How do you use sound in SL?

[archangel969]

I recently saw a topic with a question about sound on this forum and that inspired me to ask: what is your favourite sound, on your land or parcel or in your home? Do you consciously use sounds and why?

For me, sound is an essential part of my existence in SL. I use sound very consciously for my land and its a part of the experience. For this, I use sounds that belong to an object, like a horse with sound, or sound files you buy on marketplaces with, for example, birds or the rustling of the wind in the trees. But I also make sound files myself. For example, I have the Holland Windmill house from BAZAR but that comes without sound which is strange to me, certainly when the sails are turming. Then I recorded the sound of turning sails of a mill in RL, made a nine-second sound file of it and play it in a loop on my land close to the mill.

I also adapt sounds. For instance, I have a very cute little dog, a Jack Russel, which is sold with a sound file that plays a barking sound incessantly. this is fun for a while, but soon it becomes irritating. And a quiet doggie frolicking around doesn't add up either. So now I don't use the actual sound of the dog but I recorded a barking dog myself and interspersed soundfiles of that bark with sound files of nine seconds of silence in a multi looped script so you only hear the dog barking occasionally.

How do YOU handle sound? Do you just turn off the sound and don't care or do you just find it irritating? Or does it really add something for you? What is your favourite sound? How do you use sound in your land/parcel? I am curious to hear your answers!

Edited November 5, 2022 by archangel969

[Leora Greenwood]

Before Bellisseria I used to rez some sound prims on my land all the time to provide atmosphere.  Surf or lapping water or coastal sounds at the property edges and I always had a birdhouse to rez with appropriate bird sounds to the area.

Now I mainly live in the newer themes of Belli and really enjoy the LL soundscapes.  The only time I ever blocked one was the traffic noises in the Newbrookes; took some work but I figured out how to find and block them and now I enjoy even the Newbrookes.

[archangel969]

41 minutes ago, Leora Greenwood said:

Before Bellisseria I used to rez some sound prims on my land all the time to provide atmosphere.  Surf or lapping water or coastal sounds at the property edges and I always had a birdhouse to rez with appropriate bird sounds to the area.

Now I mainly live in the newer themes of Belli and really enjoy the LL soundscapes.  The only time I ever blocked one was the traffic noises in the Newbrookes; took some work but I figured out how to find and block them and now I enjoy even the Newbrookes.

I block all sounds out of my parcels. But this is not because I don't like them, but because I have a specific theme and they don't fit in that theme.

[Modulated]

No sounds ever. Voice off. I like a quiet SL.

[archangel969]

I once suffered from noise pollution. It sounded like a jackhammer. As if construction workers were working. But I had just closed my parcel to noise from outside before that. How could that be? And where was it coming from? After a long search, I found the cause: the hairdryer on the dressing table was blaring. I had opened my land to the public and one of my visitors had left the hairdryer on after using it. What a bloody noise such a thing makes LOL.

[archangel969]

17 minutes ago, Modulated said:

No sounds ever. Voice off. I like a quiet SL.

 

[MoiraKathleen]

I like to have bird sounds around on my parcel.  I have a couple of objects (a birdhouse, a birdbath, and a static rabbit) which contain an assortment of various bird/nature sounds, plus I have some individual birds of different species that contain just one type of bird song which I put on in different parts of the parcel.  There is one sound in some of the "assorted nature sounds" objects which I do not like, so I've been able to modify the items script to exclude that sound.

I used to worry that I had gone a bit overboard with the birds, but then one day when I was sitting at my RL desk by the back patio doors which were open, I got confused for a minute by the bird sounds I was hearing. It must have been springtime or summer. I thought for a moment it was the bird sounds from my parcel, but I wasn't in SL - they were from the birds in our own RL backyard.

In Bellisseria if I have a home in one of the newer areas with atmospheric sounds I leave my sound settings so that I can hear those and I don't put out any of my own objects that make sounds.  Currently I have a Trad and those areas don't have atmospheric sounds, so I have my sounds limited just to my parcel there, as I do on my mainland parcel. 

I don't allow voice on any of my parcels. 

[archangel969]

2 hours ago, MoiraKathleen said:

I used to worry that I had gone a bit overboard with the birds, but then one day when I was sitting at my RL desk by the back patio doors which were open, I got confused for a minute by the bird sounds I was hearing. It must have been springtime or summer. I thought for a moment it was the bird sounds from my parcel, but I wasn't in SL - they were from the birds in our own RL backyard.

That has been my experience too! I also thought the bird sounds in SL were sometimes a bit too much. But they can be much louder in RL, especially in the breeding season. And one time I was in RL on vacation in South_Africa and was sitting in the garden of my hotel and there was a tree overpopulated with birds. Those birds were making a deafening noise. It was almost unbearable. Soo much for those sweet twinkling little birds.😂

[Eddy Vortex]

I mainly stream music to my parcel and have the ambient sounds turned down so they don't interfere with the music.

