Robert Fripp - Behind the scenes at Windows Vista recording session

The Discussion

• 

  *gasp*
  *choke*
  
  Fripp?! Robert Fripp!
  Man. Now I KNOW I'm buying Vista when it comes out.
  
  I don't know who's idea it was to get Fripp to do the sounds for Vista, but s/he is nothing less than a god. Please let whomever it is know they made my day.
  

• 

  Wow... Microsoft really has more money than sense... What a waste... I could compose the frigging Vista sounds, it would save a bundle and people would disable them just as quickly.
  
  Famous names are good for one thing -- Saying you have a famous name... Which costs you and me money but does little or nothing to add to the experience. And worse, famous people aren't always the most qualified to do the job at hand. It is always the people in the shadows that do the best work, it is the people in the spotlight that take the credit for it...
  
  Frankly and based in no small part on what was said in the video, you people spend WAY too much time thinking about such a absolutely minute and tiny detail that nobody REALLY cares about.
  
  You should have hired one of those cheap "cookie cutter" audio creation firms to do all the music/audio for Vista. You'd have no idea who wrote or performed it; but you would have high quality sound at a very low price (less than you paid Scoble to shoot this video).

• 

  I want these audio tracks, these loops as music files. It sounds very ambient, I like ambient music, kinda soothing.

• 

  You're probably just jealous that he's more famous and has accomplished a lot and people are prepared to pay him for that.
  
  But indeed, the sounds must be really good so they are not turned off. As long as they do not influence startup and logoff time and can be be set on a loudness level that is independent of whatever is the loudness level you used the last time Like turning on the pc at midnight while the girlfriend is sleeping, and not knowing she listened to loud music in the afternoon
  
  My 2cts

• 

  Ahh I wish I knew he was on campus... I'd have tried to sneak in the session
  
  -mano

• 

  I it very good to see that small details like the sounds will be much improved. Fripp is a master of ambient music. Where's Brian Eno?
  

• 

  << Where's Brian Eno? >>  Back in Win95.     

• 

  I like it! It has a great Sigur Ros-esque sound.

• 

  King Crimson's "In The Court of the Crimson King" is one of my favorite albums.
  
  Anyway, this could make some good background music to accompany the Windows Vista installer.

• 

  Wow! Over 500 Million people for the next 5 years....are going to have to listen to your music. Damn that's a real complement.
  
  Millions of people will hear the startup sound. Wow!
  
  I personally vote to have the guitar sound somewhere evident. Not just all of the lyrical sounds but also the distinct Guitar riff!!

• 

  aaronbrethorst wrote:

  I like it! It has a great Sigur Ros-esque sound.

  exactly what i was thinking. Mogwai too and ...... a few others.

• 

  Zeo wrote:

  Wow! Over 500 Million people for the next 5 years....are going to have to listen to your music. Damn that's a real complement.
  
  Millions of people will hear the startup sound. Wow!
  
  I personally vote to have the guitar sound somewhere evident. Not just all of the lyrical sounds but also the distinct Guitar riff!!

  and to you, you look like the "Sherminator" from American pie movies lol dye your hair red, and ur set.

• 

  Reminds me of some stuff Robert was doing MANY years ago (late 70's early 80's) when I was doing radio at WAIF.  He did a short tour of record stores, just him and two tape recorders.  He threaded a reel from one machine across it's heads onto the SECOND machine, across its heads and then on its take up reel.  The first machine was in record mode and the second in playback.  The distance between the machines controlled the delay time.  He played while a full reel of tape was recorded on one channel.  He then rewound the reel, and played back the recorded track while recording on the second channel (both on machine one) and the second machine was in playback mode as well still providing a delayed output, this time of BOTH tracks. The effect was mesmerizing to say the least.  If I remember correctly, as a third pass instead of rewinding the tape, he took the reel off machine two and flipped it over and put it on machine one and repeated the process.
  
  Gary Shell

• 

  Man i don't even know who that is!

• 

  @Manip: While I personally have most of the sounds turned off, I believe you slightly underestimate the importance of these things nowadays. Believe it or nor but we do live in a multi-media world whith tons of multi-media impressions been thrown at us every single day. Experience rules and it is mainly experience which drives consumer's buying decisions.
  
  Man, console times are over. Face it!
  
  (No offense ment here.)
  

• 

  It all sounds the same to me and not very unique IMO.

• 

  Slides19 wrote:

  It all sounds the same to me and not very unique IMO.

  
  
  ... which basically is the idea of a Theme isn't it: All sounds very similar with slight differences.
  
  What I specifically like about the video is that it reveals the many many many detail level tasks which belong to creating a new operating system experience (don't blame me for that expression please, but I like the tendency to talk about expression and experience as opposed to discussing low level tech details) and how many people are involved in various areas in creating this product.
  
  I am looking forward to the next Vista Preview containing the new sounds.
  
  And yes, the sound scapes do sound clear, confident, cool and... tada... blue and green!

• 

  Very cool.  The audio experience is important to me and I'm excited by what I hear.
  
  Glad to hear he's into composting too.    (Sorry, I couldn't resist!)

• 

  Great video, thanks guys; this stuff is really nice to see. Can't wait to hear the finished Vista sounds. Is Fripp working on all the vista sounds or just the startup/shutdown ones?
  
  

  Manip wrote:

  Famous names are good for one thing -- Saying you have a famous name

  
  
  99.9% of Vista users will have no idea who created the sounds they hear, so that is totally not the point.  Fripp isn't there because of his name, but because he has a proven talent in what he does. The proof is in the pudding, and Vista sounds like it is going to sound great already.
  
  

  Manip wrote:

  Frankly and based in no small part on what was said in the video, you people spend WAY too much time thinking about such a absolutely minute and tiny detail that nobody REALLY cares about.

  
  
  EVERYTHING is in the details, in terms of both engineering and experience. Try watching your favourite movie without a good score and dubbing, your experience of the film will be ruined. If you bought an expensive car and the doors clanked like a '79 truck you'd be mighty unhappy - however well it runs. It's a similar principal in Windows, only the sounds are something people will hear millions of times a day. Get it wrong and you soon have a lot of very annoyed users. People DO care about the quality of these things, but mostly they only care when the developers get it wrong. When they get it right, users may not notice why, but they will have a nice experience of the product.
  
  I like many of the XP sounds, but several of them are pretty annoying. I don't want to turn them off, I need them. I don't want to have to search for a sound theme, that's inconvenient. So I look forward to a higher quality sound theme in Vista.

• 

  Rake wrote:

  Man i don't even know who that is!

  
  
  gtho. haha just kidding. King Crimson is one of the most important progressive rock bands of all time. You should certainly check them out if you haven't before. Also, check out the wikipedia article on prog rock if you need some background info.
  
  As somebody mentioned before, "In The Court Of The Crimson King" is one of their finest albums. I highly reccomend it
  

• 

  That is just awesome! Great job, i would say.
  

