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Desktop Sounds and Other Environmental Creativity

  
 
w1rebaby
11:36 / 29.10.02
Being an inveterate tweaker I want to change some of the sounds on my desktop around, but I've got a problem. I don't like "comedy" film and TV samples as alerts - computers should go "pling", "bleep" or "whoosh", rather than "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that" or "fucking Windows 98!". I need a theme, really... either that or some vaguely interesting non-vocal sounds.

I'm lacking inspiration. Tell me what sounds you use on your computer, or come up with some stupid ideas, or something.

I did think of ripping sounds off MAME games - it's pretty obvious, but old game sounds are very distinctive audicons. They had to do a lot with limited resources and couldn't really do speech, apart from "don't shoot food!"

Actually, now I come to think of it, do you have any interesting customisations on your desktop of any sort? (Please mention OS. I'm using XP at the moment but I'll be wanting to convert whatever I pick to Linux, probably KDE.)
 
 
pointless and uncalled for
11:40 / 29.10.02
Film and pop culture wavs are an absolute must. Recently a friends combination of critical application failure and computer shutdown resulted in a rather hilarious round of gunfire followed by clapping.

Other than that Simpsons cuts have always been a firm favourite and for the background then it really does have to be rotary porn.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:41 / 29.10.02
Blakes 7, obviously.

ORAC activation sound for turn on
ORAC deactivation sound for turn off
Zen alert for a message box opening
Teleport noise for navigation

And so on. All perfectly voiceless, and yet possessing the magic of radiophonics.

(And you could get some top samples - "Down and safe" for downloads, "We are going to do it here and we are going to do it now" for opening an applciation. "Careful with my wrist, Vila - it's had enough" for standby....)
 
 
Bear
11:44 / 29.10.02
I don't have themes at work but on my laptop I used to go for the movie themes but there are some really terrible ones out there, I remember downloading a godfather theme that started Windows with more or less the whole Godfather Theme, found a nice Akira one though and Ghost in Shell (which works well on a computer)

I'm addicted to desktop wallpaper though not sure why but I used to have hundreds at the moment its Evil Willow!
 
 
Linus Dunce
12:10 / 29.10.02
I have managed to incorporate at least two cliches into my Win98 desktop:

Startup: Homer (answering the phone I think as "Max Power") with, "Y'ellooo?"
Error: "D'oh!"
My Computer icon: HAL's eye.
IE icon text: "DO NOT USE" (After Bugbear because my housemates sometimes check their Hotmail and I can't be arsed to check/patch/upgrade).
Background colour: Purple (so I didn't have such a culture shock after using a G4 all day at work)
Menu bar auto-hidden, to save space on my tiny screen, at top so it doesn't pop up every time I go to click "Next" etc.
No wallpaper/screensaver 'cos it saps the old girl's will to live. She may be a hound but I love her. God, I seem to be writing in a Leslie Phillips stylee ... wait a minute ... Carry On soundbites ... could be a bit camp but ...
 
 
Hieronymus
12:26 / 29.10.02
Personally I like to put background wallpaper up from Endeffect.com or Looroll.com

I've got EndEffect's "Vapor" up on my desktop now because it looks snowy and flowery at the same time.

I'm a whore for abstract Photoshop stuff. When it's done well.
 
 
w1rebaby
12:37 / 29.10.02
I like that endeffect.com... I get quite a lot of similar stuff from deviantart and freshmeat.

I much prefer abstract wallpaper, can't stand actual pictures, apart from landscapes sometimes.
 
 
Saint Keggers
13:43 / 29.10.02
The only sound I have is my startup sound which is this sexy woice saying: "Yes, great one? How may this most helpfull servant assist you?"
Its uber cheesy. Everyother sound is off and my busy cursor is a rotating Jolt can.My background is currently Guiness glasses although I have a Jolt background, a wolf, my cat (in extreem closeup and photoshoped), a photo from Slastyanoff's series rubinesque and a screen full of split wood before we corded it last year.
 
 
deja_vroom
13:57 / 29.10.02
The best sound scheme I've used is an Alien theme (which curiously uses sounds ripped off from the Blade Runner movie - you can hear them in the scene where Deckard is using that scanner/video/printer to zoom in and out of the pictures he found in Leon's apartment).
Minimize, maximize, restore - all these actions trigger low, smooth sounds of clicks, blips, bzzts and hummings which are really nice and discret. But I wouldn't use all the sounds that you get in the pack. The "Windows start" is some speech from the android in the first Alien film. A tweaker like you won't find problems in adapting the scheme to your tastes.
This is a rather easy theme to find, but I don't have the time to search for it now. Hope this helps.
 
