Back when Windows 95 was first released there was an optional add-on purchase called Microsoft Plus! This added in screen savers, wallpaper, some styling changes and of course, WAV sound effects.

Several of these sound effect packages are still available direct for download from Microsoft’s web site. You can get them from here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/135315

Scroll down slightly more than half way and download the files Jungle.exe, Musica.exe, Robotz.exe and Utopia.exe.

The way to install these sounds on Windows XP is to first create a blank folder, download the .exe file to there and run it. A command prompt window will appear. Press Y to extract the files. Afterward, right-click the .INF file and left click Install. This will install the WAV sound set as a selectable sound theme in Windows XP.

I haven’t tried this in Vista or 7 but I assume it would work the same way. Again I will say that I have not tried it in Vista or 7, so do so at your own risk.

And yes, I understand that this not all the sound sets from the Plus! pack. “Science”, “The ’60s”, “Golden Era” and a few others are missing. However it’s better than nothing.

For those that remember the classic MacOS sounds, don’t worry because you’re not left out.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19079

This includes all the sounds in both AIFF and WAV format, so they will play in Mac or Windows.

It includes all the ones you remember, such as Droplet, Indigo, Monkey, Quack, Sosumi and several others.

This is a plain ZIP file so you’ll have to manually place the sounds where they’re supposed to go. In Windows the folder for this is C:\WINDOWS\MEDIA.

Got a place for cool WAV sound effects?

Feel free to post a link or two below.

As you get older there are certain high frequencies you can no longer hear. One particular frequency is called a "Mosquito Tone", which is near or at 17.4 kHz. Most people over the age of 25 cannot hear this tone. I’m 34, and I can’t hear it.

A few years back a device called The Mosquito was introduced specifically to solve teen loitering problems in front of stores. It emitted the 17.4 kHz tone that could be heard from about 140 feet (43 meters) away, and sure enough it worked great.

The device was so successful it won a Nobel Prize.

I know what you’re thinking. "I want to hear this tone." No problem. You can download samples of the sounds here. Just scroll down and check it out for yourself. MP3 and WAV versions available. There are also other tones to test how much you can still hear. I suggest starting with the 8 kHz and go from there.

Remember: Keep the volume low when listening to these. These tones (even the 8 kHz one) will make you say, "WOW, that’s annoying.."

To those of the do-it-yourself vein that would like to make a "teen repellent" of your own, you could use the tone, burn it to a CD and play it using a portable "boom box" with the track repeated. However there are a few immediate problems.

First, anyone under 25 can hear it – including small children.

Second, if you have pets, it may drive them nuts. It may also drive other animals away.

Third, some adults over 25 can still hear the sound.

If you want to use it, do so with caution.

The "transmitted" sound is the human voice that sounds as if it were being broadcasted on an old radio. To this day, Hollywood still uses this trick in movies for phone conversations and anything else where the voice is supposed to sound "old", "old tech" or "distant" (like in war movies).

If you’re into making your own movies/skits/etc., this is a good trick to know during post production editing.

This effect is best heard by example. Here’s an audio excerpt from a recent video I did:

Original (MP3)

Modified (MP3)

This effect can be done in just about any audio editor (including Audacity) and is achieved by doing the following:

1. Increase db by 20 (Amplify).

This will purposely distort the audio and sound – by design – as if it’s being transmitted "too hot". Most broadcasts of old were really hot on the microphone which is why you do this.

Original audio looks like this:

Amplified audio looks like this:

And yes it’s very hot and distorted – on purpose.

2. Compress audio.

The compressor will keep the audio "hot" sounding, but bring the real db back down to a level where it won’t blow out your speakers (or anyone else’s).

Compressed audio looks like this (when run after amplification shown above):

Note how the "hot" audio is maintained but the true volume is leveled down so it doesn’t clip.

3. Convert down to 8kHz 8-bit, then back to 44.1kHz 16-bit.

The original recorded audio was in 44.1kHz 16-bit (CD quality). It was downsampled down to 8kHz 8-bit to chop off all treble for that older raspy sound, then upsampled back to 44.1kHz 16-bit.

In Adobe Audition 1.5 (my audio editor of choice), the downsample is done like this:

After I apply that, the upsample looks like this:

The end result is what you heard above from the examples.

To note, the modified version is supposed to purposely sound distorted and overdriven because that’s what old-tech radio/phone transmissions sound like for the most part.

Final tips:

You may only need to perform step 3 and skip 1 and 2. If it sounds good to your ear, go with it.

Purposely using a distortion filter usually doesn’t work. What you’ll get is the all the "hot" you want but it won’t sound natural.

Chopping off the high bands via EQ usually doesn’t work either. You won’t get that old-tech sound but rather just "mud" (i.e. sounds as if being spoken behind a wall).

Some people have noted that the voice quality in the videos I produce for PCMech and in personal music recordings I make that have sought-after "FM sound" to them, which loosely translates to "sounds like the dee jay I hear on FM radio".

If you’re the type that records audio and are looking for that particular sound, it’s actually much easier to achieve than most people realize.

It takes three steps.

First is how you model the sound of your own voice when you speak when recording it.

Do you use verbal fillers such as "um..", "ah…", "er…" or the like? Try not to use those. Don’t worry, a lot of people do and it’s a tough habit to break. You can kill most of the fillers by having a "cheat sheet" next to you when speaking. No, it doesn’t contain every word you’re going to say but just a topic list. When you have this list, verbal fillers will usually decrease noticeably.

There are other tricks you can use, such as saying more with each breath, purposely slowing down how fast you speak (but not by much) and trying find a nice happy medium between speaking and announcing.

Modeling your voice just in the way you speak will make a dramatic improvement in the overall recorded sound.

Second on the list is noise reduction.

On most voice recordings people get hiss (a.k.a. "white noise") and background noise they want out of there.

The easiest way to eliminate the unwanted noise is to use a mild noise reduction filter.

Audacity, a free audio recording program, has a such a filter as do most other programs that record audio. Even Camtasia Studio has one.

The reason you want to use a mild filter is because if you filter it too much it will literally cut out parts of your voice – and you don’t want that.

It takes a bit of experimentation to get the proper sound you want from a noise reduction filter.

Third on the list is compression.

Compression above all else is what most people think an "FM Radio" sound sounds like. And for those most part it’s true.

To note: Do not confuse this with file compression because that’s something totally different. What we’re talking about is using a compressor as an audio filter.

Audacity by the way also has compression filters in it.

In FM radio, music and voice are compressed with a live filter so that everything comes out at an even audio level thru your car speakers when you listen to it. Nothing is too loud or too soft. This is why a recorded piece of music sounds different on a home stereo played via CD (or computer) compared to a radio broadcast. It is the compression you’re hearing that makes it sound different.

When you examine an audio wave in an audio editor like Audacity, the original recording has peaks and valleys. When compressed, most of those peaks/valleys are "scrunched" so that it’s all evened out. Volume levels are even across the wave after the filter is applied for the most part.

Another example of compressed audio is a camcorder’s recording. All audio recorded with a camcorder is highly compressed with a live filter which is why it seemingly can "pick up everything". In reality it can’t. What it’s doing when recording is filtering on the fly so it can "hear" whatever is in range, near or far, and even it out appropriately.

If you’ve never experimented with noise reduction filters and compression, you ordinarily won’t get it right the first time. It takes practice to get the sound you want. But once you do you can repeat the process every time you make an audio recording for podcasting or music recording or whatever you do with recorded audio.

To note: I may do more detailed how-to’s on this later but would prefer if you would comment and say whether you would be interested or not. Any/all comments appreciated. I can get seriously detailed on this stuff.