How Brian Eno composed the Windows 95 startup sound (1996) | Hacker News Reader

How Brian Eno composed the Windows 95 startup sound (1996)

sfgate.com

208 pointsdavidbarker85 comments

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.’”

I personally feel that the word that most accurately describe the windows 95,98 and XP startup sounds is "cathartic". Specially the slowed down versions.

The closest way to describe my experience of hearing these startup music is like Tom Haverford from parks and rec saying,"A piece of art caused me to have an emotional reaction. Is that normal?"

By ‘slowed down’, do you mean this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnoX3E2WFcc ?

Sounds like the background music of early SimCity games, at least 3000 had something like this, thanks for sharing!

In case you're unfamiliar: it's a whole microgenre. However idk what to call it: afaik the more popular slowdown values are 400% and 800%, so ‘slowed down’ together with these can be used as keywords for searching.

E.g. https://youtube.com/watch?v=BFyeuLhjcPY

Slowing down music that was already downtempo gonna result in that ultra-ambient: https://youtube.com/watch?v=b3i06yw4A4E

‘PaulStretch’ software is often used for this, and its algo gives that ethereal quality.

Wait, he made 84 startup sounds? Are the others available?

One for each version 'till 95 ;)

I remember he used the pirated version of SoundForge, cracked by Radium if I am not mistaken. You can find Radium’s watermark embedded in the wave file

edit; not Radium, DeepzOne

https://forum-archive.magix.info/showmessage.asp?messageid=3...

Brian didnt use a PC though, so its possible it was someone downstream that used the cracked soundforge. That version of SoundForge was what I used in college very heavily. I should look at my old sample folder and see how many have the watermark...

IIRC Eno was really into the Yamaha DX7 FM synthesizer around the time he did the Windows 95 sound, it was almost certainly created using that hardware and then later someone mastered it to a wav file (perhaps using a pirated copy of soundforge).

For what it's worth, the DX7 isn't capable of producing most of the sounds heard in the Windows 95 sound. If it was used at all, it would be one out of several synthesizers.

No, he used SSEYO's Koan software

He was involved in creating that, but he definitely didn't use it for this 3-second piece. It's not suitable for micro-management at all.

I don't think WMPAUD1.WAV et al were composed by Brian Eno? They are from the Windows Media Player tour included in later Windows versions.

You mixed up Windows start up sound with Windows Media Player tour music.

Is your knowledge of Eno's workflow such that you can make this accusation with confidence? I see the demand for the work-product as such that I'm not sure if his output was a file, it may well have been 3.5 seconds of Ampex tape or some other medium.

Recent and related:

Once in a Lifetime - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31542502 - May 2022 (40 comments)

Edit: – well, why not:

Brian Eno‘s list of words that didn’t exist in 95 (scroll halfway) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26026726 - Feb 2021 (4 comments)

So you want to contact Brian Eno? (2000) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24718365 - Oct 2020 (78 comments)

Generative Music – Brian Eno (1996) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702201 - Oct 2020 (15 comments)

Free, Open Spaces: Brian Eno’s Favourite Records (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18289129 - Oct 2018 (35 comments)

Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's 'Oblique Strategies' (2014) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14917458 - Aug 2017 (5 comments)

How Brian Eno managed to urinate in Marcel Duchamp's “Fountain” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14708316 - July 2017 (27 comments)

Brian Eno: Composers as Gardeners - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14288339 - May 2017 (35 comments)

Brian Eno Plays the Universe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12050224 - July 2016 (8 comments)

Just A New Fractal Detail In The Big Picture (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12027055 - July 2016 (175 comments)

Brian Eno Examines the Ecology of Culture in John Peel Lecture [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10384526 - Oct 2015 (9 comments)

What Books Could Be Used to Rebuild Civilization? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9084466 - Feb 2015 (112 comments)

Oblique Strategies: Brian Eno’s Prompts for Overcoming Creative Block - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9017960 - Feb 2015 (13 comments)

Get creatively unstuck with Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies on a web app I built - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3637545 - Feb 2012 (1 comment)

Brian Eno: What is art? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1389872 - May 2010 (2 comments)

An audience with Brian Eno - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1073122 - Jan 2010 (8 comments)

Here's the startup sound slowed down from 3.25 seconds to 4 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnoX3E2WFcc

Oh wow. This moved me rather unexpectedly.

Somehow reminded me of Space Odyssey.

