Watch & Listen To iPhone Sound Effects Get The A Cappella Treatment

iPhone ringtones and sound effects past and present have been meticulously recreated with only the human voice by Korean a cappella group Maytree. The five-piece group wowed people a fortnight ago with their vocal versions of Windows sound effects from over the years. At the time of writing, that video is Maytree’s most-watched video on YouTube with over 672,000 views. It may not be for much longer, though, with the iPhone video having already clocked up over 107,000 views only 24 hours after being published.

Maytree are a professional group formed in 2000 and have performed for concerts and other shows, TV and radio work and commercial music. They seek to find ways to make new sounds with the human voice and produce their own original pieces. They also run educational workshops, some of which can be seen on their YouTube channel. Despite having a number of videos on YouTube that have hit the hundreds of thousands in terms of views, Maytree’s recent Microsoft sounds video is their best performing to date, with its inventiveness and nostalgia clearly having struck a chord with people.

They’ll have been hoping that the idea to follow up the Microsoft sounds video with one of iPhone sounds would pique people’s interests in a similar way — and it certainly appears that’s been the case. Dressed in all black in front of a simple white background, the group members run through a series of iPhone ringtones and system sounds. The ingenuity displayed to produce the various noises required is matched only by the lively effectiveness with which they act out each example.

Maytree’s A Cappella iPhone Highlights

Even non-iPhone users will recognize at least some of the sounds recreated due to their ubiquity, not least the default ‘Opening’ ringtone and ‘Marimba’ ringtone with which they begin. Other recreated ringtones that users may be familiar with include ‘Xylophone,’ ‘Silk,’ and ‘Strum.’ Despite there being more to the ringtones, though, it is perhaps the system sounds that are most remarkable due to how far removed they sound from the human voice. The various computer-like noises include a low battery noise, two message tones, the klaxon alarm, and the lock noise.

Having tapped into something that captures people’s imaginations in such a way as to deliver back-to-back viral hits, there’s every chance Maytree will follow up with another. Continuing the Apple theme, Mac sound effects could be an option, or maybe they could dip into the world of gaming with retro classics like Sonic and Mario. For a real challenge, though, Screen Rant’s suggestion is the sound of an old dial-up modem. A cappella tech will have never sounded so shrill.

Source: Maytree/YouTube