SGI Desktop Sounds

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:

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:

• Open the /var/X11/xdm directory and copy the Xsession.dt file to the user's home directory, if one does not already exist. The copy must be renamed to .xsession before proceeding.

• Edit the .xsession file. Search for the section that's marked "BEGIN SOUNDSCHEME MODIFICATIONS." Change the line

    /usr/sbin/soundscheme >/dev/console 2>&1 &
  

  to the following:

    /usr/sbin/soundscheme -aux $HOME/sound/my.ss >/dev/console 2>&1 &
  

  Save the file, then log out and log back in.

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.