That is brilliant. Thank you for linking.

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.’”

I had seen an interesting video about this on YouTube lately but I can’t find the link… but searching yielded this which seems just as good: How Music Composers Are Replacing The Sound Of Engines In Cars https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W3JEvecS_fI

Maybe they can use the Logan's run solar car sound as a stand in for engine noise. Or grippier tires too but then that gets loud on the highway. Maybe a certain frequency would be noticeable (rumble) at low speeds but ultrasonic at high speeds?

A good video demonstrating the Hyundai’s sound for anyone else interested: https://youtu.be/xpvQ1Y27t70

I find this tone irritating. It sounds like the first part of an air raid siren. Puts me on edge. No thank you Hyundai.

I'd definetly not want to hear it all day long, but I find it OK if it's just passing.

The Toyota noise, however, I find very annoying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5z2RJDoGzk

It sounds like a Shepard tone https://youtu.be/BzNzgsAE4F0

It’s intended to get pedestrians’ attention. Sounds like it achieved its goal!

It should activate the brakes, not emit sounds to cause others to have to respond.

You don't understand - its not triggered by the presence of pedestrians. Its a constant noise the car makes while moving at low speed.

If there's many EVs in your town you probably will have been hearing these sounds out and about. They're not as intrusive as it seems from that video.

EU rules say that EVs have to make a noise when moving under 20kmh because they are so quiet (above that speed tyre noise comes into play so they are less quiet)

https://ec.europa.eu/growth/news/electric-and-hybrid-cars-ne...

People are already getting lazy and crossing streets only looking when they have already started to cross or sometimes not at all. Emitting no sound at all sounds like a terrible idea.

Not where I live, but then again, here we have lots of very quiet vehicles (bikes, e-bikes, s-pedelecs and e-scooters).

In a city like Amsterdam such an alarm would be going off all the time adding significantly to the noise pollution, one of the advantages of electric cars is that they are quiet and this to some extent negates that.

If you are worried enough about a pedestrian that you want to make a sound to alert them to your presence then between the emission of the sound, it traveling to the pedestrian and their reaction precious time is lost. That's why I think applying the brakes to the point where everybody is kept safe is a better strategy. It also takes care of the assumption that the pedestrian will respond to the sound, especially if such sounds are not standardized between brands (engines are all recognizable as engines).

It's not an alarm that goes off, it's a spaceshippy/whizz/ufo like sound. It's also not very loud.

That doesn't make any sense at all then. Cars should sound like cars if you want to elicit the kind of response that a car would get in traffic, and should - if you want to go this way anyway - be as loud as a car is so that people will accurate judge its distance.

It's higher in tone so it's easier to localize, and the unique sound draws more attention. Any time an electric car passed me by with the whizzing sound, it just sounded like it was at the correct volume level for the application. It's definitely more pleasing than good old diesel rumble or some hot shot with the popping exhaust.

I don't go around looking for cars I locate them by sound so having them entirely quiet would probably kill me in weeks.

Don't come to Amsterdam. The number of utterly silent and still quite heavy vehicles on the streets there is very large, you probably won't get across from central station to dam square without being hit. A 5 minute walk.

They shouldn't look when walking over a pedestrian crossing, it's the cars that need to be aware of people. Still, sound is a good idea. Teslas have one when they are on reverse too.

There's two pretty interesting podcast episodes about windows startup sounds at Twenty Thousand Hertz:

https://www.20k.org/episodes/tadaitswindows

https://www.20k.org/episodes/windowslogonwav

Also All Apple startup sounds. Really interesting how one could describe the two companies complete approach to design just from the startup sounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLEupC2OWUU

> Everybody thinks that when new technologies come along that they're transparent and you can just do your job well on it. But technologies always import a whole new set of values with them.

Eno was talking about the advent of sequencer software, but this holds true across so many disciplines that I’m surprised I don’t see this quote more often.

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.

The creative work of Brian Eno is simply some of my favorite stuff in the known universe.

Some examples of Eno's earlier work within 'pop' formats:

Roxy Music - Ladytron (hint, he's the one in leopard print blouse & gold gloves helming the spaceship console) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCzhAeukF1A

Solo - I'll Come Running https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFz50q_QmfE

David Bowie - Heroes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLp2cW7ICCU

801 - Tomorrow Never Knows https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkGXUn0Kuuw

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?)

