Microsoft experimenting with sonic 'texture' ambiance for Vista
Redmond (WA) -
The video is described only as a "Windows Vista recording session," though a technician seen in the video explains how Microsoft is working toward a sort of sonic character and "background texture" for Vista’s Aero environment. While a startup sound is one of the team’s goals, many of the tracks they’re recording go on for several minutes, rather than the mere five seconds consumed by the team’s famous (or perhaps infamous) Windows 95 startup sound. Fripp’s session experiments with tonal qualities and chords played over an undulating five-note theme, described by the technician as the "Aero theme." The technician described this theme as "ascending, hopeful, positive, uplifting, analog sounds...timeless, while retaining a human quality." Like having a windchime sounding in the background, it’s conceivable that Microsoft’s goal is to use sound as a calming influence rather than just a notification system, for perhaps the first time in a commercial operating system. To avoid monotony, the chords change for what Fripp describes as a "color change." The team may be experimenting with enabling Vista to change chords when the operating system itself changes its "mood," perhaps when the user launches Internet Explorer or Office. But another technician involved with the project, who appears later in the video, described his mission as finding the perfect "five or six seconds" from a four-hour recording session, indicating that even at this end of the Microsoft campus, not every team leader is reading from the same page. The caption for the video, apparently written by noted Microsoft developer Robert Scoble, describes Fripp as "recording the various sounds we’ll all hear in Windows Vista." Fans of "Music from the Hearts of Space" will appreciate Microsoft’s efforts.
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