A Two-Person Startup Has Fixed One of the Most Hated Sounds in Modern Life
A Two-Person Startup Has Fixed One of the Most Hated Sounds in Modern Life
一家两人初创公司解决了现代生活中最令人讨厌的声音之一
I behave very strangely in my kitchen. On any given day, you will find me, often mid-conversation, sprinting from one end of the room to the other. Nothing on the stove has caught fire. No pots are boiling over. I am trying to reach the microwave oven before its counter hits zero. 我在厨房里的行为非常奇怪。在任何一天，你都会发现我经常在谈话中途，从房间的一头冲向另一头。炉子上没有着火，锅里也没有溢出。我只是想在微波炉倒计时归零前赶到那里。
Why? I detest so deeply its shrill beep heralding the completion of its reheating duties that it’s almost as if the appliance has trained me, through operant conditioning, to open its door at T-minus 1 second, so the grating noise is silenced before it begins. But there is another way, a means by which microwave makers can keep their margins, not change the hardware in any way, and, just by manipulating a few lines of code, change the kitchen experience sonically for the better for aurally assaulted microwavers everywhere. 为什么？我非常厌恶它那预示着加热任务完成的尖锐蜂鸣声，以至于这台电器仿佛通过操作性条件反射训练了我：在倒计时还剩 1 秒时打开炉门，好让那刺耳的噪音在发出前就被静音。但其实还有另一种方法，微波炉制造商无需改变硬件，也不必牺牲利润，只需通过修改几行代码，就能从声音上改善全球被“听觉轰炸”的微波炉用户的厨房体验。
Enter Joel Corelitz and Colin Coogan from Starling, sound designers who have previously worked with clients including Sony, Microsoft, Netflix, and Sega, as well as on major projects such as a sonic strategy for Ford’s entire lineup. Corelitz, much like the rest of us, loathes his microwave’s unbearable beeps, so he decided to see if they could do something about it. 这时，来自 Starling 的声音设计师 Joel Corelitz 和 Colin Coogan 登场了。他们曾为索尼、微软、Netflix 和世嘉等客户工作，并参与过福特全系车型音效策略等重大项目。和我们大多数人一样，Corelitz 也厌恶微波炉那令人难以忍受的蜂鸣声，于是他决定看看自己能否解决这个问题。
Beep Beep
哔哔声
The beep has cursed humanity for a relatively short period of time. The use of “beep” to mean a short, high-pitched sound first appeared in an Arthur C. Clarke sci-fi story, The Sands of Mars, as recently as 1951. Before this, “beep” was used as a descriptor of the sound of car horns. 蜂鸣声困扰人类的时间其实并不长。“Beep”（哔哔声）一词用来指代短促的高音，最早出现在亚瑟·克拉克的科幻小说《火星沙尘》（The Sands of Mars）中，那还是 1951 年的事。在此之前，“beep”主要被用来描述汽车喇叭的声音。
For decades now, nearly all microwaves have used the same technology to generate their penetrating pings: a small, cheap device called a passive piezoelectric buzzer. It’s a membrane that, when electrically charged, vibrates, producing a rudimentary beep. 几十年来，几乎所有的微波炉都使用同一种技术来发出那穿透力极强的提示音：一种被称为“无源压电蜂鸣器”的小型廉价装置。它是一层薄膜，通电后会产生振动，从而发出原始的蜂鸣声。
The piezo buzzer was first brought to the mass market in the 1970s by Japanese manufacturers. Thanks to their low cost—piezoelectric buzzers cost a matter of cents—and simplicity, the buzzers soon found their way into all manner of gadgets: toys, smoke detectors, alarm clocks, multimeters, watches, and, yes, microwaves. However, the versatility was matched by limitations. Manufacturers can set the beep’s frequency and duration, but that’s about it. This has not stopped the basic tech from still being widely deployed in all manner of gear. 压电蜂鸣器在 20 世纪 70 年代由日本制造商首次推向大众市场。由于成本低廉（仅需几美分）且结构简单，这种蜂鸣器很快被应用到各种设备中：玩具、烟雾探测器、闹钟、万用表、手表，当然还有微波炉。然而，它的多功能性也伴随着局限性。制造商只能设置蜂鸣声的频率和持续时间，仅此而已。但这并没有阻止这种基础技术在各类设备中被广泛使用。
Manufacturers can add speakers to a microwave, allowing the appliance to reproduce a cornucopia of aural delights. But the reason the vast majority of microwave manufacturers stubbornly stick with offensive beeps is, naturally, cost. Competition in consumer white goods is fierce. Why replace a super-cheap part that does the job with something pricier? 制造商当然可以在微波炉中加入扬声器，让设备发出各种悦耳的声音。但绝大多数微波炉制造商固执地坚持使用刺耳蜂鸣声的原因，自然是成本。消费类白色家电的竞争非常激烈。为什么要用更昂贵的零件去替换一个已经能完成任务的超廉价零件呢？
The challenge Corelitz and Coogan set themselves was this: better microwave sound, sound with some personality; but no new hardware, so using existing chips and existing buzzers. Everything had to be done just with code. Corelitz 和 Coogan 给自己设定的挑战是：在不增加新硬件的前提下，利用现有的芯片和蜂鸣器，创造出更好听、更有个性的微波炉声音。一切都必须仅通过代码来实现。
