What about sound design?

21

I think Urias has a point, and I definitely would not like for Haiku to have too many sounds by default or to have annoying sounds. It should be very easy to just disable all the sounds. BUT, some people will definitely want to have some sounds, and I think it would provide some polish for Haiku to have a couple decent “sound themes” including a good default one that is set up after an install. For example I think the Ubuntu sounds are good.

Though I too am no musician or expert at sound design, at some point I may try my hand at designing some sounds, as I have been thinking about this for a while.

22

Sound themes are a tricky point because some people don’t notice (or care) about them and others have very strong opinions about them. Personally, I turn off the Windows UI sounds as part of my post-install settings tweaking. Considering how subjective this topic is, there may not be a good answer. One thing I do know, though, is that the startup sound was something Microsoft did a good job with – the Vista startup sound does not IMO get annoying even after hearing it repeatedly. I still turn it off along with all the other system sounds, but not because it annoys me.

Be went with only about 3 sounds. System beep and startup were two of them and I forget the third. That would be a good starting point. USB mount/unmount would also be reasonable IMO. Some of the events listed above, however, are poor choices. Any frequent event, such as key down/up or window activation, occur too often to be of any use. Sounds are for giving feedback, but a careful balance must be sought. When it is used appropriately, it can be a nice touch, but when used too much, it is a distraction.

You can find more information on the topic of sound and integration into a GUI at http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~stephen/publications.shtml . Of particular use is #4, “Providing a structured method for integrating non-speech audio into human-computer interfaces.”

23

I can understand where everyone is coming from. Personally, I am more on the side that thinks sound effects would give it a nice polish. I think when people hear sound effects, they think it has to be annoying, but it can be very subtle and give you the mind set that you are using a very professional OS.

The only question that I have for the community is should we have a start up song? Obviously, I think we should because I think it get people excited to use the computer, especially when there is a new release of a beloved OS. If a computer is completely silent, it gives the user the impression that they are just sitting there and if someone doesn’t really want to use a computer, they will quickly find something else to do.

On the more cynical side of things, Haiku is currently a very underground OS that has a lot to prove. We don’t want to give people any reason to think that Haiku isn’t a valid OS. If we didn’t have a background image, for example, it might speed things up a little bit, but it would make people think they are using an old OS, which Haiku is exactly the opposite. Sounds may annoy some, but they can really make using a computer more fun. As sound designers, we have the job of making sound effects that will make it fun to use a computer but also not annoy the hard core crowd. If we know what others have done wrong, we are one step closer to finding out what’s right. What specific sound effects do we want to avoid?

Thanks,
Lexen

24

I’m not a big fan of intro sounds or sounds period. (I have No Sounds as my profile.)

But I think birds chirping would be a good background noise while the computer is loading. Chirping birds seem to give a sense of beginning, etc. and kind of fit in with a “nature” theme that was mentioned earlier.

25

The reason I think a startup sound would be a good idea is that it shows that Haiku has correctly detected my sound card on the first boot. It also gives a little indication that the system has finished loading and is ready for use. I think it should be short, simple and unobtrusive though to fit with the general Haiku philosophy.

As for other sounds, we obviously need an error beep of some sort and USB mount/unmount is also a good idea. Don’t think much else is needed.

Simon

26

I agree and have a couple others. A new e-mail sound wouldn’t happen enough to be annoying. A startup sound, provided that it is unobtrusive, could be a decent possibility.

I took some notes on the thesis I recommended above and here they are.

Sound at the interface level:

Spatial location and volume are both very low resolution
Using speech is more error-prone (and noise polluting) than non-speech
Loudness contributes to the level of annoyance

Sounds are traditionally used to indicate something happening, but not specifically what.

One problem is the association of sounds with actions events that have no correlation with the sound they are paired with, i.e. natural sounds taken out of the context of their natural environment. Another problem is memorizing sounds that go with actions.

Sound effects can be applied to a sound to convey information. Examples: thickening a pitch by applying chorus or a pitch shift so that several pitches play simultaneously, muffling or thinning by applying a low- or high-pass filter to convey distance, frequency-specific phase distortion to “excite” the sound, using echo and/or reverb to convey distance.

Use of sound needs an integrative approach i.e. top-down.

There is a direct proportion of pitch to perceived urgency.

Dissonance is more urgent of a request than consonance.

Intensity should be at least 10dB above threshold and no more than 20dB over.

Possible uses:

Relating info that is hidden. This could be info that is hard to access (file size / creation date on a Mac), not available (e.g . because of lack of screen space), visual clutter, info that is outside the area of visual focus of an app, or because it is a mode.

Timbre is a great differentiator of sounds, but only if they are not just subtle variations on the same timbre (overdriven guitar vs distortion guitar).

My own observations:

Sounds seem to be good at signifying completion events, such as the end of preheating of an oven or a microwave finishing its cook cycle.

Repetition of a note can be used to increase urgency.

