The Microsoft Sound

"The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I'd been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, 'Here's a specific problem -- solve it.' The thing from the agency said, 'We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional,' this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said 'and it must be 3¼ seconds long.' I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel. In fact, I made 84 pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I'd finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time." - Brian Eno

"I like Brian Eno, but I want to kill him for making the fucking Microsoft Sound" - nf

"Listen to this, it kicks arse! It's the Microsoft Sound man!"
"You've already told me this. Shutup. - me talking to Keithy G McD

'Let's Take The Fresh Step Together', the first track of the post-rock band Trans Am's 2001 album; Red Line is most of The Microsoft Sound(barring the two tones at the end), time stretched to 51 seconds. Listening to it in this manner gives one a good insight as to the subtle intricacies present in the song. For instance, the sound's pitch goes up in steps, and not in a smooth wave.

Trans Am are anti-Microsoft-ites, and this song is one of the examples. Others on the album include song titles like 'Don't Bundle Me', and 'Where Do You Want To Fuck Today?'