> Possibly the most played tune worldwide?

Not even by a long shot - even among Microsoft startup sounds. In the grand scheme of things, Windows 95 was a significant but brief blip for less than 3 years when PCs were still a growing niche. Likely the Windows 98 and ME/2000 sounds played a lot more times given their longevity.

Given the longevity of the chord-sequence in its re-interpretations, I think the Mac startup sound has more legs on it, but we mac owners reboot less frequently than windows pC owners...

the ^G VT100 beep is probably it, for all the vi mashers who hit ESC to get back to command mode from insert mode.

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.

Did most of my coding projects in college while listening to Ambient 1 through 4. Fantastic albums for putting on in background!

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”.

Ok, we've changed to that from https://theindustryobserver.thebrag.com/the-odd-story-of-how.... Thanks!

The year in the title should be changed to 1996 as well

Thanks! Done now.

The podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz recently did a two-part series on all of the Windows startup sounds[0][1]. They interviewed some of the Microsoft employees who worked on the various sounds, and included archival tape of Eno being interviewed by the BBC about the Windows 95 sound. (It looks like the BBC interview may be the primary source for this SF Gate Q&A.)

[0] https://www.20k.org/episodes/tadaitswindows

[1] https://www.20k.org/episodes/windowslogonwav

The Windows 98 welcome music (not the startup sound) is also an amazing piece of music. Very underrated in all these nostalgia reminiscences:

https://youtu.be/mTf806u38Ng

Kinda miss when technology had music. Now its basically all stripped from modern systems. MacOS has a couple of clicks and pops left but its always such a jarring moment to here a lone sound effect when doing something. Even less serious tech like game consoles are stripping it out. The Switch has no menu music like the previous consoles had.

The Wii menu music may unironically be one of my favourite ambient music pieces of all time, if I actually think about it. So much character!

Did they ever release a full version of this?

I haven’t RTFA but I had though it was Robert Fripp that did the W95 startup sound?

Fripp did Vista...

Aha yes! Thank you

Windows should have had a booting track, like home computer games had a loading track. E.g. https://youtu.be/iOHRVbWWfc4

How about the Windows XP "OOBE" (out-of-box experience) music that plays during initial setup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNXzMBA9VU4

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.

Or much more recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ54X-xBKrY

It should have release songs, like openbsd

In Israel, Windows XP had a whole release musical, with original compositions, dancers, the whole she-bang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXmIigsP_Dk (sorry, Hebrew)

Windows 95 did have a release song, in a way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtfBBNYdcPc

It could also have been Weezer's "Buddy Holly" or Edie Brickell's "Good Times," both on the CD-ROM.

Weezer and Hover Tank, that brings back some memories…!

How about this: https://youtu.be/lAkuJXGldrM

Brian Eno message - Don't get a job

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-53tzx69fM

Tangential: The cookie accept dialog is the perfect dark pattern: none seem pre- selected, until you scroll down.

> The producers describe your appearance next weekend as multimedia, which is a great cliche. If you speak and hold up a picture, you're multimedia, aren't you?

Ah yeah, the 90s. We got our hypes of AI and blockchain and whatnot, they had their multimedia and hypermedia

Brian Eno is such a treasure. His fingerprints are on not just his own compositions but in his many collaborations, work as a producer, and also indirect influencer. It's so amazing that his life's work spans over 50 years and is still going.

I am still listening to that song in Windows 95 (OSR1/2) CD - Good Times - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqL1BLzn3qc

> My part of it is going to be a speech with a rather dramatic demonstration, which I can't give details of because it must remain a surprise. But I'm going to be talking about this idea of generative art.

I wonder what this was.

This was from an era when people actually shut down their PC.

What was the idea behind of using a sound? It would be nice to know how they reached that idea.

Ha, the podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz just did TWO whole episodes on this:

https://www.20k.org/episodes/tadaitswindows

https://www.20k.org/episodes/windowslogonwav

My guess would be to kinda mimic the Macintosh start-up sounds, though the Mac startup sounds would be heard when pressing the power button: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLEupC2OWUU

Did Apple started this idea of playing a sound on boot?

Would love to hear the sounds that didn't make it.

Everything I know about Brian Eno has come from the New York Times crossword.

Isn't the sound 7 seconds long though?

Brian Eno is responsible for Windows hold on earth! I wonder if he has bad conscience about this

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