• 

  At the begining of the  video listening to that soothing sound, it sounded similar to the beginning Michael Jackson's - I Just Can't Stop Loving You.

• 

  im very tired today, if i had to put up with that during my start up i think i might fall asleep - very unproductive. i will say that the guitar stuff sounds like the us star spangled banner, i.e. quite american.
  
  I only have one thing to input and that is when recieving an error and clicking it almost instantly, as one tends to do, have the error sfx fade out and not just end quickly, but you probrably already know that.

• 

  I'm certain that the crafty Steve Ball had quite a bit to do with pulling Robert into this project.  Congratulations!  I like the idea--just like Eno's famous Win95 startup sound--of soothing sound bits instead of error messages that add to the heart attack that's already in progress.    I always turn off the sound schemes in 9x, 2K and XP, but this might make me reconsider if/when I get Vista.
  
  Now, can we assume this work will be for the default scheme, or one of many schemes we can change to from the default?

• 

  So, Vista's just going to have an endless New Wave loop in the background instead of actual sounds?

• 

  PaintedBlue wrote:

  King Crimson's "In The Court of the Crimson King" is one of my favorite albums.

  
  
  RF/KC is good stuff, although I'm more into Peter Hammill and Van Der Graaf Generator. 'Pawn Hearts' and 'Godbluff' are amazing, if you're into that stuff. Robert Fripp played on ' Pawn Hearts' and probably some other PH/VDGG stuff. They were musical friends of sorts.
  

• 

  It sounds good, im using Vista like sounds packet since long time. Im wondered how the final Sounds will sound like
  

• 

  Being a guitar and music geek this has to be my favorite video I've ever seen on Channel 9. I own almost all of the King Crimson studio recordings and many of Fripps solo recordings. People that aren't Fripp fans probably won't understand the importance of this video. Fripp is probably the most sensitive rock musician when it comes to photography of any kind. Fripp and Crimson have the strictest anti-photogrpahy policy of any rock band and normally Fripp performs in shadows.
  
  Fripp is probably the most technologically advanced performing guitarist in the world. His guitar rig probably cost more than many people's homes. He has several $10,000 TC Electronic delay units. That's just *delay*. To get an idea you can check it out his rig from 1997 at guitargeek.com
  
  If anyone wants to buy any of his ambient style music or more heavy stuff from Crimson needs to check out dgmlive.com where you can buy recordings in MP3 and FLAC and listen to samples.
  

• 

  Oh the ickky ickky PAIN !!!
  
  That is FN Woeful.  I almost chopped my ears off.
  
  Very very bad

• 

  Why don't MS use some real musicians that makes real music and not this new age crap. Let's get som beats going, drums etc.
  
  How about someone who has experience in making music for games?

• 

  kks wrote:

  Why don't MS use some real musicians that makes real music and not this new age crap. Let's get som beats going, drums etc.
  
  How about someone who has experience in making music for games?

  
  
  Because its not music it's just sound effects.

• 

  honestly i had no idea they put so much effort into the sounds, but it makes sense considering millions of users will hear them every day. i hate the xp startup sound so i hope they don't base it off that. i always replace it with the w2k startup sound which is my fav
  

• 

  Well it may have taken a few days, but this one made its way to SlashDot: http://slashdot.org/articles/06/01/06/0721209.shtml?tid=201&tid=141

• 

  Bark at the moon wrote:

  PaintedBlue wrote: King Crimson's "In The Court of the Crimson King" is one of my favorite albums.

  
  
  RF/KC is good stuff, although I'm more into Peter Hammill and Van Der Graaf Generator. 'Pawn Hearts' and 'Godbluff' are amazing, if you're into that stuff. Robert Fripp played on ' Pawn Hearts' and probably some other PH/VDGG stuff. They were musical friends of sorts.
  

  
  
  Fripp's played with so many people it's not even funny. He played with Bowie. He played with Blondie. Playing 6-degrees with Fripp is almost too easy.

• 

  Not only do I only use 100 percent pirated copies of Windows in massive OS rollouts, I also disable all sounds upon installation.  Eat it, Micro(I need to watch my language).
  
  
  Larry Osterman: Watch your language.

• 

  buggy123 wrote:

  Not only do I only use 100 percent pirated copies of Windows in massive OS rollouts, I also disable all sounds upon installation.  Eat it, Micro(I need to watch my language).
  
  
  Larry Osterman: Watch your language.

  
  
  Buggy, I'm not going to delete this post, but I have fixed the language.
  

• 

  buggy123 wrote:

  Not only do I only use 100 percent pirated copies of Windows in massive OS rollouts, I also disable all sounds upon installation.  Eat it, Micro(I need to watch my language).
  
  
  Larry Osterman: Watch your language.

  
  
  If you don't want to listen to the Windows sounds, that's your choice, whatever.  Other people use the audio feedback provided by Windows.  To each his own.
  
  But you might concider not using pirated versions of Windows.  You wouldn't steal from the local grocery store, would you?  So why are you stealing from me?
  

• 

  Here's the link to the corresponding entry in the
  
  Robert Fripp Diary of October 21, 2005 .
  
  
  Patrick
  Québec City
  

• 

  Fripp is a fantastic musician, no question, but what does this news really mean? Vista will always crash with a good sound. Nothing more, nothing less. BTW: Did M$ work out already to play a sound while a blue screen appears?

• 

  Steve J. wrote:

  Fripp is a fantastic musician, no question, but what does this news really mean? Vista will always crash with a good sound. Nothing more, nothing less. BTW: Did M$ work out already to play a sound while a blue screen appears?

  
  
  Vista has been very stable thus far even in it's less-than-beta releases.

• 

  WOW! Does Windows ever suck!
  

• 

  I was lucky enough to see King Crimson perform Live at the Paramount in Seattle a few years ago when they opened for Tool.  I had never heard them before, but they were amazing. 

• 

  Hello. I don't normally post on channel 9, but I love it, I watch the videos often, and it's great. But today I have something bad to say. Something channel 9 won't like. And it is this: I hate Windows startup noises.
  
  Since Windows 3.1, every startup sound has conveyed an air of grandeur and self satisfaction that does not befit an operating system. Every sound has screamed at me 'hey, this is Windows, and boy howdy is it ever impressive'. I don't like that. Back when I was using win3.1, that 'tada' noise quickly got on my nerves. After I'd heard it for the tenth time in one day I got to thinking, "if you're so damn great that you have a fanfare on boot, how come I have to restart you so much?"
  
  That's a long time ago. Windows 95 brought us 'the Microsoft sound' instead, which was probably supposed to convey a 'vision', or 'evoke an emotional connection' or somesuch other nonsense. The fact is that it was an annoying sound that went on far too long, and once again made the OS seem overly self important. It says 'I am the best thing that will happen to you today'. Variations on this theme continue with each OS release.
  
