Alec Saunders notes that there’s not much of Robert Fripp inside the audio in Windows Vista (he was the guitarist who recorded the four notes that you’ll soon be sick of. They’ll probably be used in all the marketing and are the startup sound for Vista). I was there while he was recording this, and I TOTALLY agree. You should have heard the raw sounds while they were being recorded. He did THOUSANDS of iterations.

I wish Microsoft would have given me at least a few dozen to choose from for my own startup sound.

Instead we got the sound that won’t piss anyone off.

Sigh.

Where’s the rock guitar sound?

The edgy jazzy sound?

The weirdo techno sound?

If I were Steve Ball I’d come out with a free Vista addon that adds back some of the funky sound that the committee killed.

And, yes, a committee did kill this.

Here’s a test. Take a world famous guitarist. Have him record thousands of iterations of something. Now, give those sounds to 20 really freaking smart people. Watch what happens.

Music is personal.

By trying to make it please everyone they miss exactly what the user generated world is all about.

Piss me off, Microsoft, please! Get rid of your committees. Show some SOUL.

For Vienna BE TRANSPARENT during the choice of the sound and LET US CHOOSE OUR OWN FREAKING SOUND!

I LOVE “YourMinis” from Goowy. Watch today’s LunchMeet show with Irina and Eddie and meet Alex Bard, CEO of Goowy Media to see what is so cool. It’s only eight minutes long.

In the hallways people have been talking also about OmniDrive. Jeff Clavier said I had to try it, for instance. CEO Nik Cubrilovic is standing here and says his servers have been busy ever since they announced it this morning on their blog (you’ll need to visit there to get a download code).