OK. Here we go. First things first.
You ought to print this tutorial now so that you have the instructions at hand as you go through the process.
To make it easier to find the sounds when you have downloaded them into your computer, you should create a folder on your desktop screen to save the sounds into. So go to your desktop screen and RIGHT-click once on a blank part of the desktop screen. When the menu pops open, point to “New”, then up to click on “Folder”. This will open a new folder on your desktop. As soon as you see it, type “Sounds” into its name space.
Now that you have a place to store sounds, you can begin the process of downloading the sounds you want to use into your own computer. If you go to the club’s sound download page you can find the list of sounds that we’ve put up for you. Each one is a separate download and has a description of what the sound is and will require that you download and save each one separately into the folder you created. Since the size of these sound files is fairly small, each download will only take a few seconds and will actually be a great exercise in learning how to do downloads and then save them. Once you’ve done the first couple of sounds, you’ll be experts in downloading.
Click on the name of the sound to be saved. You will see a new window which will ask if you want to “Open from the current location” or to “Save It To Disk.” Highlight “Save It To Disk” and a “Save In” window will open. When that window opens, make sure that “Desktop” shows in the “Save In” line. When that appears, you’ll see your “Sounds” folder listed below. Double-click on the “Sounds” folder and that will then appear in the “Save In” line.
Once the Sounds folder is in place, type in a name for the sound you’re saving and then click on “Save” to the right of the name of the sound file. This process will be repeated for each sound you save. You may save as many different sounds as you like.
There are many websites available for finding and saving sound clip files. The best and largest is a website called:
http://www.soundamerica.com
When you get to this site, they have different categories of sounds. On the left side of their opening screen is a list of “buttons” showing their different types of sounds. Clicking on any one of those categories will display many different sounds.
Now that you have saved the sounds into your computer, you’ll need to go through the process of “assigning” the sounds to different “events” in your computer. To understand how this works, open the computer’s sounds folder (Not the one on your desktop that you created to store downloaded sounds.) from the “Control Panel.”
Go to “Start”, then up to “Settings”, then across to “Control Panel” and click open the control panel.
Scroll down the icons in the control panel until you see the “Sounds” icon and double-click on it to display the contents. As you scroll down the list, any “event” which uses a sound will be noted with a speaker next to it. If you click on that event, you can then test the sound to see what it sounds like. If you want to change the sound to one of your own, click on “Browse”, then go to the sounds folder on your desktop and select one of your own by double-clicking on your own sound. This will assign that sound to that event. To then test it (to make sure you’ve selected the right one, click on the “Play” button (the right-pointing button) on the screen. If this is what you want, click “Apply”, then click on “OK”. It’s done and from then on, the new sound will be heard every time that event takes place.
Be careful, however, not to use the same sounds for often-played events. For example, if you assign a sound to a “window close” event, you’ll hear that sound so many times that it will lose its fun appeal and you’ll get sick and tired of it very quickly. So use a little restraint and assign sounds to events that happen once in a while. If you hear Tarzan yelling every time you close a program of any kind, you’ll want to head off to the jungle and find Tarzan and kill him.
Have fun…
Regards,
Ken
1st posted September 22 1999 . Updated on Oct 29 2003