  A startup sound serves a purpose. It indicates to the user that the boot process was successful, and that the OS is now ready for use. Some more flowery types might suggest that it also welcomes the user to the environment. Whatever floats your boat. I use my computer a lot, and having it welcome me every time I turn it on is akin to the staff at my local convenience store greeting me by screaming "WELCOME TO OUR AWESOME CONVENIENCE STORE!" every time I walk in.
  
  I respect the fact that Microsoft is putting a lot of thought into its startup noises, and the general OS 'experience'. I'm of the belief that if I come away from using an OS feeling that I've had an 'experience' it is a bad thing. An OS should not be an experience, nor should it evoke any real emotion. The application software is allowed to do that, but the OS should be unobtrusive.
  
  I realise Microsoft want people to like Windows Vista and recommend it to other people (marketing types would say Microsoft wants users to feel an emotional bond with Vista). Vista can best do that by not being noticed. Designers should remember that good design goes unnoticed, and bad design (i.e. confusing AutoPlay options in Windows XP) is never forgotten. The moment you irritate a user is the moment that you lose their respect. Users of software judge that software by how much trouble they've had with it, not by how many features it has, or by how nice it sounds.
  
  I don't much like Macs, but they've certainly got the startup noise right. Turn it on, it goes 'bong'. That says it all. 'Bong. Be with you shortly.' No fanfare, no faux emotions of joy and elation, just service with a smile. 'Bong' is a solid, reassuring noise. I actually had to make an effort to remember what sound a Mac makes when it starts up. That's the way things should be. Unobtrusive. The best film scores are the ones that go unnoticed by most people.
  
  In the video, the vision for Vista involves confidence. I'm wondering whether this means that Windows Vista will be confident, or whether Windows Vista will make its users confident. I certainly hope it's the latter.
  
  So here are my simple rules. I doubt Microsoft cares, I doubt anyone will follow them, but they go like so:
  
  1. Keep It Simple, Stupid.
  2. Startup/Shutdown noises no longer than two seconds.
  3. Event/informational noises no longer than one second.
  4. Reassure me as a user, convey a real message with a real purpose. Don't mess me about, don't try to connect with me at some deep emotive level, don't dress your messages in flowery spaced out twinkly noises and warm pads, give it to me straight. What are you saying?
  
  Sorry for the length. I just feel that in five years Windows will be released with an Official Soundtrack album written by a collaboration of U2, Pink Floyd and The Who, and we'll have a continuous background soundscape option to complement desktop wallpaper, and I'm thinking that Microsoft should concentrate more on making this a great OS, and less on the window dressing (if you'll pardon that awful pun).
  

• 

  Weevil, thanks for the thoughtful feedback. Remember that this is just a start up jingle that will last for maybe 2 seconds when all is said and done. You can eaisly disable it since the OS can be as unobtrusive as you want in terms of sounds and visual effects. We're not forcing start up sounds on you. We're trying to create a sonic representation of Vista. When you hear it, you'll relate the sound to Vista. That's all.
  
  On another note, it was great to meet Fripp and watch him create. He's one of the pioneers of electric guitar. Nobody sounds like Fripp. He's one of a kind.
  
  I can't wait to hear what the "Vista Sound" will end up being...
  
  Great work, Steve et al!
  
  C

• 

  Shades of first season start treck.  All I need is a couple of tricorders and I will transported out of here!

• 

  Each sound should end with Robert Fripp saying, "The sound you heard was caused by the following application..."
  
  Really, though, I like the sounds a lot and generally keep the defaults turned on, so I'm looking forward to hearing Vista when it's released.  The thing I dislike about Windows sounds, though, is the random beep from a window wayyyy underneath a stack of others.  It's a little late, but it'd be cool if the greater the window's Z value, the quieter the sound, and then what I desperately want is some kind of sound log so I can track down a particular sound made at a particular time to find out why the sound got triggered.

• 

  Horshu wrote:

  Each sound should end with Robert Fripp saying, "The sound you heard was caused by the following application..."
  
  Really, though, I like the sounds a lot and generally keep the defaults turned on, so I'm looking forward to hearing Vista when it's released.  The thing I dislike about Windows sounds, though, is the random beep from a window wayyyy underneath a stack of others.  It's a little late, but it'd be cool if the greater the window's Z value, the quieter the sound, and then what I desperately want is some kind of sound log so I can track down a particular sound made at a particular time to find out why the sound got triggered.

  
  
  So if random app A calls PlaySound("Alert") (which plays the users configured alert sound), Robert Fripp should somehow come to their home, and figure out that it was random app A that called it?
  
  System sounds are a smidge more complicated since they're a platform thingy.
  

• 

  whatever but this sucks    

• 

  You people comparing Mr. Fripp to Mogwai and Sigur Ros need to realize he's been playing stuff like this since before the people in those bands were even born. This guy hung out with Jimi Hendrix fer chrissakes.

• 

  Here come the slashdot trolls!
  

• 

  Be# wrote:

  Slides19 wrote: It all sounds the same to me and not very unique IMO.

  
  
  ... which basically is the idea of a Theme isn't it: All sounds very similar with slight differences.

  
  I meant that it sounded the same as the XP theme music in the XP tour.

• 

  Microsoft needs to provide "Windows Update" for sounds (and visual themes) rather than just offering them as pay-for "Plus" packs. The reason? No matter how good your musician is, ANY sound that's deployed on virtually every PC in the world and played over, and over, and over, and over again for the next five years (at least) is going to get sickeningly annoying. There are few sounds more annoying to me than that sickeningly happy sound of Windows booting up. Makes me want to chunder all over Bill Gates every time I hear someone in the office reboot.

• 

  I've always disable all sounds in Windows. Why? Because it's only fun the first time you hear the bloody sound. The worst of them all must be the start up noise !! *BAAANG BAAANG HERE WINDOWS STARTS UP BAAAANG WAKE UP THE NIEGHBOURHOOD*". Why does it have to be so loud? It should be "discreet" imo.
  
  Anyway, from what I heard in this videoclip, I didn't like this either. Sorry, it's just not my kind of tea. It's just plain too much "spacy" for my taste. And for Robert Fripp, I've never heard of him before, either. Not that any of you fanboys cares though
  
  
  

• 

  Slides19 wrote:

  Be# wrote: Slides19 wrote: It all sounds the same to me and not very unique IMO. ... which basically is the idea of a Theme isn't it: All sounds very similar with slight differences.

  
  I meant that it sounded the same as the XP theme music in the XP tour.

  
  
  I second that. Also, on my earlier quote: I didn't have it loud enough to hear the commentary. So that's just sort of a "sound cocoon" he has for his creativity? What a weirdo^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hn artist!

• 

  I would like this to be start up sound, Bill Gates voice saying "Hi, I'm Bill Gates, Chairman & Chief Software Architect of Microsoft Corporation".

• 

  LarryOsterman wrote:

  
  
  So if random app A calls PlaySound("Alert") (which plays the users configured alert sound), Robert Fripp should somehow come to their home, and figure out that it was random app A that called it?
  

