Looking for a keyboard action that will produce a short sound of any kind

[ricecrispies]

I wonder if any of you could suggest a simple quick action that I can perform on my Mac desktop (Ventura in my case) that will produce a short sound? It doesn't matter what kind of sound it is; for instance a little error boop would be perfect. I just can't think of anything that will produce a boop unless I enable boops for volume changes, which I don't want to do.

Why do I want this? I have audio monitors that automatically go to sleep after a while without receiving a signal. They take time to wake up, first the subwoofer and then the main speakers, which means that I miss the first 20 seconds or so of whatever I am trying to listen to. If I could send a couple of boops to the speakers beforehand, I would avoid this annoyance.

 

[usagora]

Got it! Command-q when Finder is active will produce the "boop" error sound (since you can't actually "quit" Finder). Other key combos will work too, such as command-r. To quickly make Finder active, simply click to the left or right of the dock on the desktop (or click on the Finder icon in the dock).

 

[thebart]

Take a look at this discussion. Looks exactly like what you're asking for

Any ideas for an AppleScript that'll play… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

 

[usagora]

Take a look at this discussion. Looks exactly like what you're asking for

Any ideas for an AppleScript that'll play… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

Unless I'm missing something, that doesn't seem like an ideal solution because it's going to continue to play that sound every 10 minutes (or whatever interval is set in the script), even when you're actively listening to something. That would get annoying, imo. However, what I suggested in post 2 is a one-time, quick way to generate a tone when needed to "wake up" the sound system.

 

[thebart]

Unless I'm missing something, that doesn't seem like an ideal solution because it's going to continue to play that sound every 10 minutes (or whatever interval is set in the script), even when you're actively listening to something. That would get annoying, imo. However, what I suggested in post 2 is a one-time, quick way to generate a tone when needed to "wake up" the sound system.

Yes you're correct. Your suggestion is what the op asked for.

The script may come in handy in some other situation

 

[bogdanw]

Automator – QuickAction – No input - any application - Run Shell Script

say "Incoming sound"

save and then go to System Settings – Keyboard – Shortcuts – Services - add a shortcut to the one you have created.
Instead of “say” you can use “afplay” and a short audio file, as suggested in the thread mentioned above.

 

[ricecrispies]

Thanks for your various suggestions.

For me, Cmd-Q in Finder doesn't produce a sound.

However, based on bogdanw's suggestion, I created the following script in Automator:

say "Wake up."
sleep 8
say "Wake the feck up."

The 8-second delay allows time for the subwoofer to wake up so that it can then pass the second sound to the stereo speakers.

I couldn't work out how to run the script using the tools available in Mac OS, so I dropped it into a standalone application using Automator, and then configured a shortcut for it using BetterTouchTool.

 

[usagora]

For me, Cmd-Q in Finder doesn't produce a sound.

Well, that's certainly bizarre, especially since we're both using Ventura. In fact, if I hold down command-q when Finder is the active application, I get a very loud rapid succession of the "boop" sound effect. Here's a video of me pressing command-q on the desktop--first individual presses, then pressing and holding:

It only makes sense that it would produce this error tone by default, since you can't "quit" Finder. This works on all three of my Macs running Ventura (13.2.1): 2019 iMac, 2020 MBA, and 2020 Mac Mini.

 

[bogdanw]

Settings for alert sounds on Mac https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-the-alert-sounds-mchlp2207/mac