Actually, why not just leave it to the user to decide. What I find as great start-up sounds probably wonât appeal to others. I would choose something personal, a clip from a song that I love, rather than use a Haiku-esque sound.
What do you mean? You can already choose now, and you will be able to even if default sounds are added.
I know that it can be changed now, I just meant that quite a bit of time could be put into choosing a start-up sound when possibly many users will want to choose something else immediately or wonât have their speakers on at boot-up and therefore donât want a sound. That time could be better spent helping with technical development.
I think that if we have a nice default sound, few users will change it. I have never seen any sound packs for Windows for example, people just think itâs Ok the way it is. Also, paving the way for a no-defaults mentality is not good IMO. It leaves the user with an unpolished experience. I donât think making default sound files would slow down development on other things that much. Many people who are good at art, interface design or music arenât as good at programming and vice versa.
I know it presents language localization issues, but I envision an opening haiku as the start up sound. Something like:
Just a moment now
The system is starting up
Welcome to Haiku
Spoken in a soft female voice.
EDIT -
Actually considering the 5-7-5 structure. Perhaps itâs best to apply that to a c-scale. G followed by a B (holding both) then another G but an octave up from the first (the fifth, seventh, then fifth notes on the scale). Definitely in strings. Something like this:
Anyone considered something that mimics the Japanese Rail and Tokyo Metro station tones? Always found them a lovely piece of sound design.
I think we shouldnât make sounds for everything. People are forgetting that start-up sound had a purpose long time ago. It isnât simply a decoration. Start-up sound was used in the early days of computing to indicate that audio systems were working fine, and also inform user about critical errors. That is why Macâs have boot-up sound, which indicates that computer is working. There is however no need for shutdown sound and that is why Mac doesnât have a shutdown sound. Besides I suppose shutdown sound would slow down a shutdown process as audio system would have to be kept open a while longer.
I have designed two simple sounds, start-up sound and shut down-sound. Nothing fancy just informing user that everything is fine.
Iâve posted them on one of my websites http://www.nordicwild.fi/HaikuOS/
P.S. If you like it someone please move it to another place. I donât want to host these forever.
P.s Intersting article about Tokyo metro system sounds:
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/ambient_signifi
Also here are some samples from japanese train sounds:
http://www.japanprobe.com/2007/07/08/japanese-train-departure-melodies/
Why not post them on Haikuware?
By the way, http://www.nordicwild.fi/HaikuOS/ has no sound files.
They are there, theyâre just only linked via the HTML5 audio element, so those of us without HTML5 browsers get a blank page. The individual files:
Welcome.mp3
Logout.mp3
Question.mp3
Question2.mp3
Error.mp3
I donât care for the timbres (the shamisen is pretty tinny and the the sine-type noise sounds too Windows Me-ey, to these ears,) but I really like the melodies on âWelcomeâ and âQuestion.â (Though âQuestionâ might be a little long to be played every time a prompt comes upâŚ)
Maybe I should play around with this myselfâŚ
am i the only person whoâd prefer MIDI files for system sounds? thereâve gotta be some sounds that could be included for just such a purpose, which would sound better than the usual packaged MIDI sounds in every OS (generalMIDI? i donât remember at all). playing a simple arpeggio (such as the konami green laser as heard here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKIcsLw7V4I) would be neat, simple enough, suitably iconic, with no drag on the system. but oh, how i wish i could hear any of the proposed sounds in this thread.