  
  
  Evidentally, the "" didn't make it quite clear enough that I don't honestly expect Robert Fripp to audibly ID every sound in Windows when it plays, so imagine Robert Fripp also playing a Vista-like rimshot instead of the emoticon.  My point is that Windows does not do a good job at connecting the multitasking visual with the multitasking audio, which results in a confusing experience when the system starts chiming, etc.
  
  

• 

  Horshu wrote:

  LarryOsterman wrote: So if random app A calls PlaySound("Alert") (which plays the users configured alert sound), Robert Fripp should somehow come to their home, and figure out that it was random app A that called it?

  
  
  Evidentally, the "" didn't make it quite clear enough that I don't honestly expect Robert Fripp to audibly ID every sound in Windows when it plays, so imagine Robert Fripp also playing a Vista-like rimshot instead of the emoticon.  My point is that Windows does not do a good job at connecting the multitasking visual with the multitasking audio, which results in a confusing experience when the system starts chiming, etc.
  
  

  
  
  For Vista, the per-app audio will help this problem, but for system sounds (especially those that are tagged as system sounds), we explicitly eliminate the relationship between the app making the sound and the sound itself (nobody wants to know that taskeng.exe or explorer.exe is making a particular sound, that's not relevant to them).
  
  The problem is that the relationship between the .wav file being played and the event that generated the event, and the app which generated the event are all fuzzy.
  

• 

  I don't think it's that people necessarily care if taskman or explorer specifically triggered a sound, as for a user, the entire shell can be considered an app itself, really, regardless of which applet is currently in focus.  What I'm pointing out more is a general cause.  The sounds are by and large rather generic, so the ability to glean info from the sound outside of a generic emotion (alert, error, valium) is reduced;  I can, off the top of my head, think of only a few Windows sound "events": startup/shutdown, beep, and error.  And generally, those sounds are pretty obvious, as they have "context" implied in their sound; however, with a million different things than can cause "beep" or "error", and an average of 10 windows onscreen at any given time (a third of which can be OS windows), for something to beep or error is akin to a room of people chatting before a metting & one says "I have a question!" without raising a hand; with so much noise, who said that?  Was it a participant or a moderator or the janitor?  If I have the time and inclination, I can go into the event log and try to match the time with an event, but I currently have 5 log categories, and any connection I make between event and sound will be speculative at best because the event-sound event is not what is logged (if the event was event logged).
  Explorer *tries* to help by flashing taskbar items in <gag> orange during certain events, but it is extremely hit or miss in doing it in a consistent manner.  Basically, it's feedback with an often ambiguous cause.

• 

  They could re-animate Johann Sebastian Bach, but Vista will still be a one in a long line of crappy Microsoft products.
  
  All hail Bill Gates, the great visionary
  

• 

  LarryOsterman wrote:

  
  
  But you might concider not using pirated versions of Windows.  You wouldn't steal from the local grocery store, would you?  So why are you stealing from me?
  

  
  
  Larry, MS is not like a local grocery store! It's like the giant hypermarket that put all the local grocery stores in my neighbourhood out of business. And it wasn't because the hypermarket was competing fair. They got tax breaks and government support the small shops didn't.
  No law has a paragraph for stealing jobs, but it's damn worse
  than stealing a copy of windows!
  And for all the hype, they didn't create nearly as many jobs as they helped destroy.
  That put aside, nothing else like piracy helped to spread the Windows system in say, Eastern Europe. And the company knows it, as made evident by the policy of not prosecuting individual pirates.
  
  On another note, just to say something positive: I love King Crimson, Fripp's soundscapes are great when part of KC's songs, (not when played for hours solo), but 2 seconds will be awesome!

• 

  LOL!!! You know the OS is gonna be slow like old toffee, when the alert signals are made by the master of slowly looped ambient guitar. As the PC boots up, we can enjoy listening to his version of "God Save the Queen". Various alert sounds include "A Cathedral of Tears", "Evenings Star" and - naturally - "Let the Power Fall". Per

• 

  

• 

  After reading the 63 replies so far it does seem that people in general do not want any sound in their OS. I find this to be an odd position to take when sound is something that can enhance an OS greatly.
  
  When I click a button in an application or a link on a site, having a very short click sound helps me know the click worked. Without the sound you only know when the desired result of the click happens and many times I'll be rushing and click things, only to discover it was more of a click drag. There I sit waiting for something to happen and end up having to click again.
  
  Problems like this don't seem great on their own but when you marry a very well thought out sound scheme that is designed to aid usability, I don't see how a majority of users would want to turn all that off.
  
  I suspect this is more to do with past sound schemes colouring peoples judgements as I have to admit, the sound schemes Microsoft has put out in the past seem to be aimed at small children, with no real thought into the benefit sound can bring to usability.
  
  I created my own sound scheme that covers system events and all the applications I have that allow sound and everyone that has heard it has asked if they could have it too. For instance, when you plug in a USB device into one of my boxes, instead of the generic beep sound, you hear a female voice announce smoothly that "device connected" or when a burn completes, the same voice announces "burn successful" or unsucessful, whichever the case may be. A lot of the events are spoken because they are heard rarely, but the sounds you hear a lot, those are strictly effects, but well thought out too. Maximising for instance triggers a sound of a (admitedly heavily modified) electric car window hitting its close point. A soft leather clunk that conjures up the idea that something connected nicely. When you restore down the opposite kind of sound you would expect is triggered.
  
  All of the sounds are quiet so even at fairly high volume levels they are acceptable and at normal volume levels, I would say they really aid usability. A final example, a friend who was trying out the maximising stuff, kept on repeating this on windows, clunk, click which suggested it had given the function a more sticky feel. I got a real kick out of that.
  
  I've planned on releasing the sound scheme as a piece of freeware but so far haven't found anywhere to upload them without losing my bandwidth lol.
  
  I just hope that more thought goes into marrying the kind of sounds you think you should be hearing with events rather than something that sounded great as a clip in a studio, totally unrelated to the events.
  

• 

  theshadguy wrote:

  Rake wrote:Man i don't even know who that is!

  
  
  gtho. haha just kidding. King Crimson is one of the most important progressive rock bands of all time. You should certainly check them out if you haven't before. Also, check out the wikipedia article on prog rock if you need some background info.
  
  As somebody mentioned before, "In The Court Of The Crimson King" is one of their finest albums. I highly reccomend it
  

  
  
  I've never heard of King Crimson...  LOL.  Prolly sucks, but I'll give it a listen.  I just hope it's something that I can put up with for 5 years.  Should be.  I've never been irked at the win98 and win2k startup sounds.
  

