There's nothing quite like a bit of soothing classical music to calm the nerves, empty your mind of worries and instead think about trees, valleys or phones, Finnish mobile phones in fact. This is Gran Vals by Francisco Tárrega but it's probably more recognisable to you as a rather well-knownringtone. Love it or hate it, variations of this original sample are still heard roughly a billion times around the world every single day. The point is sounds have a powerful effect on us and in an increasingly digital world we are relying on them more and more.
There is all of this utility that you have to consider take the simple functions on a smart phone. And you've got alarms, alerts, ringtones, typing sounds, you know, like go on and on.
That's sound designer Jim McKee. He counts the likes of Facebook and Apple amongst his clients.
You assume when you click a button it's gonna do what it's gonna do, but the fact is a lot of times you don't hit the button and if the sound wasn't there you wouldn't know that you missed the button. Case in point, when you go up to an ATM, if you're not getting the beep feedback from the ATM, did you really put your password in correctly? You need a sound there, want a sound there, so why not have it be part of the branding?
