– Tanuka Roy
Without music life would be a mistake, said German philosopher and poet Friedrich Nietzsche. Most of us will agree. Among the myriad ways we experience the joy of music in our day-to-day lives, one is through the ringing and notification tones of our smartphones—something which we usually take for granted. The moment we get a new phone, we shuffle through the default tones—selecting some, rejecting the others. But have you ever thought about how these unique bits of music are created? Probably not. Even this writer had no clue till a visit to Samsung’s grand audio lab located on its Seoul campus. This is the place where all the ringtones and alerts for various Samsung devices, from smartphones to home appliances, are created by a talented team of sound designers. From several musical instruments such as a pianoforte and a drum set to a swanky recording room, Samsung’s very own music studio has it all.
You can gauge the amount of effort that goes into creating a single tone from the fact that the entire process may sometimes take up to a year. “The time taken to create a tone varies. At times, it has even taken us a year,” said Nam Myoung Woo, senior sound designer, Mobile Communications Business of Samsung Electronics. So, how do they go about it? “One very important aspect that has to be kept in mind is the universal language of sound. Regardless of age, gender or place, people should be able to connect with it,” Nam said. The sound lab also boasts of an anechoic chamber or the ‘room of silence’ which is used to test sounds and audio performances. Dubbed the quietest places on earth, anechoic chambers are specially designed rooms which absorb all sound and electromagnetic waves, making the room disturbingly silent.
Not just ringtones, but the sound engineers also work hard on many other sounds—such as the sounds used in refrigerators, air conditioners and more.
A lot of these tones are inspired from real-life sounds. “A lot of times we seek inspiration from the sounds we hear in real life,” said Nam. Giving an example, he said the sound you hear when you use your virtual card on Samsung Pay—the company’s digital wallet—is exactly like that of a real card being swiped. Similarly, the tone for the phone’s camera has been kept close to an actual camera-clicking sound. “Who knows in the future, the kids may not see a real camera, but we want to keep its legacy alive,” Nam explained. Samsung’s default ringing tone is called Over the Horizon. Over the years the melody has been remixed and rearranged for different devices. “Though we have reworked it to keep up with the changing times, we haven’t modified the base notes,” Nam said. For making tones that are both pleasing to the ears and also stand out, the South Korean conglomerate sometimes collaborates with artistes from across the world.
One fascinating example is the exclusive set of tones made available on its latest flagship device Galaxy Note 8. The peppy music used for the smartphone, inspired by its stylus called the S Pen, has been created by a young ‘pen-beater’, a world-class beatboxer and an acclaimed musician and producer. After watching the YouTube videos of 14-year-old Jinyoung Choi’s, who creates unique musical expressions by tapping pens on a desk or a table, the sound designers at Samsung invited Jinyoung. Jinyoung’s pen beats were combined with beatboxing by rapper 2Tak, supervised by musician-producer Tadashi Takatsuka, for a series of tones. Among the other artistes Samsung has worked with is London-based Grammy-winning singer-composer Jacob Collier. Collier has worked on this year’s rendition of Over the Horizon, using a string of musical instruments.
Much like creating music, a lot of hard work goes into the making of the jingles on your devices. Heard the popular water drop notification tone? You’ll be surprised to know it’s not the sound of a water droplet, but that a drop of mixture of orange juice and milk would make when it falls.
The writer was in Seoul on the invitation of Samsung