There are many characteristics to consider when exploring different timbres. One aspect of timbre that can be styled to suit your user experience is brightness (the amount of high-frequency sound):

* Bright sound has more high-frequency content, giving it a louder presence.
* Muted sound has less high-frequency content, making its sound subtle and quieter, especially in noisy environments.

Each sound type is appropriate for different contexts. Brighter timbres feel more rich and playful. Muted timbres feel heavier and serious.

When choosing a product’s timbre, consider its audience and the context in which each sound plays.

* Dos and Don'ts

Timbre Types

The timbre of a sound describes its quality and character (without regard for its pitch or volume).

* Timbre types

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Sound attributes can be adjusted in a variety of ways to create a specific effect.
* Representing sound 
* Timbre
* Tonality
* Dynamics
* Envelope
* Effects

Sound Attributes

Material Design Documentation

Sounds have measurable characteristics that can indicate how effective a sound will be at creating a desired effect. A technique that portrays these characteristics is called sound visualization. On a graph, the x-axis portrays one characteristic (such as time) and the y-axis portrays another characteristic (such as amplitude). In some cases, a characteristic is graphed using only a single axis.

These guidelines describe how sound can be visualized as a function of time, frequency (how high-pitched or low-pitched a sound is), or timbre (the character of a sound).

* Time
* Frequency
* Timbre

Representing Sound

Timbre

Tonality refers to two types of sounds:

* *Tonal sounds*, which are more musical in nature, including melody, motif, and harmony
* *Atonal sounds* (also called non-harmonic sound), which resemble everyday sounds or noise – they don’t conform to traditional musical compositions

Sounds can be designed using tonal or atonal elements, and sometimes a sound will be comprised of both. Tonal sounds work best to communicate personality, emotion, and state changes, whereas atonal sounds better support motion transitions and express a sense of haptic feedback.

Tonality

In sound design, *dynamics* refer to changes in volume or loudness on either a micro scale (volume changes to a single sound) or a macro scale (volume changes to a set of sounds). 

Dynamic variation allows sounds to feel natural and realistic. Dynamic changes can highlight sonic moments of interest, create a sense of progress through a musical narrative, and give sound a natural quality.

* Examples

Dynamics

The envelope of a sound refers to changes in a sound’s amplitude over time. An envelope is comprised of many technical components, but the two most basic are the rise (*attack*) and fall (*decay*) of a sound.


Envelope

**Reverb** and **delay** are effects that can add a sense of space and depth. To keep sound effects from becoming too prominent a part of an earcon’s sound, they should be used sparingly.

The more reverb and delay a sound has, the more **wet** the sound is as opposed to dry.

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