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The Iconic PlayStation One Boot-Up Sound's Simple Origins Revealed
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Early consoles and games had some pretty iconic boot-up jingles. Do you remember rushing home every day after school to pop in your favorite game and being greeted by, say, the Sega logo voice over?
Did you spend hours on The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker or the original Animal Crossing? Then you probably have the Nintendo GameCube start-up burned deep into your brain.
While the GameCube start-up is jaunty and fun, it was Sony's PlayStation One boot-up that always gave me that little tingle up my spine. It sounded so futuristic and was a perfect precursor before spending long nights on the latest Final Fantasy. Where exactly did the sound come from?
The boot-up sound as surprisingly simple origins, as Reverb Machine explains. It's actually from the "Spacious Sweep" patch released for the The Roland D-50 synthesizer keyboard. It's practically the same sound, except with the extra added twinkling.
The Roland D-50 was a popular synth used throughout the late 80s and early 90s appearing in everything from The Simpsons title score to Michael Jackson's "The Man in the Mirror". The Reverb Machine blog has some great additional information on the Roland D-50 as well as more samples if you want to learn about how influential this piece of equipment was just a few decades ago.
