A Sound Mind

This is complicated, and probably isn’t all that interesting to most, but I’m still geeking out about it.

Some background: I’ve always been auditory-oriented. Sounds are more significant to me than images in most situations.

For example, to me, the startup sound for Windows 95 was one of the most glorious things ever created. Turns out, it took the author quite a bit of time to work that sound out, because it was so short and needed to convey so much.

I have perfect pitch. That talent doesn’t help me in daily life, but it does cause me some aggravation when listening to a symphony or other musical production if even one instrument is the slightest bit off. One time I impressed the entire church choir during practice by correctly identifying ten different random notes played on a pitch pipe from across the room.

And I love sound effects.

This probably started during the original “Scooby Doo” years, 1969 and 1970. There were some sound effects that were repeated many times (including this one particular laugh on the laugh track that sounds like a cat meowing – to me, anyway), such as the one they used to indicate the casting of a magic spell, or the one they used whenever a ghostly, glowing figure was seen.

Recently I’d come across some sites where old (and very much public domain, thank you) sounds and music archives were kept.

I found a set of files for “Spooky Sound Effects” and snagged them.

On one particular mp3, there was this:

I immediately recognized a portion of that as being one Hanna Barbera used quite a bit.

It was simple to take a portion of that sound and loop it to create this:

In my glee, I showed it to my wife, the one person in my life who may not share all my interests, but certainly shares some life experiences (such as Scooby Doo) and raves enthusiastically about any geeky thing I might present to her. She’s such a sweetie.

She knew that sound, being a devotee of the old school cartoon genre.

The surprise came when Michael suddenly got up.

“Oh! Where’s my game?” he asked, frantically searching for his Leapster. His mom and I looked at each other, puzzled.

He searched through the game cartridges, jammed one in place and turned the thing on.

“What are you doing? It’s time for bed, you don’t have time for that,” I said, annoyed.

He said nothing, but continued his work.

“Like this!” He said, and clicked on one character in his game.

The little game unit instantly played that same looped sound effect.

He knew exactly what I was talking about, and exactly where he’d heard it before.

“Michael! That’s it! That’s exactly the sound I meant!”

He beamed at me, proud of himself.

My little audiophile.

I gave him an extra fifteen minutes to stay up, just because I was proud.