“Any microcontroller that accepts C++ can take different programming and produce different sounds,” Corelitz says. “There’s already a microcontroller in there, and there’s already a piezo buzzer.” He has fashioned a series of sounds that are a world away from traditional microwave beeps, yet all are created using the same kit inside the box sitting in your kitchen. “任何支持 C++ 的微控制器都可以通过不同的编程产生不同的声音，”Corelitz 说，“微波炉里本来就有微控制器，也有压电蜂鸣器。”他设计了一系列与传统微波炉蜂鸣声截然不同的声音，而所有这些声音都是利用你厨房里那台机器内部现有的组件创造出来的。
On a laptop using software the pair have created called Microwave Sound Bench, Corelitz demonstrates by re-creating the horrendous beeps we know and hate. Then he switches to Starling’s alternatives. Trills where the duration of notes is super short; frequency sweeps that sound like a cartoon falling object; arpeggios; a “sequence of events” that create a noise that seems like it belongs more in a video game. None sound like a microwave. All are a thousand times better than the cortisol-inducing tone that emits from my kitchen each morning. 在一台运行着他们开发的名为“微波炉声音工作台”（Microwave Sound Bench）软件的笔记本电脑上，Corelitz 先是重现了我们熟悉且厌恶的恐怖蜂鸣声。随后，他切换到了 Starling 的替代方案：音符持续时间极短的颤音；听起来像卡通物体坠落的频率扫描音；琶音；以及一种听起来更像是电子游戏音效的“事件序列”。这些声音听起来一点也不像微波炉，但每一个都比我每天早上在厨房听到的那种让人分泌皮质醇（压力荷尔蒙）的噪音好上一千倍。
“I’m doing it all on an Arduino, but it’s really just C++,” Corelitz says. “A manufacturer would have to be open to putting new code in their device, but that’s it. It’s theoretically compatible with any hardware that’s in a microwave.” “我是在 Arduino 上完成这一切的，但本质上就是 C++，”Corelitz 说，“制造商只需要愿意在设备中植入新代码就行了，仅此而已。理论上，它与微波炉中现有的任何硬件都是兼容的。”
His test-specific setup is laughably minimal: a microcontroller (the Arduino UNO R4 Minima), and a breadboard with three different piezo buzzers attached for comparing output—two attached directly to the breadboard (the black circular objects), and one bare buzzer stuck to a sheet of paper, which helps it resonate more. 他的测试装置简单得可笑：一个微控制器（Arduino UNO R4 Minima）和一块连接了三个不同压电蜂鸣器的面包板，用于对比输出效果——两个直接连接在面包板上（黑色的圆形物体），另一个裸露的蜂鸣器则粘在一张纸上，以帮助它产生更好的共鸣。
Corelitz has a way to fake volume from piezo tech. “If you sweep through the frequencies, you’ll notice that at a certain frequency range the buzzers just sound louder, because they prefer that resonance,” he says. “You can use that resonant frequency to simulate dynamics.” And it works. You’d swear Starling’s sounds get louder and quieter, but that’s not happening. Corelitz 有一种利用压电技术模拟音量的方法。“如果你扫频，你会发现蜂鸣器在某个频率范围内听起来更响，因为它们更倾向于那个共振点，”他说，“你可以利用那个共振频率来模拟动态效果。”这招很管用。你会发誓 Starling 的声音有强弱变化，但实际上并没有。
To banish repetitive harsh beeps when pressing multiple buttons, like when you’re cycling through the microwave’s menus, Starling has also re-created the soft, premium click you get on your smartphone when typing. “I just wanted to see what a 4,000-Hz beep for one millisecond would sound like, and I was like, ‘Oh, that actually sounds pretty good.’ It would make a microwave infinitely more satisfying to use,” Corelitz says. 为了消除在循环浏览微波炉菜单时按下多个按钮所产生的重复刺耳蜂鸣声，Starling 还重现了你在智能手机上打字时那种柔和、高级的点击声。“我只是想看看 4000 赫兹、持续一毫秒的蜂鸣声听起来是什么样，结果我发现，‘哦，这听起来其实挺不错的。’这会让微波炉的使用体验提升无数倍，”Corelitz 说。
Coogan says it can be more challenging to communicate a lot with a little, which made the challenge more enticing to them both. But the response on Instagram seems to suggest there’s more than sound aesthetics at stake here. Coogan 表示，用有限的资源传达丰富的信息往往更具挑战性，这也让两人对这个项目更加着迷。但 Instagram 上的反馈似乎表明，这不仅仅关乎声音美学。
“One of the top things that people kept commenting over and over again was, ‘Oh my God, I would pay $50 more for a microwave that sounded better,’” Coogan says. It seems there’s gold in them thar trills. “人们反复评论最多的一点就是：‘天哪，如果微波炉声音更好听，我愿意多付 50 美元，’”Coogan 说。看来，这些颤音里确实藏着金矿。