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This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

Without all the beeps, without sonic feedback, all of your modern conveniences would be very hard to use.

I mean, try using your telephone without the beeps, and it's really confusing.

You're lost immediately. Did I get it? No, I didn't get it. The number's there, but I didn't hear it.

And used to get it physically with the rotary.

This whole world is artificial.

When I started, I was working with this guy at the Advanced Product Group at Apple.

And he had a case for a walkman, I think, and he opened it up and he closed it and you heard it click.

And he said, somebody worked really hard to make that click sound that way.

That was an acoustical element on a mechanical device.

Well, there aren't a lot of moving parts and mechanical bits in today's devices, but Jim McKee still has to make them sound right.

My name is Jim McKee, and I have a company called Airwax Productions.

We do sound for film, radio, internet, and product sound design.

Quite simply, a product sound designer looks at a product and thinks, what kind of sound should this thing make when it does a particular thing?

So typically what I do is I create a bunch of button sounds.

These are would-be buttons for a Yahoo widget.

And say, okay, you guys tell me which ones are the closest and then you end up with what, 38 sounds here.

I love that. I could listen to that all day. In fact, let's hear it again.

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