• 

  If the names Robert Fripp and King Crimson are unfamiliar to you, it's too bad that you weren't around when the first 4 or 5 King Crimson albums were released. When I hear what's going on musically today, I thank God that I was growing up in the same era as Robert, et. al. - including Peter Hammill and all the others. To write off what's being heard here as new-agey is to miss the bigger picture. And it's a huge picture. A wonderful picture. Nonetheless - what the hell is Robert doing showing even nominal support of Microsoft? Seems to me this goes squarely against the grain. In 35 years of following his musical contributions, I've never seen any indication of him or those of his musical genre and ability follow the masses, much less support them. And if ever there was a mass on this planet, it's Microsoft users. It's downright scary. Fripp and his contemporaries' music has always been the creative result of showing no interest whatsoever in what everybody else is doing. And now Microsoft? Robert, what were you thinking? Life is filled with bitter ironies. What I've heard sounds nice, but what place does it have on a MS operating system? In the meantime, I'll continue enjoying what Fripp has done by pulling out my albums and putting them on the turntable. As for OS sounds - I'm perfectly fine with whatever sounds my computer makes - a Mac G5 running OS 10.4.3.

• 

  Steve J. wrote:

  Fripp is a fantastic musician, no question, but what does this news really mean? Vista will always crash with a good sound. Nothing more, nothing less. BTW: Did M$ work out already to play a sound while a blue screen appears?

  
  
  What OS are you running? Win 95 or 98? Man, I haven't had a Windows machine crash on me for years... perhaps back with Win 2000, and generally it was the video driver that cause the fault, not MS code.

• 

  Hope I get this right: This 6 hour recording will result in only one 4 second sample?

• 

  phm wrote:

  I've never seen any indication of him or those of his musical genre and ability follow the masses, much less support them. And if ever there was a mass on this planet, it's Microsoft users. It's downright scary. Fripp and his contemporaries' music has always been the creative result of showing no interest whatsoever in what everybody else is doing. And now Microsoft? Robert, what were you thinking? Life is filled with bitter ironies. What I've heard sounds nice, but what place does it have on a MS operating system?

  
  
  Excuse me but your statements are totally insane.
  It has nothing to do with the "masses".
  Brian Eno wrote those startup sound for Windows 95. Now Fripp made it for Vista. It's good. Steve Ball asked Fripp - i think it was his idea.
  You shouldn't mix up Microsoft, the company with the creative souls working there.
  
  This is an all-time mistake - everybody underestimates the programmers working at Microsoft. They are not worse than the ones working at Apple.
  

• 

  I thought I was at a hippie party from the 70's after watching this. "pass it over here dude", this guy must be some musician. It will be fascinating to hear those new startup chimes and seeing the Vista logo.

• 

  ZippyV wrote:

  Hope I get this right: This 6 hour recording will result in only one 4 second sample?

  
  
  Probably closer to 2 seconds.
  
  That's tremendously difficult to do. Talk about mapping each microsecond.
  
  So far, the recording does sound rather melancholy, but I think the sound will work out very well in the end. There are some excellent elements in there.
  

• 

  This is fantastic. I watched many of your videos, but it took something like this to get me registered. I absolutely love the idea of this green-blue theme jam session. / What I found to be distracting solely were some of the negative comments. If you don't like it, replace it or mute it. I currently have my XP soundscheme on silent, but the demo material presented on here is superb. / If only 2-3 seconds of all of the material will flow into the theme(s), the rest of the material should be released as well. As a full album, in the examples folder of WMP-11.

• 

  Fripp is a big-time Macintosh user....

• 

  thrang wrote:

  Fripp is a big-time Macintosh user....

  
  
  I'm sure his computer preferences didn't get in the way of god only knows how much MS paid him for a day's worth of work.
  

• 

  It sounds like the soundscape for Blade Runner, lol.
  
  Granted that it is hard to tell what the final samples will be like and difficult to determine the actual sounds because of the poor quality of the camera microphone.
  
  I just want some Star Trek Enterprise (like) sounds. Those were really cool and unobtrusive.
  
  And I agree, the sound of the Mac starting up is perfect in its length and simplicity. I would laugh at the Windows 2000 startup sound because it sounded just like snipet from a theme to a TV soap.
  
  While Fripp may be a very talented engineer and musician, he is under some very different contraints compared to creatively producing music. He is effectively a session musician in that studio and under "orders" to produce to specific expectations.
  
  All we can say is "we will see".
  
  I would say that he is also going to produce sounds for a Silver theme and probably the Black theme.
  
  Also, don't forget that we only heard 25 minutes of sound capture "while he was being interrupted". I would say that the end result will actually sound quite different, particularly due to the fact that we heard continuous "music" and not the extracted and isolated samples.
  
  RiddickRom, I like your idea. There are many sites that host files for free. I would really like to hear your sounds and possibly use them.
  

• 

  Manip wrote:

  And worse, famous people aren't always the most qualified to do the job at hand. It is always the people in the shadows that do the best work, it is the people in the spotlight that take the credit for it...
  
   

  If you've ever been to a Crimson show you'll know that Fripp is ALWAYS in the shadows, much as he is in this video.  So perhaps he is the best man for the job after all...
  

• 

  1. i guess asking fripp for doing the job was a bit like getting an elitist cherry-on-the-cake for a mass product. it's a bit snobby, no?
  2. can you absolve an off-mainstream artist of doing one of the most mainstream jobs thinkable, that may resolve all his worries about his old-age plans? i think: no.
  3. maybe fripp takes this as a chance to intrude the system. but i doubt 2 seconds can be very effective on that.
  4. i turned off the ms sound ever since i found out my wife gets to recognize every time i'm sitting here, right in front......
  5. i'm grateful for ms giving me a chance to meet so many interesting, pleasant people & get knowledge in such an easy way.
  6. but every look at a computer screen is a left out look at the real sky, a real tree, a real human face.
  7. well, sometimes it's a relief not to look into those acclaimed "real" things...
  
  thanks for this thread. getting to know about fripp's enterprise was a bit of a shot in the heart. he had been a hero of my youth. his work may stay unstained.
  
  sorry for being pathetic, old prog disease...

• 

  I get the feeling Vista's headed for a really "cold" feel, like from one of those dystopic sci-fi movies. Aero's nice but it feels cold too.
  
  This music makes me feel like I'm walking through puddles up in the mountains with thin air.

  Maybe especially because I'm in Vancouver. We don't get much sun here, particularly at this time of the year. There's gotta be something that makes it feel like there's some warmth. I'm sure you people down in Redmond know what I mean.

• 

  The German SPIEGEL ONLINE magazine just linked back to this video!
  
  

• 

  I just want some Star Trek Enterprise (like) sounds. Those were really cool and unobtrusive.
  
  

  Toast, I think I can arrange that.  Drop me an email at aliebsch-at-microlaw.com if you are interested.
  

• 

  I suggest Microsoft should've licensed the simple Southwest Airlines "Ding".
  
  When Vista starts up, it should go:
  
  "Ding!"
   
  And our minds will think..."You are now free to move about your computer"
  
  It's a simple sound that means SO much

• 

  I wonder what would happen if you played the Vista sound backwards.  We should ask Jeff Milner.
  
