[HN Gopher] How Brian Eno composed the Windows 95 startup sound ...
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       How Brian Eno composed the Windows 95 startup sound (1996)
        
       Author : davidbarker
       Score  : 52 points
       Date   : 2022-05-29 12:01 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.sfgate.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.sfgate.com)
        
       | Kwpolska wrote:
       | This is blogspam that largely quotes a 1996 article:
       | https://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Q-and-A-With-Brian-En...
       | 
       | They also called some random YouTube video "Brian Eno's remix".
        
         | aaron695 wrote:
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Ok, we've changed to that from
         | https://theindustryobserver.thebrag.com/the-odd-story-of-
         | how.... Thanks!
        
           | ninjanomnom wrote:
           | The year in the title should be changed to 1996 as well
        
       | abraae wrote:
       | Our EV (a Hyundai Ioniq 5) emits an artifical sound, presumably
       | to warn pedestrians, which I find interesting.
       | 
       | It's an attention grabbing electronic hum, swelling, but not
       | overtly threatening. Sounds something like a well tuned very
       | resonant transformer. It's also not too annoying to the car
       | owner. I'd love to know the backstory of how these sounds are
       | created and what sort of testing goes into it.
       | 
       | On the same note, the light saber noise from Star Wars was
       | allegedly inspired by an idle video projector.
       | 
       | "Immediately something went off in my mind and I had a feeling
       | for what they would sound like," Burtt said. "In the booth where
       | we projected the films, those projectors made a hum...the motors
       | would sit there with this magical, mysterious humming sound... I
       | thought 'that's probably what a lightsaber would sound like.'"
        
       | h-w wrote:
       | I always love Eno's description of the spec for this job:
       | 
       | "The thing from the agency said, 'We want a piece of music that
       | is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic,
       | futuristic, sentimental, emotional,' this whole list of
       | adjectives, and then at the bottom it said 'and it must be 3.25
       | seconds long.'"
        
       | isopede wrote:
       | Everything I know about Brian Eno has come from the New York
       | Times crossword.
        
       | ggm wrote:
       | And Wall-E wakes up to (basically) the same sound Apple promoted
       | in the quadra in 91
       | 
       | The stones got $3m for "start me up"
       | 
       | I do like Brian Eno, and I like how much thought he put into 3
       | seconds in everyone's life worldwide. Possibly the most played
       | tune worldwide? (or is that the Nokia ringtone?)
        
       | ghostly_s wrote:
       | Having been a Mac user in that era, this was actually totally
       | unfamiliar to me. I was expecting the very similar, but much
       | worse, XP startup chime.
       | 
       | I realize it's just a puffy little piece but I always get annoyed
       | when writers ignore or are simply unaware of Eno's early career
       | creating (excellent) work in shockingly conventional pop-song
       | formats.
        
       | candiddevmike wrote:
       | Brian Eno's ambient work is incredible. I grew up on An Ending
       | (Ascent) and the rest of Apollo thanks to 28 days later, and
       | still find it serene.
        
         | Romanulus wrote:
        
       | cpeterso wrote:
       | Here's the startup sound slowed down from 3.25 seconds to 4
       | minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnoX3E2WFcc
        
       | csnover wrote:
       | The podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz recently did an two-part series
       | on all of the Windows startup sounds, where they talk about the
       | Windows 95 sound, including interviews with some of the folks
       | that actually worked on them[0][1].
       | 
       | [0] https://www.20k.org/episodes/tadaitswindows
       | 
       | [1] https://www.20k.org/episodes/windowslogonwav
        
       | deputy wrote:
       | pvg marked 31548445 year.
       | 
       | pvg edited the year from 2021 to 1996
       | 
       | New title: How Brian Eno composed the Windows 95 startup sound
       | (1996).
        
       | layer8 wrote:
       | Windows should have had a booting track, like home computer games
       | had a loading track. E.g. https://youtu.be/iOHRVbWWfc4
        
         | bombcar wrote:
         | Some systems (game consoles?) the music/sound chip is entirely
         | a separate processor so you can load sound/midi into it at the
         | beginning to play during load.
        
         | turminal wrote:
         | It should have release songs, like openbsd
        
           | cpach wrote:
           | How about this: https://youtu.be/lAkuJXGldrM
        
           | ntoskrnl wrote:
           | Windows 95 did have a release song, in a way.
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtfBBNYdcPc
        
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