4 ms·

The Sound of Software

41 points by davidbarker 2y ago

ericyd 2y ago
As a musician, sometimes sound designer, and web developer, I find myself wondering which of these ideas could be migrated to web apps. I definitely agree with the article's premise that sound is often eschewed in software, and I think they make some nice counter-arguments to support more sound in software. However, sound on the web can add significant bandwidth to your app, and the fact that it's very uncommon makes me wonder how easy it would be to get users to be willing to interact with sound controls in a web app.
chaosprint 2y ago
for beginners I highly recomend this book: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262014410/designing-sound/ https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262014410/designing-sound/ and pure data is great software to get started
alwa 2y ago
I’m surprised at the suggestion to override the user’s choice to place the phone in silent mode. It sounds like they suggest exploiting features designed for apps providing media playback (or alarms?). When would it ever be appropriate to force your ambient sound design on a user who’s specifically switched sound off? Isn’t it partly this sort of excess that leads users to keep their phone on silent in the first place? I felt relieved at their claim that 50-60% of users keep their phone on silent. I’m only one of those users, but, designers, as a single point of anecdata: no matter how tasteful you believe your sound design is, treating my preference as a problem to be circumvented will absolutely anger and alienate me.
- eyelidlessness 2y ago
  It’s amusing that that section immediately precedes a section on giving users control. I have exercised that control with extreme prejudice. If you think your app should get special treatment contradicting that choice, I agree: your app will get specially deleted, with special haste, and will then retain a special place in my memory for being especially unwelcome on my device.
TacticalCoder 2y ago
Sound? Which sound? My main "workstation" has no sound. It physically cannot emit sound. And it can browse the Web just fine and allows me to work just fine. It is exceptionally rare that I need something in a Youtube vid and if I do, I turn subtitles on and watch at x2 speed: but that happens maybe once a month, maybe not even that. So, yup, don't count on me to write software that "emits sound". The nice thing is that because there are deaf people out there and because supporting handicapped people is a thing, the Web is guaranteed to continue working just fine without any sound. It's not that I don't like sound: on the contrary I'm listening to music all day long, on a very nice hifi setup. And I certainly don't want pesky sounds bothering my music listening experience.
socketcluster 2y ago
Recently, I added an AI-generated soundtrack to my open source project's home page https://socketcluster.io/ https://socketcluster.io/ While unconventional today, about a decade ago when Adobe Flash was still broadly supported, many Flash websites had soundtracks. I think part of the reason why regular HTML websites didn't have them was because it was difficult to implement and internet was much slower so they had to be streamed which added to the implementation complexity. Another reason was that web tech was evolving rapidly and conventions weren't established yet so everyone tried to use new features to differentiate their products and set the standard.
yummypaint 2y ago
Why is sound design almost always treated as a side-dish to visuals? How many aps are there that have an audio-only interface with visuals as an option? I can't think of any except assistants, but those are just trying to mimic conversation. We have the technical capability to render good 3d spatial audio on phones that could convey all kinds of information, but instead we just remake the same sound effects over and over. Where is the innovation?
rerdavies 2y ago
Reminds me of that awful phase of web evolution when you had to mute audio when browsing the web. Hopefully your apps grant users control to mute audio. Overriding muting of audio seems deeply shocking to me.

41 points by davidbarker 2y ago

As a musician, sometimes sound designer, and web developer, I find myself wondering which of these ideas could be migrated to web apps. I definitely agree with the article's premise that sound is often eschewed in software, and I think they make some nice counter-arguments to support more sound in software. However, sound on the web can add significant bandwidth to your app, and the fact that it's very uncommon makes me wonder how easy it would be to get users to be willing to interact with sound controls in a web app.

chaosprint 2y ago

for beginners I highly recomend this book: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262014410/designing-sound/ https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262014410/designing-sound/ and pure data is great software to get started

alwa 2y ago

I’m surprised at the suggestion to override the user’s choice to place the phone in silent mode. It sounds like they suggest exploiting features designed for apps providing media playback (or alarms?). When would it ever be appropriate to force your ambient sound design on a user who’s specifically switched sound off? Isn’t it partly this sort of excess that leads users to keep their phone on silent in the first place? I felt relieved at their claim that 50-60% of users keep their phone on silent. I’m only one of those users, but, designers, as a single point of anecdata: no matter how tasteful you believe your sound design is, treating my preference as a problem to be circumvented will absolutely anger and alienate me.

eyelidlessness 2y ago
It’s amusing that that section immediately precedes a section on giving users control. I have exercised that control with extreme prejudice. If you think your app should get special treatment contradicting that choice, I agree: your app will get specially deleted, with special haste, and will then retain a special place in my memory for being especially unwelcome on my device.

TacticalCoder 2y ago

Sound? Which sound? My main "workstation" has no sound. It physically cannot emit sound. And it can browse the Web just fine and allows me to work just fine. It is exceptionally rare that I need something in a Youtube vid and if I do, I turn subtitles on and watch at x2 speed: but that happens maybe once a month, maybe not even that. So, yup, don't count on me to write software that "emits sound". The nice thing is that because there are deaf people out there and because supporting handicapped people is a thing, the Web is guaranteed to continue working just fine without any sound. It's not that I don't like sound: on the contrary I'm listening to music all day long, on a very nice hifi setup. And I certainly don't want pesky sounds bothering my music listening experience.

socketcluster 2y ago

Recently, I added an AI-generated soundtrack to my open source project's home page https://socketcluster.io/ https://socketcluster.io/ While unconventional today, about a decade ago when Adobe Flash was still broadly supported, many Flash websites had soundtracks. I think part of the reason why regular HTML websites didn't have them was because it was difficult to implement and internet was much slower so they had to be streamed which added to the implementation complexity. Another reason was that web tech was evolving rapidly and conventions weren't established yet so everyone tried to use new features to differentiate their products and set the standard.

yummypaint 2y ago

Why is sound design almost always treated as a side-dish to visuals? How many aps are there that have an audio-only interface with visuals as an option? I can't think of any except assistants, but those are just trying to mimic conversation. We have the technical capability to render good 3d spatial audio on phones that could convey all kinds of information, but instead we just remake the same sound effects over and over. Where is the innovation?

rerdavies 2y ago

Reminds me of that awful phase of web evolution when you had to mute audio when browsing the web. Hopefully your apps grant users control to mute audio. Overriding muting of audio seems deeply shocking to me.