{"id":6267,"date":"2014-07-16T00:01:55","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T07:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=6267"},"modified":"2014-07-12T13:11:16","modified_gmt":"2014-07-12T20:11:16","slug":"the-most-annoying-sound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=6267","title":{"rendered":"The Most Annoying Sound"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a computer nerd, I can be quite critical of the portrayal of electronics and technology in film and video. Still, I give most goofs a pass, just for the sake of drama. One thing I cannot forgive, however, is the mouse click sound effect.
\n
\nMouse clicks aren’t the most annoying technology-in-film sound.<\/p>\n

The most annoying sound made by a computer in a movie is the “sound” made when text is displayed on a screen. As any computer user knows, text is silent. It makes no noise.<\/p>\n

The noise harkens back to the teletype era, when computer output most definitely made a racket. But on a monitor, the text appears with nary a whisper. And it appears a lot faster.<\/p>\n

Once upon a time, I wrote a filter that displayed a bloopy<\/em> sound when text was displayed — just like in the movies. It was so annoying I turned it off and never used it again!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the most unforgivable sound as far as I’m concerned is the mouse click.<\/p>\n

When you hear a mouse click — especially in a TV ad — it doesn’t sound a darn thing like a real computer mouse. No, it sounds like a stapler, or someone pushing in on a tin of biscuits.<\/p>\n

Below is a sound file I stole from the Internet while doing a “Mouse Click Sound” search. It’s typical of the non-mouse-sounding audio you’ll find:<\/p>\n

Is that a mouse click or is someone turning off a lamp?<\/p>\n

Maybe the creative directors at the ad agencies want something more than the soft, delicate, real-life mouse click? They want a sound that’s affirmative and strong, something that absolutely doesn’t sound like a mouse click at all!<\/p>\n

I’m sitting here at my computer clicking the mouse and it sounds nothing like that audio clip. Even when I put my ear right up next to the mouse, all I hear is a teeny, plastic ticking sound. It’s a tiny snip<\/em>, and not the sound of industrial scissors slicing through sheet metal.<\/p>\n

Did the original Macintosh mouse have an obnoxious click? How about that Microsoft mouse? I seriously don’t remember hearing anything loud and clumsy. In fact, I remember how the early IBM PC keyboards made a racket. Keyboard manufacturers since then have worked diligently to create quiet keyboards.<\/p>\n

No, for the future, the mouse click in real life will always be a pleasant, nearly inaudible tick. But on TV and the movies, preserved for posterity, the mouse click will rival text on the screen for what I consider the most annoying sound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mouse click should be a delicate, affirmative, and subtle sound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6267"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6330,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267\/revisions\/6330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}