“Sonifying” an interface’s widgets can increase usability, but at the expense of elegance and beauty. It can reduce a system to a chattering cacophony of beeps and musical notes.

27

Hey guys, sorry I haven’t posted anything in a while. I tried to get a better background for the startup, but I wasn’t very successful at recording some. Anyway, I thought if you guys have any good backgrounds, or would prefer not to have one, here is the plain startup.

http://www.unseenirony.com/misc/haikustartup2-1_-_plain.mp3

Does anyone else have any actual files that they could contribute to the project?

Thanks,
Lexen

28

Hi,

I have cut out some peaces from “Jean Pierre Rampal - Japanese Melodies For Flute And harp” album. Some mockups came out. Don’t know about licensing rules here. What do you think about these?

http://local.elgsis.lt/files/mipi/mipi-haiku-start2.mp3
http://local.elgsis.lt/files/mipi/mipi-haiku-start3.mp3
http://local.elgsis.lt/files/mipi/mipi-haiku-start4.mp3
http://local.elgsis.lt/files/mipi/mipi-haiku-start5.mp3

  • mipi
29

Hey man, I really appreciate the contribution, but if someone else made it we can’t use it. If you have a harp or a flute and you wanted to record something, we could use that, but they do have a copyright.

30

We actually could technically use it if we were granted a license to do so… but I’m not sure how likely that would be, and someone would have to actually ask :wink:

31

[quote=demin]I have cut out some peaces from “Jean Pierre Rampal - Japanese Melodies For Flute And harp” album. Some mockups came out. Don’t know about licensing rules here. What do you think about these?

http://local.elgsis.lt/files/mipi/mipi-haiku-start2.mp3
http://local.elgsis.lt/files/mipi/mipi-haiku-start3.mp3
http://local.elgsis.lt/files/mipi/mipi-haiku-start4.mp3
http://local.elgsis.lt/files/mipi/mipi-haiku-start5.mp3[/quote]

I like these a lot and generally think this is the kind of sound I was thinking of for the Haiku start-up. While I agree we probably cannot use these without permission, I would think that recreating them with a synthesizer would be OK. We just need an idea of the notes (which I suppose the more musically gifted among us could determine from the mp3 files.) Or maybe someone could just find a Japanese arrangement book. Heck there might be some free arrangements online, though a quick Google search did not show me much.

But in general I think some combination of Japanese flute and harp could be a great Haiku start up sound. Though maybe adding in some more “techno” flavor might be cool too, which might just be accomplished by using synthesized Japanese flute and harp.

32

I have recently started using a program called LMMS and with it I could re-create one of the songs note for note, but even if it wasn’t illegal, I still find it unethical. I don’t want to be steeling another persons work, I would much rather go through the effort of making something of our own.

What file specifically do you guys like? I could make a NEW one with a similar feel to it. The general feel I am getting is a relatively simple flute with the harp using a lot of notes in the background. If I get the time, I could mess with that a little and show you guys what I came up with.

Thanks,
Lexen

33

It would be great if you could make something like this or even better. Personally I like them as startup sound in such order:

  1. mipi-haiku-start2.mp3 (calm, simple, haiku)
  2. mipi-haiku-start5.mp3 (very simple, not disturbing, subtle, maybe not so haiku-style)
  3. mipi-haiku-start4.mp3 (harp and flute, but I like one single instrument more)
  4. mipi-haiku-start3.mp3 (irritating a bit)
34

1+ for something like mipi-haiku-start2.mp3 as startup.

& 1+ for something like mipi-haiku-start5.mp3 as unmount USB.

and of course a reversal for mount USB is needed.

35

IMO the first part of this peace could be USB mount and the second part unmount. Only the tempo should be faster.

36

Hey Guys, I have been really busy, so I haven’t been able to work on the start up noise, but I did make sounds for USB Mount and Unmount.

www.unseenirony.com/misc/usbmount0-1.mp3
www.unseenirony.com/misc/usbunmount0-1.mp3

These are just my first drafts, so if you would like them re-made one way or another just let me know. They are really simple, just three notes played with a clav. The mount sound increases in pitch, while the unmount decreases in pitch, but they both use the same notes. I think they are very subtle and fit with the over all theme. I also encoded them to be very small, I’m not sure if you can use mp3’s in haiku, but if you can’t I can also get them in wav’s, ogg’s or anything else you want.

Thanks,
Lexen

37

Hi, I just let the openbeos ML know of your draft.

Maurice asks if you could upload it again using Ogg Vorbis. As Ogg Vorbis does not give them on any mp3 related issues.

38

I like them! Nice and minimalist. Thanks for the contribution!

39

Thanks guys. I like constructive criticism, but compliments sure feel nice once in a while. I will get them converted to ogg as soon as I can. Can we use ogg? Or do I have to use wav.

Thanks agian,
Lexen

40

Hi guys,

just a mockup made with Sequitur

http://xoomer.virgilio.it/mushaspot/pub/haiku-startup.mid