Hitman
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Ten years ago, Microsoft spent $300m launching Windows 95 (just under $3 per copy sold). A tiny slice of that money went to Brian Eno, who recorded the startup sound on a handful of ageing synths in his studio.
>>There are various different versions of 'The Microsoft Sound'. I'm pretty sure that this is the one (it sounds Eno-ish with delayed pianos). Please [url=mailto:musicthing.tips@gmail.com]tell me[/url] if I'm wrong.
>> Brian Eno is proper arty. He once urinated in Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain'.
>> Brian Eno has produced six U2 albums, which have sold 70 million copies worldwide. Windows 95 sold 110 million copies in just two years.
>> Brian told XFM that he was paid $35,000 for the sound.
>> In 2001, MS-hater post-rock band Trans Am released Let's Take The Fresh Step Together [iTunes Link], which is the Microsoft Sound timestretched to 51 seconds.
>> Brian loves Yamaha FM synths. In 1995 he was using: Three DX7s, one TG77 and a Prophet VS, according to this Future Music interview.
>> The told the whole Windows 95 story in this 1996 interview with Joel Selvin: "The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I'd been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, 'Here's a specific problem -- solve it.'
>>"The thing from the agency said, 'We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah- blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional,' this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said 'and it must be 3 1/4 seconds long.'[He doesn't say how he persuaded them to eventually use a piece six seconds long]
>>"I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel.
>>"In fact, I made 84 pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I'd finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time."
This is just one part of Tom's awesome Tiny Music Makers series. Click to his site below to find out who made the 'Intel Inside' chimes, the THX Sound and the Mac startup sound. Plus there's still more to come. :o
"Tom's Music Thing is brought to you by Music Thing, the London-based website about music gadgets." |
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