  Sleuths Seek Messages in Lyrical Backspin
  
  

  WSJ wrote:

  When Jeff Milner installed software on his Web site that could play digital songs in reverse, he tested it with a snippet of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven." The song, heard normally, refers to "a bustle in your hedgerow." Played backward, says Mr. Milner, the line sounds like: "Oh, here's to my sweet Satan."

  Today, Mr. Milner's Web site plays parts of songs from the Eagles, John Lennon, Britney Spears, Eminem and others -- both normally and in reverse. Mr. Milner, a Canadian college student majoring in new media, offers interpretations of the reverse-plays. A line in Ms. Spears's "Baby One More Time," played backward, becomes "Sleep with me, I'm not too young," Mr. Milner claims. What sounds like mumbling in Pink Floyd's "Empty Spaces," Mr. Milner says, becomes more intelligible in reverse: "Congratulations, you have just discovered the secret message."

• 

  are you sure you watched the same video i did? i got better sounds from the local orchestra here in Botosani, Romania. and don't wana acuse robert fripp of anything but come on... i don't think with this kind of sounds it will be anyone to let the SOUND BACKGROUND or SOUND TEXTURE enabled... i see there is more of a nostalgic feeling than a Clear, Conected and Confidend

• 

  Robert Fripp is not some pop star. Even back when he was with King Crimson, THEY weren't mainstream by any stretch of the imagination. Great players, absolutely. Innovators of sound, he absolutely is. (Name one top 10 hit King Crimson had on the pop chart) He was brought in as a session guy to create a signature sound that will hopefully become an un-intrusive, warm, inviting environment that all users, (Not gamers, Bubblegumers, Metalheads, Punkers, Country etc... exclusive) will be able to tolerate. Not a task for the weak of mind or amateurs who loop samples together and call themselves musicians. Fripp has endured 30 years in a career that is heartless and unforgiving. He is one of maybe 10 or 15 in the world that can be relied on to actually pay to do such a task and get the results that the employer is looking for. He is exactly what is needed for the task. A true artist at sound sculpturing. Fripps music is beyond classification. All you who think you have what it takes I am sure are welcome to contribute to the project... give it a shot. I am sure its a nice paying gig to apply for. 6 hours for a 3 second spot?.... you complainers obviously have never cut a track in your lives... try months for a hit single. (over, and over, and over again, till you can't stand the song one more time, then hear it another thousand times at slammin levels, just to make sure the song is hitting on all cylinders) 6 hours recording session, I would say maybe Fripp got his guitars in the right tuning that he's famous for... thats about it.

• 

  Fripp is very definitely NOT new age. 
  
  A very influential and cool musician who's played just about every type of music (except 12-bar blues) exceptionally well.
  
  
  

• 

  Fripp doing this is a big deal.  Big salute to Steve Ball.  Congrats Robert!
  
  If I may...
  
  This is not a performance per se, but more of a sound capture. 
  
  For those who don't know him, but may be interested in looking for samples of Robert's work, here is a small iceberg tip with a varied landscape.  Just one subjective opinion of course, but this covers a lot of ground.
  
  King Crimson: Discipline, Red, Power to Believe (or the box sets)
  League of Crafty Guitarists: Live in Europe
  David Bowie:  Scary Monsters
  Soundscapes series
  Fripp and Eno:  Essential
  Peter Gabriel 2
  League of Gentlemen: God Save the King
  
  
  One thing Robert is known for is his legendary "burning guitar" solos.  Some of them just grab you and throw you up against a wall. 
  
  His sister's recordings of his, ahem, audience chats on a soundscapes tour, called "Fripp Unplugged" are hilarious.
  
  Cheers.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• 

  Thanks for posting, Oskiano;  you forgot to mention Robert's groundbreaking work with:
  
  Talking Heads
  David Sylvian 
  The Roches
  Blondie
  The Orb
  John Paul Jones
  FSOL
  Joe Satriani
  Mike Keneally
  Guitar Craft
  
  not to mention his influence on thousands of guitarists, bands, musicians, and composers worldwide.   That said, supposed 'celebrity value' had no influence on the motivation to bring him in for this non-trivial process.
  
  Regarding this thread: some interesting and insightful comments here, all around.  It is perhaps healthy to observe the extreme, passionate, and often polarizing responses as the story of this process begins unfolding gently in the press and in hundreds of blogs.  FYI, this video barely scratches the surface of what is really going on with this process.  This long thread may be only the beginning of a polarizing debate, esp now that a vague but intriguing AP wire story is beginning to show up in mainstream press.  An AP story about the Ch9 video has (so far) been picked up and run verbatim by:
  
  Seattle Post Intelligencer
  InformationWeek
  Leading The Charge, Australia
  WebProNews, KY
  USA Today
  San Jose Mercury News
  BusinessWeek
  Forbes
  WJLA, DC
  The Ledger, FL
  TheNewsTribune WA
  CRN Australia, Australia
  iT News, Australia 
  
  Also interesting that about a week after quietly posting this brief video, 'Fripp+Vista' also allegedly brings back ~276,000 hits (of uncertain relevance) in a certain unnamed competitor's search engine. 
  
  Must be a slow news week? 
  
  Thanks everyone for taking the time to listen in and post your comments (all flavors!)  Stay tuned: there will likely be more videos regarding this process in future Ch9 postings.   
  -Steve
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  
   

• 

  oskiano wrote:

  For those who don't know him, but may be interested in looking for samples of Robert's work, here is a small iceberg tip with a varied landscape.  Just one subjective opinion of course, but this covers a lot of ground.
  
  King Crimson: Discipline, Red, Power to Believe (or the box sets)
  League of Crafty Guitarists: Live in Europe
  David Bowie:  Scary Monsters
  Soundscapes series
  Fripp and Eno:  Essential
  Peter Gabriel 2
  League of Gentlemen: God Save the King
  

  
  
  [plug]
  and on Van Der Graaf Generators 'Pawn Hearts', for crying out loud[/plug]
  
  
  
  And if you listen to Pawn Hearts, you know why they didn't ask Peter Hammill for Vista. You'd be either a bit depressed or immersed in philosophical thoughts about life's futility and one's inability to control any part of it

• 

  Allocated time from Robert Fripp: 2.5 Million
  
  Ship his rack-mounted computer gear: 10,000 British Pounds
  
  Create a quiet yet ambient setting, despite a camera in his face and blank-faced people standing about and staring at him: [unknown]
  
  Sit him in a squeaky chair to record the tracks for Vista: Priceless.
  
  Hopefully, he'll find a way to blend in the squeaks with the tracks. 
  

• 

  Eno did Win95? Really? No wonder I liked it.
  

• 

  What a treat to hear Fripp after all these years.  I pretty much gave up on him after the "new" (post-Belew,) Crimson a while back, but I love the ambient stuff.  I try not to be too nostalgic about music, but man, that stuff was nice to hear.
  
  As an old Crimson fan, suddenly I feel a lot better about Vista; illogical, I know, but there it is.
  
