For years, turning on a Mac has meant hearing a very special little tune. Just a few seconds long and cheerful in tone, this recognizable sound is enough to tell us that everything is fine, that the computer has woken up, and that we will soon be able to start using it. It has become so familiar that it is now almost as recognizable as the Apple logo itself. Today we’ll look at where it came from and who created it.
The Macintosh’s first startup sound wasn’t pleasant at all
It turns out that the original Macintosh from 1984 (which we can still try today to see how it worked) had a startup sound made up of a tritone, a particularly dissonant combination of notes. And Jim Reekes, who started working at Apple in 1988, found it annoying every time he heard it.
He also heard it more often than he should have, since computers at the time crashed quite frequently. And because restarting the Mac meant hearing that same sound again, the tone ended up becoming associated with the frustration of losing your work or having to start over.
Reekes believed that turning on a computer should convey exactly the opposite feeling. The sound had to confirm that the computer was working, but it should also create a sense of calm, at the very least.
A chord created in his living room
So, determined to improve it, part of his inspiration came from the very long final chord of A Day in the Life, by The Beatles.
According to Reekes, he recorded the new sound using several synthesizers and effects, but the main instrument was a Korg Wavestation that he apparently still keeps stored in a closet.
The result? A big C major chord played with both hands, accompanied by reverb and different layers of sound. It had to sound good both through the small speakers of the most basic Macs and on professional equipment.
In Jim Reekes’s original explanation we can hear the chord and learn the story directly from its creator. Reekes wanted it to work as a kind of ear cleanser: something short, warm, and calm before entering the computer.
The Quadra 700 was the first to welcome it
However, his managers were not convinced that the sound needed to be changed. So Reekes ended up introducing it into some prototypes without following the usual approval process. One of his superiors decided to look the other way, and the computers reached stores with that chord installed.
It was not until 1991, with the Macintosh Quadra 700, that this new sound officially made its debut. And the reaction from users confirmed exactly what Reekes had thought: when they heard it start up, it felt as though something great was about to happen.
Since then, Apple has adapted it slightly for different generations of Mac, but the sound has always remained essentially the one inspired by The Beatles song and created by Reekes. And this short tone, which made its way onto Macs almost in secret, became so famous and recognizable that Apple eventually registered it as one of the company’s sound trademarks.
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