[archangel969]

3 hours ago, Eddy Vortex said:

I mainly stream music to my parcel and have the ambient sounds turned down so they don't interfere with the music.

I honestly haven't done anything at all with music on my land. Music can be very atmospheric and dominant, though. In RL, I do make mixtapes by theme, but you can't play them on SL. Are there any music stations you would recommend?

This is an axample of a mixtape I made in RL, it's made of music I found when I was going through all my arsenal of music, it's my account on my RL name Gaby  (Gabriël = archangel 🙂 ) den Held. It's Like going into the attic and looking at all the curiosities you have collected all these years:

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by archangel969

[animats]

I have a few objects with sounds. Two fountains have sounds; one near my cafe becomes quieter when someone is close, so you can talk. My weathervane follows SL wind, and there's a squeak when it moves. There are several different squeaks, chosen randomly, with the same one never chosen twice in succession. This is a trick from drum machines to avoid monotony. My escalators have the sound of a real escalator, recorded at Hillsdale Mall in San Mateo, CA. Pressing the emergency stop button will produce a pneumatic hiss and a screech of a brake as the escalator stops. It will restart in 30 seconds.

My motorcycle rezzer looks like a flat plate in the ground. When you click on it. a large diamond-plate box rises out of the ground, with heavy machinery noises. Hissing steam comes out to obscure what's going on. The box retracts back into the ground, and the steam dissipates, exposing the freshly rezzed motorcycle and giving the illusion that the motorcycle came from underground storage. If you click on the plate when there's something on top, such as a previously rezzed motorcycle, the cycle doesn't start. Instead, there's a brief but loud klaxon.

And there's the driveway bell hose, which produces authentic "Ding" sounds when a vehicle runs over it. For gas stations and such.

In each case, there's a reason for the sound, and it's coordinated with something happening visually. This adds to realism without being annoying.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 hours ago, animats said:

There are several different squeaks, chosen randomly, with the same one never chosen twice in succession.

Beds should have squeaks!

[Eddy Vortex]

6 hours ago, archangel969 said:

I honestly haven't done anything at all with music on my land. Music can be very atmospheric and dominant, though. In RL, I do make mixtapes by theme, but you can't play them on SL. Are there any music stations you would recommend?

This is an axample of a mixtape I made in RL, it's made of music I found when I was going through all my arsenal of music, it's my account on my RL name Gaby  (Gabriël = archangel 🙂 ) den Held. It's Like going into the attic and looking at all the curiosities you have collected all these years:

 

 

I took a script from here and put it along with a notecard in a prim to turn it into a working radio. I can send you the script & notecard of stations inworld.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Eddy Vortex

[Eddy Vortex]

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Edited November 6, 2022 by Eddy Vortex
double post

[SarahThe Wanderer]

Sounds is very essintial to me as well, it's always ON, and one of the most important thing for me to add to my places, depends on the theme, ambient sounds can form the whole atmosphere, it's little detail, but has a huge imapct for the expeince!

This is one of my skyboxes, i made a small background city for the view, it's raining but it's not showing in the the picture, and of course you can't here the sounds, but i added rain sound with distant thunderstom, with ambient sound that you can here in sci fi movies i don't what to call it or how to discribe it, and a far away sound as well that gives the illusion that is coming from that city it's an announcer sound like the one you hear in movies like blade runner, i hope i explained that right, my english is not helping me today 🙃

 that's was an example for how far i go with  sounds and the volum and the location of these sounds is very imprtant, there has to be a blance between them all, so it's doesn't become a bunch of noisy sounds playing at the same time!

Edited November 6, 2022 by SarahThe Wanderer

[archangel969]

3 hours ago, Eddy Vortex said:

 

I took a script from here and put it along with a notecard in a prim to turn it into a working radio. I can send you the script & notecard of stations inworld.

That would be very sweet! I love fiddling with scripts and sound to make my land's experience better and better. I just wonder if music adds anything, it has to fit the atmosphere very much. And it's not only for me, it's open to visitors. I have experienced several times when travelling in SL that I got visually totally into the mood of a particular sim but the music took me away from it because I felt it didn't fit the theme of that particular sim. Then I turned off the sound. It's a pity you can't add your own music compilation though, I made mixtapes for my land with music and poetry, but you can't play them inworld.

[archangel969]

38 minutes ago, SarahThe Wanderer said:

Sounds is very essintial to me as well, it's always ON, and one of the most important thing for me to add to my places, depends on the theme, ambient sounds can form the whole atmosphere, it's little detail, but has a huge imapct for the expeince!

