10.4: Disable some annoying Tiger sound effects
Jun 29, '05 08:18:00AM
Contributed by: silverdr
Do you (like me) think that the Jag/Panther system sounds were classy and "in," while Tiger adds some which are not only unnecessary, but also quite annoying? Not only that, but also Apple decided that "they know better" and disallowed choosing which sounds we want to be played on specific events. They allow only turning all "user interface" sounds on or off.
If you'd like to keep the sounds, but only silence (or change) a couple of the most annoying ones, here's how:
- Open Terminal
- Type this command:
$ cd /System/Library/Components/CoreAudio.component/Contents/Resources/SystemSounds/system/
- Disable the disk image mounting noise with:
$ sudo mv Volume\ Mount.aif Volume\ Mount.org
Now the most annoying one's gone. If you want to disable the old Windows-like recycle bin sound, you'll need these two commands:
$ cd ../finder/
$ mv empty\ trash.aif empty\ trash.org
You may be able to supply your own sounds in place of the original ones. I haven't tested it, though, as I am happy with only the events, which were "sound enhanced" in Panther, making noise. If you change your mind, renaming the files back to their original names (with ".aif" at the end) will, of course, bring the disabled sounds back in no time.
[robg adds: In the SystemSounds folder, you'll find a folder of sounds for the Finder, accessibility, ink, the Dock, and the system. It should be trivial to replace any sound with any other sound you'd like to use; just keep a backup of the original in case you want it back later. As I was looking at the sounds, the only thing I found a bit strange is that 'burn complete.aif' and 'burn failed.aif' are identical sounds (10.4.1, clean install). I would have guessed that failure would sound different than success, but I guess not!]
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