Day 8: Structure Exploration

Today’s UI sounds were all made using one short source sound combined with lots of echo effects. My intention was to explore a “Hit -> Ring out” kind of structure but in the process I also ended up stumbling across some unexpectedly long sounds with very cool harmonic effects. Happy accidents!

Day 7: Structure Exploration

Further adventures in longer sounds with an arc to them. I’m much happier with these than with yesterday’s sounds. I think the improvement comes from embracing musical elements more fully.

Day 6: Structure Exploration

For this week I’m going to explore some different structures and shapes for the UI sounds I’m making. What can I make when the constraint is not what source material I use but rather what shape the gesture takes? This first set is a few different explorations of longer sounds. Usually in UI sound design you want to get out of the way quickly, especially with sounds that the user is going to hear a lot. But there are always exceptions.

While I like this set of sounds, I don’t think they’re completely successful and I’m going to experiment with making another set of longer sounds tomorrow.

Day 5: Source Material Exploration

Building a simple chatbot UI system from an arpeggiated synth (Plugin Alliance’s excellent-sounding Knifonium emulation). I sometimes wonder whether harmonic or melodic gestures that “say something” to me will be interpreted the same way by another person. These sounds are meant to be functional, after all, so it would be problematic if a melody that sounds like “Hello” to me sounds like “Goodbye” to you.

Day 4: Source Material Exploration

More water sounds today. These ones are built from splatters and sprinkles. One nice thing about doing this challenge is that it helps me recognize my own habits and patterns. After finishing this set I realized how readily I make sounds with an A-B structure; an impact and a splatter, a ramp up into a ping, a rise and a fall. Maybe after this week of exploring different source materials, I can play with structure next week.

Day 3: Source Material Exploration

Sounds made from coins, zippers, and small metal objects. For all your steampunk MMORPG needs.

Day 2: Source Material Exploration

Sounds built from recordings of small toys and clockwork mechanisms. Probably my favorite sources to mess around with. The side benefit of using mechanical devices as your sources is that it helps create more inherently skeuomorphic sounds, if that’s what you’re going for, without straying into literal representation of the analog/irl version of a digital device.

Day 1: Source Material Exploration

Today’s sounds all came from just two source recordings of water dripping into a sink, stretched and shaped into something usable. I like giving myself constraints like this. It makes the process feel more like play than work. And, of course, deriving all your sounds from a common source naturally creates a sense of cohesion—each sound feels like part of the same family, sharing a common texture and tonal DNA.