  My adamant request: a "hidden" Fripp album in the OS, so I can have that sweet ambient playing whenever I'm on the computer.
  

• 

  Oh dear. Although I have great respect for Mr Fripp I've heard the same stuff on relaxation tapes. Come on guys get a grip. It's a poor video -  why wasn't it "treated" before posting so I didn't have to mess up my settings just to see it?
  
  Someone said it all sounded the same but just slighly different and the reply was that's the idea of a theme. NO IT ISN'T! The idea of a theme is to be instantly recognisable and be able to associate it with the product/show. This sounds like a million other ambient sounds.
  
  Waste of money and time afaic.
  

• 

  is there going to be any alternatives? no offense but this isnt my style and i know if i get vista i probly will disable them. If your going to use music artists could we get a little KMFDM or if you want to stay more ambient VnV Nation?
  
  thanks even if you dont, good job anyways
  

• 

  I have always changed my own Windows default sounds to Fripp in the past so it is great to know that with Vista it won't be necessary!

• 

  Bark at the moon wrote:

  PaintedBlue wrote: King Crimson's "In The Court of the Crimson King" is one of my favorite albums.

  RF/KC is good stuff, although I'm more into Peter Hammill and Van Der Graaf Generator. 'Pawn Hearts' and 'Godbluff' are amazing, if you're into that stuff. Robert Fripp played on ' Pawn Hearts' and probably some other PH/VDGG stuff. They were musical friends of sorts.
  

  
  
  Fripp played also on VDGG's H to He album

• 

  i just hope it does a a good job... after all we are now talking about some details that will, eventualy, be disabled after aprox 20min after we start the windows vista instalation (maybe less, depending on the machine [6])...

  i don't see what's the big deal anyway...

• 

  I am sure your climate and surroundings affect the tone of your soundscapes as much as it affects your art or your film-making.  You wouldn't make a film with the desolate look of Babette's Feast if you were in Catalonia.
  
  My first thought was to wonder what would have happened if they gave the same brief to Eddie Van Halen, to get his warm brown sound...
  
  But maybe if Microsoft got Fripp to do the same session over again in a different warm location, with the sun blazing.  Maybe if he recorded these sounds in Tahiti it would have the same effect on him as it had on Gauguin and Matisse.  Then it would sound blue-green, not blue-grey.

• 

  The use of ascending combinations in D & E major and augmented chords with backing keyboards, the Fripp scheme makes great baby don’t cry nursery atmosphere. Plus it would root 0 to 2 year olds to develop life long appetite for Microsoft Products....  but Fripps scheme will get old after a week for most of us….  So here are the better suggestions for the masses….. Dear Microsoft,  The importance of sound schemes and VISTA’s value would increase if more energetic schemes featuring Eddie Van and Alex Van Halen were included.   Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page including Jon Bonham with a Thunder of Drums would be a remarkable scheme and make VISTA penetrate global software market like the Xbox 360 does now.  Even Cadillac marketers found out where the money and prestige is, but VISTA could take it to the next level. Microsoft you could build in some animated mouse over effects with the extroverted stage mannerisms of legendary guitarist Angus Young to definitely make Vista the most desirable for the mass market appeal.  If necessary, users could pay a small premium on that scheme to entice AC/DC cooperation for starters since Media Center edition is going to become rolled into VISTA it is a natural. Microsoft, let me suggest you take the following approach with AC/DC, you will have to tie this VISTA sound scheme effort as a tease for the AC/DC 2006/7 world tour and new release double album release they are recording with Mutt Lang in Vancouver.  But use a UK Microsoft marketing executive who lives a proper pub life over in North London to initially get this connected.   

  
  

• 

  Thanks  integrationarchitect (and others who have offered feedback) for some intriguing suggestions for (additional) musicians for Vista. 
  
  As you can all tell from the diverse responses and suggestions, whoever we select to create the default Vista sound schemes will likely have both intense fans who love the inbox Vista sound schemes and/or passionate critics who complain we're wasting time since they will turn off all of these uselss and annoying sounds before they even begin to play. 
  
  Our goal with this project is to enhance the aural experience for most OS users rather than add arbitrary, unnecessary, cartoony, celebrity, or novelty sound effects to Vista user experiences.  
  
  There are places in OS UX where sound provides is an essential function because it does not require attention from the users eyes; so those who decide to 'turn everything off' because they find OS sounds to be annoying, may be missing something.   And if you find the default sounds annoying, then perhaps I've missed my goal in this process; or perhaps we simply have different taste. 
  
  There are other OS events where sound can provide a gentle physical or emotional reinforcement to a graphical event that may or may not require immediate attention.   For example, most mice make a default clicking sound when you press the buttons - this intentional (physical) audio enhancement let's you know you've completed an action or made a decision; have you ever tried to use a mouse that did not make a clicking sound?   It's kind of a disturbing experience.  
  
  My own goal in this work is to provide a default Vista sound scheme that is just subtle enough that you would miss it if it were not there, but (like the physical mouse click) it should also be gentle, pleasant, and compelling enough that if you do notice it, it will invoke the emotional qualities we aspire to deliver with Vista experiences: clarity and confidence. 
  
  I read somewhere that some who saw this video interpreted these as 'buzzwords' or marketing-speak.   But for anyone who has ever designed a product, or done sound design, these are simply the apsirational principles we're using to define, refine, (and defend) our design decsions. 
  
  The good news: we've also made it really easy in our new Desktop Volume Control to mute all of the default Windows sounds in Vista if, for whatever reason, you don't wish to hear them.
  
  * * *

• 

  Squeeky chair was in the control room not the sound booth that the amps and speakers were being recorded from. I am doubting the squeeky chair noises made it thru the sound proofed studio walls. I am sure that the Microsoft developers aren't interested in having Eddie and his Brother give someone a heartattack when they click their mouse and trigger an error sound by accident.

• 

  You know the REAL irony here is both Fripp and Eno are well known Mac users! Eno even used a Mac to create the W95 startup sound! I doubt you'd get either one of these fine men to touch a PC running Windows! Fripp is THE greatest guitarist ... period!

• 

  -- I doubt you'd get either one of these fine men to touch a PC running Windows!  --
  
  Not true - Robert used Windows-based PCs through most of the nineties and into the early 2000's -- before that, he used DOS-based systems.    
  
  Also, Robert and David Singleton use SADiE (Windows-based audio mastering tool) for mixing/mastering every Fripp/Crimson release over the past (ten?) years.  My experience is that Robert is generally both technology and brand agnostic, but he makes decisions based upon the quality of his own 'user experience' and the quality of the people who introduce him to new technologies and products.
  
  Jenny Lam, Tjeerd Hoek and the MSX team presented Vista demos to Robert before this session, and his comments were both encouraging and positive.
  
  That said, I've seen almost every musician in the Crimson camp (and almost every other segment of the music industry) move to Powerbooks for their primary machines over the past few years.  
  