 
Bear
14:07 / 29.10.02
After this thread I looked into desktop themes on Windows 2000 and you can actually use them. Should have looked into this sooner realy, anyone any good theme sites then? One that doesn't start some version of Pop-up Hell?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
20:50 / 29.10.02
Unsurprisingly enough, my desktop's Bagpuss-themed (thanx to Barry Auckland for sorting that out... I have no idea how you actually go about doing this shit.)

It's very cool- you get "Bagpuss! The most magical... the most beautiful... the most important... saggy old cloth cat in the whole wide world" on booting... when you shut the fucker down, you get "Bagpuss gave a big yawn and settled down to sleep"... every time you change the size of a window the mice go "HEAVE!". And various other bits and pieces.

And Emily loves it.
 
 
w1rebaby
21:07 / 29.10.02
If I ever meet you, Stoatie, I confidently expect you to be striped and made of cloth, and obviously be asleep.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
21:08 / 29.10.02
It was Powerpuff Girls for a good while on my desktop (from here) before Cameron's site went live. I've still got PPG icons, but the wallpaper has been changed to his 'girl on moped' pic.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
21:15 / 29.10.02
That's XP Pro, by the way.

Don't know about 2000, bear, but ThemeXP is pretty good for XP stuff. They've even got a Pirate one on there now, just in time for this thread.
 
 
Trijhaos
22:12 / 29.10.02
I just have the standard XP background and sounds right now. I've never bothered to change the sounds since the only time I have my speakers on is when I'm listening to MP3s or playing a game. As for backgrounds I usually run a wallpaper changer program and load that down so that each time my computer is restarted the background changes.
 
 
grant
13:34 / 30.10.02
Something I've thought about doing but never done is record myself making the noises that Windows normally makes when doing things - the "shush... shush" of a window minimizing and maximizing, the "ding!" of an alert, the "squonk" of an error message.
At home, though, I kind of strip everything down so I have more room for sound files I actually use. It's a Compaq - I don't like to antagonize it. My one concession is a big wallpaper of a Japanese tsunami painting. I used to have a program that would randomize desktop themes (there were two Twin Peaks ones and a Pixies one) but it was an invitation to crash and freeze.
Oh, and if saying "squonk!" into a microphone seems a bit odd to you, search for sound effects wavs on the net. There are some great cartoon effects out there, cheesy sci-fi radio play effects, lots of blips and beeps.
 
 
doglikesparky
15:16 / 30.10.02
I don't have sounds on my machine because I like to play mp3's while I'm using my PC and the machine beeping and buzzing at me every time I do something gets in the way.

I love desktop wallpapers though so thanks to everyone for the links above...for the gamers amongst you try here.
 
 
fluid_state
04:17 / 31.10.02
I'd like to heartily recommend a bit of video-game piracy for desktop sounds: Alpha Centauri. These sounds were MADE to herald every operation of your PC. Everything from those interstitial min/max noises to voice commands. It sounds like a male Star-Trek computer voice, all smooth and reassuring, with poise and diction. And my ShutDown noise: "Please don't go... the drones NEED you. They look up to you." so they do, my friends, so they do.
 
 
Tezcatlipoca
05:42 / 31.10.02
My backdrop consists of one of these, changed to a new one every month or so to stave off boredom.

I'm not too sure, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that Windows, due to - gasp - poor programming, can run into some pretty nasty errors when having to play a shutdown sound. Something about it closing drivers, then having to reopen them for the sound then shutting down with them still open...
 
 
tom-karika nukes it from orbit
18:11 / 31.10.02
I think I have found the perfect PC startup sound, if nothing else.
It is a condensed version of the theme from Dr. Who, about 5 seconds long. It is ripped from an old BBC video game.
It's
here (321 kb wav file)
 
  
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