What are these IRIX desktop sounds?
This is the soundscheme I put together for the Indigo Magic Desktop
in IRIX 5.3 (and it has survived largely intact through IRIX 6.5).
These sounds play when you use the mouse pointer to do operations on
icons such as moving an icon, dropping an icon on the dumpster, and
double-clicking to start an application.
I worked with Roger Powell (former member of the band Utopia) and
contractor Jeff Essex to specify a desired soundscheme. Using our
descriptions, Jeff created a pool of about 60 individual sounds. Then
I selected from that set the sounds shown below, thereby creating a
soundscheme. The scheme follows a generally percussive motif,
including toms, triangle, cymbal, and woodblock samples and
synthesized sounds. Using soundeditor I truncated and
adjusted the amplitudes so the sounds are perceived to have about the
same loudness.
You may notice that the number of sounds in the scheme increased
from 12 sounds in IRIX 5.2, to 19 sounds in IRIX 5.3. That's because
in addition to replacing existing sound files, I added code to the
desktop libraries to play sounds that did not exist before, such as
Remove, RemoveToDumpster, PutAway (obsolete in IRIX 6.3 and 6.4), and
OpenFolder.
The smaller files are in AIFC format; the rest are in AIFF. Most
sounds play for less than one second. The DeskSwitch and DropIgnore
sounds were never actually implemented in the desktop.
How can I use these sounds in my own Web page?
I like these sounds, and I like it when other people do too, but I
don't want anyone to get into copyright trouble. So please be sure to
cite this page if you want to use these sounds on your Web page or
elsewhere.
For a Web page, I suggest adding a footnote like this:
IRIX desktop sounds courtesy the SGI desktop.
(Do View Document Source to get the HTML for this footnote.)
If you're using these sounds on your personal computer, I think
that's cool. That is, I don't think SGI lawyers will come after you,
but I'd be jazzed if you let your friends know where you got the
sounds when they compliment you (grin).
How can I change the sounds on my IRIX workstation?
As of IRIX 6.5, you don't need root access to modify sounds
on your SGI workstation, and users can modify sounds just for their
own account instead of the whole system. Here's how to do it (from
the IRIX 6.5 desktop_eoe release notes, Appendix A):
- In the home directory, create a new directory to hold custom
sounds. Rename it as
sound if desired.
- Place new soundfiles into the sound directory. They need to be in
AIFF-C format, recorded at 44.1kHz sampling rate, about 0.3 seconds in
duration, and neither too loud nor too soft. See the
soundeditor man page for help editing soundfiles.
- Open the
/usr/share/data/sounds/soundscheme/schemes
directory. Copy the defaultScheme.ss file to the user's
sound directory. Rename the copy to my.ss if desired.
- Edit the
my.ss file. Refer to the
!-denoted descriptions to decide which sounds to change.
To change a sound, replace the soundfile value with the name of a new
soundfile of the user's choice. If changing only a few sounds, delete
the rest of the file and delete the corresponding sound labels from
the *soundPalette list at the top of the file.
Here is an example my.ss file that modifies just the
Warning sound, which plays when any new file is created on the desktop
or in a dirview:
*soundPalette: Warning
*Warning.soundfile: /usr/people/me/sound/jazz_trumpet.aifc
*Warning.label: Warning
- In a Unix shell, kill SoundScheme with the
killall
soundscheme command. Restart SoundScheme with the
soundscheme -aux $HOME/sound/my.ss & command. This will
cause SoundScheme to read the defaultScheme.ss file then
load my.ss.
After the above procedure, the IRIX Interactive Desktop should use
a combination of system default sounds (for any sounds not defined in
my.ss) and the user's new sounds. If the user's new
sounds do not play, then the user should inspect my.ss
for typos and verify that the new soundfile is in AIFF-C format
sampled at 44.1kHz.
The new sounds will remain in effect only until the user logs out.
To keep the sounds across logins, the user needs to create or edit a
$HOME/.xsession file as follows:
With the .xsession modifications, the user's custom
sounds will be restored each time the user logs in. If the user's new
sounds do not play, then there may be a typo in the
.xsession file that the user should fix.
Caution: Changes to the .xsession file should be made
with care, as errors can prevent the user from logging in at the
console. When the user logs in, .xsession will run
instead of the system default /var/X11/xdm/Xsession.dt
script. It's up to users to remember that they have a
.xsession file.
Tips: To avoid having to wait for sounds to play out when
you use the desktop, keep your sounds short (a fraction of a second).
To avoid giving yourself a heart attack when you use the desktop, use
soundeditor to adjust the sound levels relative to each
other so they all seem about the same loudness, and (if needed) fade
the volume in at the beginning and out at the end of each sound to
avoid abrupt pops or transitions.
If you come up with an exciting new soundscheme, I'd love to hear
it! Please email me if you are willing to share. I will not use your
sounds in the IRIX desktop unless you give permission, of course. If
it's a really cool scheme that you'd like us to use, the desktop group
may be able to arrange some kind of compensation. Thank you for your
interest!