  For musical road warriors, I believe a combination of excellent out of box experience, ongoing perceived ease-of-use, peer pressure, and Windows virus nightmares pushed many former Windows users (back) to the Mac.     
  
  * * *
  
   
  
  
  
  

• 

  I can't think of a better person to encapsulate in sound both the great successes and inevitable failures of windows operations.
  
  Although I think it would be quite funny to have Robert record sounds for the entry points and flowing progress as someone else manages something more caustic for errors... If only Muslimgauze was still alive, or perhaps Aphex Twin or MBM.

  Not to say that Robert is unable to sound alarming in his own right. But if we are going to put together people who consider the physical and spiritual nature of sound as being important, I would think there would be some experiments worth trying.

• 

  Yggdrasil wrote:

  
  
  I don't know who's idea it was to get Fripp to do the sounds for Vista, but s/he is nothing less than a god. Please let whomever it is know they made my day.
  

  
  
  Maybe it was David LaValle's idea. He works for Microsoft now and I know he was on a Guitar Craft recently in southamerica and perhaps Fripp was there too. Oh well, I guess he is not the only crafty guitarrist in Redmond...
  
  Anyway, I agree this is brilliant! I still remember the first time I heard KC and was so amazed I had to call the radio station to find out who they were.

• 

  I can't wait to see what the final product sounds like!

• 

  integrationarchitect wrote:

  The use of ascending combinations in D & E major and augmented chords with backing keyboards, the Fripp scheme makes great baby don’t cry nursery atmosphere. Plus it would root 0 to 2 year olds to develop life long appetite for Microsoft Products....  but Fripps scheme will get old after a week for most of us….  So here are the better suggestions for the masses….. Dear Microsoft,  The importance of sound schemes and VISTA’s value would increase if more energetic schemes featuring Eddie Van and Alex Van Halen were included.   Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page including Jon Bonham with a Thunder of Drums would be a remarkable scheme and make VISTA penetrate global software market like the Xbox 360 does now.  Even Cadillac marketers found out where the money and prestige is, but VISTA could take it to the next level. Microsoft you could build in some animated mouse over effects with the extroverted stage mannerisms of legendary guitarist Angus Young to definitely make Vista the most desirable for the mass market appeal.  If necessary, users could pay a small premium on that scheme to entice AC/DC cooperation for starters since Media Center edition is going to become rolled into VISTA it is a natural. Microsoft, let me suggest you take the following approach with AC/DC, you will have to tie this VISTA sound scheme effort as a tease for the AC/DC 2006/7 world tour and new release double album release they are recording with Mutt Lang in Vancouver.  But use a UK Microsoft marketing executive who lives a proper pub life over in North London to initially get this connected.   

  
  

  
  
  Your sarcasm is both annoying and precocious.  Go choke on a banana.

• 

  tuningfork wrote:

  Oh dear. Although I have great respect for Mr Fripp I've heard the same stuff on relaxation tapes. Come on guys get a grip. It's a poor video -  why wasn't it "treated" before posting so I didn't have to mess up my settings just to see it?
  
  Someone said it all sounded the same but just slighly different and the reply was that's the idea of a theme. NO IT ISN'T! The idea of a theme is to be instantly recognisable and be able to associate it with the product/show. This sounds like a million other ambient sounds.
  
  Waste of money and time afaic.
  

  
  
  
  Interesting... your screenname would imply that you know something about sound, "tuningfork"...yet when you posted your comments, you just completely blew that theory out of the water.
  
  This is a behind-the-scenes look, as blatantly stated in the title.  Not a finished product.

• 

  Now all they need is an Greg Lake/Adrian Belew version of Microsoft Sam!

• 

  pirate_jonno wrote:

  Now all they need is an Greg Lake/Adrian Belew version of Microsoft Sam!

  
  
  In XP you get a generic robotic sounding voice but you can pay extra to get much better voices, I'm hoping that Vista just includes the more human sounding ones right out of the box.

• 

  who the hell is
  Robert Fripp?!?!?!?  
  
  and by the way, everything I've seen the vista demos has been done for years with Linux (KDE, Gnome, Xorg, etc) [6]
  
  

• 

  Would it be possible to make available some ambient loops of this, maybe with some other possible themes in there? The final sounds do sound cool, but some of that stuff in that video sounded awesome too!

• 

  on wrote:

  phm wrote:I've never seen any indication of him or those of his musical genre and ability follow the masses, much less support them. And if ever there was a mass on this planet, it's Microsoft users. It's downright scary. Fripp and his contemporaries' music has always been the creative result of showing no interest whatsoever in what everybody else is doing. And now Microsoft? Robert, what were you thinking? Life is filled with bitter ironies. What I've heard sounds nice, but what place does it have on a MS operating system?

  
  
  Excuse me but your statements are totally insane.
  It has nothing to do with the "masses".
  Brian Eno wrote those startup sound for Windows 95. Now Fripp made it for Vista. It's good. Steve Ball asked Fripp - i think it was his idea.
  You shouldn't mix up Microsoft, the company with the creative souls working there.
  
  This is an all-time mistake - everybody underestimates the programmers working at Microsoft. They are not worse than the ones working at Apple.
  

  
  
  I've seen people who haven't heard of King Crimson or Fripp, as well as people who never listened to albums beyond '79 or so. There's nothing wrong with it - just a bit of irony for what is missed. I've been into KC music for quite awhile now, in and out.
      I'd say it's a sign of the time that Balmer hired Fripp to record this. Fripp means timeless music - you were right he never pursued commercial success. But in the meantime he managed to achieve something out of the "mainstream range" of goals - a sound and music BOLD and BIG (quoting Steve Balmer's other words) capable of being soft, subtle, opaque, sublime and futuristic at once.
  
  You never listened to King Crimson beyond 70-es or 80-s?
  Absolutely get a chance to listen to "Power to Believe" album, Just buyt it - you will wish to keep it in your collection regardless of what your musical preferences are.
  check out the www.disciplineglobalmobile.com and download the available live recordings of Fripp.
  
  It's just the music of the times that are at hand.
  

• 

  mclement wrote:

  Ahh I wish I knew he was on campus... I'd have tried to sneak in the session
  
  -mano

  
  
  Me too!
  
  - Vente

• 

  ...

• 

  So whatever happened to this? The Vista sounds don't really seem to match anything in this session...
  

• 

  oh my god how breathtaking. I love this i wish it was a complete track on windows vista like a song by him or something that would be nice, or having it as a background for Windows Media center. it sounds like it would specifically flow with it. Or make it background noise with the Windows Logon. That would be very cool

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  Watching this man work is great. He seems quite nice and friendly here which is in complete contradiction to his public image.
  

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  Robert Fripp sings for Vista???? Can't really believe it, but glad to see him on real action. This might do some good to its career, and also to Vista users and fans. For me, this alliance awakens my interest in Vista, lost a time ago!

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  @Manip: thank you for the cheap cookie cutter opinion.

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  Unlocking!