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| How Facebook makes emoji sounds |
In July last year, Facebook introduced the Soundmojis functionality. Provides voice for emoji in the messaging app. The mechanism of this function is very simple. When you send an emoji to the other party and tap on it, they will hear the associated tone.
This great feature is presented in a unique way. According to users, after trying it out, you will be happy to continue using it and hear all the sounds related to emojis.
But how did Facebook develop this feature? The answer to this question revolves around the company's audio design team. It is dedicated to designing and creating all sounds related to the Facebook app, including notification tones and other sounds.
Facebook emoji sounds
The company's sound team has created many distinct sounds. Just like a new message sound in Messenger, a new notification sound on Facebook and the interactive sound that the other participant in Messenger produces when you type a message.
For the first few months, the sound engineering team focused on collecting and modifying sounds to activate in the Soundmojis function. These are audios that don't last more than a few seconds.
Will Littlejohn, Head of Sound Design at Facebook, said, “Emoji is one of the most expressive visual elements that can replace text. Adding phonetics to these emoticons makes them more expressive and lively.
To use the Soundmojis feature, you need to allow Messenger to access the audio. Then you have to click on the emoji icon as usual, and you will find a new tab with a helmet-like mark. This includes voice faces with emojis. You also need to update the Messenger app to the latest version.
On the other hand, many interested parties, such as Emojipedia editor-in-chief Jeremy Burge, do not like this novelty. Berg said he couldn't think of a scene that would force him to use talking emojis.
Facebook created this new feature to make it unique. As Littlejohn said, the company has no plans to make this functionality available to other messaging apps. In other words, it will not open its new innovations and will not be based on the Unicode standard.
In addition, the Head of Acoustic Design Department confirmed that all the acoustic elements used are completely original and do not come from any previous artwork. The Facebook team recorded sounds from different places, events, and times so that they can be combined and changed later.
An example is the sound of a goat emoji captured by a real goat after being fed. This sound was developed in memory of Mark Zuckerberg who kept goats as a pet for a reason.