This is one of my skyboxes, i made a small background city for the view, it's raining but it's not showing in the the picture, and of course you can't here the sounds, but i added rain sound with distant thunderstom, with ambient sound that you can here in sci fi movies i don't what to call it or how to discribe it, and a far away sound as well that gives the illusion that is coming from that city it's an announcer sound like the one you hear in movies like blade runner, i hope i explained that right, my english is not helping me today 🙃

 that's was an example for how far i go with  sounds and the volum and the location of these sounds is very imprtant, there has to be a blance between them all, so it's doesn't become a bunch of noisy sounds playing at the same time!

Oh yes, this really is one of those views in a mega city and then fururistically so. Rain always works well for views like this too. A futuristic city sound with rain definitely adds to this! Great to read that other residents are also experimenting with sound so carefully!

[archangel969]

50 minutes ago, SarahThe Wanderer said:

 i hope i explained that right, my english is not helping me today 🙃

Oh, I read a while ago a post from my fellow countryman in RL, Sid Nagy that google translate USED to be his best friend, but for me it still is. I did interview sessions with residents for a while, then google translate also worked overtime for me! 😂

Edited November 6, 2022 by archangel969

[SarahThe Wanderer]

1 hour ago, archangel969 said:

Oh, I read a while ago a post from my fellow countryman in RL, Sid Nagy that google translate USED to be his best friend, but for me it still is. I did interview sessions with residents for a while, then google translate also worked overtime for me! 😂

lol yea google is our savior and will always be, but sadly even the mighty google translate has a limitation, it can't form a whole sentance that's is grammatically correct, that's the challange that you have to do by yourself  : d

[Eddy Vortex]

6 hours ago, archangel969 said:

That would be very sweet! I love fiddling with scripts and sound to make my land's experience better and better. I just wonder if music adds anything, it has to fit the atmosphere very much. And it's not only for me, it's open to visitors. I have experienced several times when travelling in SL that I got visually totally into the mood of a particular sim but the music took me away from it because I felt it didn't fit the theme of that particular sim. Then I turned off the sound. It's a pity you can't add your own music compilation though, I made mixtapes for my land with music and poetry, but you can't play them inworld.

Depending on the genre, it may or may not add anything to the atmosphere. It's quite true about how some music not complementing a sim's theme in some cases. Like when I'm in a sim set in the medieval time period and hearing songs sung by someone born in the late 20th century would break that immersion. This is why I disabled auto-play for music streaming. 

The way I see it, a radio playing at home is not much different than a teenager blasting their boombox in RL. I think there is some syntax in the script that allows visitors to change stations, but I haven't figured it out yet.

Stream your own music inworld would probably involve some additional software and a server for the files to live on. I don't know how that works though.

 

 

[Lyric Demina]

When I'm decorating a house I always include some kind of sound.  Train sounds for houses near train tracks; fog horn sounds for houses on seaways; always birds of some kind.  I will always reserve five to ten prims for the inclusion of different sound effects because I find (gentle, far-off distant) ambient noise very pleasing.

[Polenth Yue]

Sound causes sensory overload for me pretty quickly, so I usually keep it turned off. I turn it on when visiting experiences that use it and to listen to streaming music. Not a lot the rest of the time.

I never listen to voice. The volume levels vary too much and it's not like I can follow what people are saying most of the time anyway.

I always restrict sounds to parcel. It means I don't accidentally annoy all my neighbours because I didn't know that painting I had out for two months starts barking every five minutes.

[Stephanie Misfit]

I usually play SL with sound off because I am always listening to YouTube Music. But on my parcel I do have a really lovely windchime and a nice sounding fountain. I don't have a music stream. I hate sounds outside of my parcel, those damn spankers and people who have sex huds that play porno sounds while you are shopping, what the hell.

[Tamara Adored]

I have a ruined castle on a bend in a river. & have made it very atmospheric with rain, fog & a lightning storm so sounds are very important to the feel of the land. I have rain, thunder, wind & lapping waves on the damp land & birds at the top where there is a dry forest area. I love working in the middle of a raging storm. There is no radio as it would detract from the feel I’m trying to create.

[Emma Krokus]

13 hours ago, Julia Lygon said:

When I'm decorating a house I always include some kind of sound.  Train sounds for houses near train tracks; fog horn sounds for houses on seaways; always birds of some kind.  I will always reserve five to ten prims for the inclusion of different sound effects because I find (gentle, far-off distant) ambient noise very pleasing.

 

Anything that enhances immersion is lovely to me.

As an aside, you can add the sound and script to landscape objects - do make a note in the objects name that it contains a sound - much easier to find again when you want to change it.

Be aware: Adding a script to some objects may increase the land impact. Worth a try though if you're short of prims.