I've come to kill the rooster.

February 24, 2010 6:20 AM

Recommend me good sounds for an alarm clock.

I use an alarm clock program on my computer as my alarm clock, but recently I've had to get up an extra hour earlier for work, and my old alarm of 3 minutes of slowly fading in white noise, isn't getting me going as fast as I need. Share with me your best sounds, noises or beeps to get me up and moving.

What I don't want: music, nature sounds or white/pink/etc noise.

kind of previously

posted by 1f2frfbf to computers & internet (7 answers total)

This may not fit your requirement but I'm gonna suggest it anyway.

I love Dexter and I use the opening theme music to wake me up.
(The opening scenes show Dexter waking up and the music was written specifically for those scenes if I recall correctly.)

So yes...everyday I wake up as a serial killer. Which is pretty awesome.
(unfortunately I never get to listen to the full song since it usually wakes me up with 30 sec)

The official website offers a free copy of the theme in mp3 format.
posted by jstarlee at 6:37 AM on February 24, 2010

If real life is any guide, this will do it. Loop as necessary.


And, by the way, you can't kill the rooster.
posted by nightwood at 6:42 AM on February 24, 2010

I've had heavy-sleeping friends that have had luck only with the static from a radio station that doesn't come in. Really loud.

I agree about music — back in the day, I made the mistake of picking a song that I really liked and used it as an mp3 alarm. Now I hate that song.
posted by General Malaise at 8:03 AM on February 24, 2010

I like the sound of church bells; it's one of the iphone alarm settings.
posted by craven_morhead at 8:06 AM on February 24, 2010

A friend in the dorm many years ago, used a huge stereo and played some song that began with the sound of several large windows being smashed (forgot what song. Others will know). The only real way to get your adrenaline going.
Otherwise, you need one of these.
posted by Namlit at 8:14 AM on February 24, 2010

I use the incoming call ringtone of my phone because it's a sound which I have an ingrained response to ("where's the phone? what's happening?").
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 9:56 AM on February 24, 2010

Okay, I missed the "kind of previously" bit in the original post, so disregard my first answer. It seems you're not after a shock-clock.

One of the sound options in our alarm thingy is some kind of calm gong-type (or wind-chime or whatnot) Dingdong which begins very quietly (you could pretend that it isn't music - on waking up it certainly doesn't strike me as such). The sound goes together with a daylight-spectrum light screen that gets successively brighter over half an hour (it's a Philips wakeup light; you'll find tons of demos on the old Tube; unfortunately people seem to favor the default birdsong setting which is pretty irritating - I couldn't find a demo of the sound I mean).
The light works great unless you have (like I do) an automatism of covering your eyes before you're really awake; the ever-louder Bongabonga sound (something between nature noises and music to my mind) does wake me up with a relative minimum of grumpiness.
posted by Namlit at 12:43 PM on February 24, 2010