With every new version of Windows, we’ve come to expect a range of new sounds. The beta versions of Vista just used the existing Windows XP sounds, but Windows Vista is set to aurally excite us thanks to the hard work of Robert Fripp, and the lead of the Vista sound project, Steve Ball. So how does it sound?

When the news of Fripp’s involvement broke, a video clip at Microsoft’s Channel 9 developer blog showed the legendary musician in action recording all kinds of interesting sounds from his guitar.

Jim Allchin announced the new sounds to the world via the Windows Vista Team Blog, a site that’s been breaking all the Vista news recently, which is hardly surprising as it is the official Vista news source.

The sounds are quite new age-y, and are definitely much softer and smoother than the harsher sounds of previous Windows versions. If you leave your speakers on too loud, as can be the case, at least Vista’s sounds won’t blow your head off.

Most people seem to quite like the new sounds. There’s an excellent comparison between XP’s sounds and Vista’s sounds via this link.

Most sound like Vista-fied versions of the older XP sounds, but the new startup sound is meant to evoke the words ‘Win-dows Vis-ta’. Make up your own mind when you hear it.

At Jim Allchin’s blog, he tells us that the Vista Startup Sound is:

- is made of dual ascending ‘glassy’ melodies played on top of a gentle fading Fripp ‘AERO’ Soundscape

- has two parallel melodies played in an intentional “Win-dows Vis-ta” rhythm

- consists of 4 chords, one for each color in the Windows flag
- is approximately 4 seconds long, end-to-end

- and is a collaboration between contributors Robert Fripp (primary melody + Soundscape), Tucker Martine (rhythm) and Steve Ball (harmony and final orchestration)

Prolific blogger and ex-Microsoft Robert Scoble, on the other hand, says that he’s not impressed at all, especially with the inability of us users to change the startup sound to something we like, or to even have a choice of cool sounds. We’re just stuck with that sound, and Robert’s mightily peeved. He claims that a committee at Microsoft was responsible for these decisions.

For me, it’s no so big a deal, even though I do sort-of agree with Robert on this one.

To hear an interesting interview with Microsoft’s Steve Ball, the man who organised all of the work with Robert Fripp and other musicians on the new Vista sounds, you can listen to an interview from the U.S. ‘National Public Radio’ or NPR.

If you’re going to be a Vista user, check out the new sounds. You’ll be hearing them every day for the next few years!

And… that’s the end of my sound off. See you in the next article!

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