has been removed.
Yes, they do. Certainly every distro I've ever used that includes GNOME or KDE has some sort of startup sound when they login.
(That sound you hear when you turn on your Mac is NOT the operating system starting.)
Doesn't matter. As far as Apple marketing (which is why these sorts of soundbits exist) is concerned, Mac == OS X.
I heard if you hold the mute button, it won't make that sound. At least on a laptop.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
You forgot about the part where if you say "go ahead and mod me down" or "I'll probably get modded down for this," you in fact get modded up. It's one of those Slashdot peculiarities.
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!