GOOG-411's "Biddy-Biddy-Boop" Sound Backstory

Chris Albrecht writes "The bippedy-bippedy-bippedy sound you hear when using 1-800-GOOG-411 is actually a senior voice designer at Google. (Here's the sound.) The technical term for that noise is the 'fetch audio,' and it's more complicated to design than you'd think. For the first time, the voice of GOOG-411 talks about how he came up with it, how important that sound is, and how people now ask him to 'perform' it."

Re:free phone call?

[dhanson865]

I know the odds of finding a pay phone nowdays are slim but does this allow you to make a free phone call or does the phone ask for money when the goog-411 transfer occurs?

Re:free phone call?

[bev_tech_rob]

It doesn't allow you to make a free phone call, it is a free alternative to the 411 service that the phone companies change you ($1.50 per call on Alltel). I put it on my speed dial just now and gonna start using it. Tried several numbers to see if I could hear the sound, but the response to my query was instantaneous and thus heard no sound....

thanks for the subversive advertising

[davygrvy]

advertising hidden as a news article. Gee, tanks editors.

So that's what that was.

[lpangelrob]

If you call up GOOG-411 for free (compared to the ripoff that is cell phone carriers 411 at $1.75 a pop), it always asks you for the city and state first. Sometimes the city and state are easy to parse, like "Reno" or "Keokuk". Sometimes it's not, like "Glen Ellyn, Illinois" (and the other one I've tried, Glenallen, Alaska). If you mumble, your voice is otherwise hard to parse, or the city is obscure, GOOG-411 will take about 3 seconds to figure what the hell you're saying, which is when it'll play this sound.

Same thing with the business name - if you say something like "Restaurant", that's easily parsed, but if you say something specific like "Bed Bath and Beyond", it could take up to 3 seconds to parse, search for, and find your match. You'll hear the sound, and then the list of results.

I don't know why the Johnny Carson theme (or similar) could have sufficed, because the sounded reminded me of logging onto AOL at 56.6 Kbps. Or make up a Google Jingle or something.

I use GOOG-411 at least once a week nowadays, and the feature to text message you details of what you're looking for has proven (mostly) invaluable while I've used it. There's the problem that sometimes, Google's information on businesses just isn't up to date. But that's a Google-wide issue.

1-800-555-TELL

[Anonymous Coward]

555-tell has a better sound. It sounds like the google guy mimicked the 555-tell sound and then made an elaborate story about how original he was in the idea for that kind of "searching-sound"

Just like Tell Me?

[saikou]

Well, this sound suspiciously sounds like a re-work of old sound Tell Me systems play while trying to decipher what the beep user tried to say. Just try to call 1-800-555-TELL (1-800-555-8355) and play with the menu.
That sound is also a sure sign that you're dealing with Tell Me designed system -- for example Fandango uses their back-end, some banks and some other interactive voice systems.

Of course Tell Me was bought by Microsoft so now it's inevitably evil :) Even though they were before Google in voice stuff :)

Re:"senior voice expert"?

[PopeRatzo]

The technical term for that noise is the 'fetch audio,' and it's more complicated to design than you'd think.

As a sound designer, I can tell you that this really is not much more complicated than it sounds. We sound designers and music producers work very hard to give the impression that there is some very sophisticated techno-magic in what we do and that it not only requires extremely complex procedures but superhuman "ears". A great deal of it is just playing around with the bits and pieces, seeing what works. That, and having a very good sound engineer buddy.

Sometimes, the best sounds are ones that were made in the most simple manner, with a stoned guy in front of a mic going "biddy biddy boop" for example.

Re:If you don't know what this is about

[nomadic]

The summary does a poor job of explaining what on earth this article is about if you are not American.

I am an American and I have no freaking clue what they're talking about. GOOG-411? I'm assuming that's some sort of information number that google does, but like the vast majority of Americans I'm sure, I've never used it.

Re:"senior voice expert"?

[inKubus]

and that boy grew up to be ... Paul Allen.

Brilliant! Someone should recommend Casey Kasem tags to the W3 committee next meeting. I can think of thousands of uses.

No more bandwidth for google?

[dotancohen]

You cannot view this page because this group has exceeded its bandwidth quota.

That's what I get when I try to play the wav file [googlegroups.com].

Someone's bragging about this?

[l0ungeb0y]

Personally, I've stopped using Goog-411 for now.
Mainly because it sucks balls and I don't care if it's free if I find it frustrating and gladly pay $1.50 for the information I need quickly without hassle.

But I while I was drinking some espresso trying to use Goog-411 to get a specific cab company that is one of the major providers here in sf and getting listings for every other major cab company, and even smaller ones, but not the one I specifically asked for and then telling it to go back, try again etc etc over and over ... after 5 minutes, I found the little bippity-boop voice to be almost grating enough to chuck my iPhone against a wall.. almost. That voice makes it seem very unprofessional, like a couple highschool kids put it together. And from the results I've had using it, I really think that just might be the case.

So I said fuck it, dailed the regular 411 and got connected to Desoto Cab right away.

I'll check back with GOOG-411 in a year or two.
For now, they aren't worth free, they are a waste of time.