Here’s YouTube’s new startup sound

YouTube is rolling out a cheery new sound you might hear when opening the app. It’s a Google-y take on Netflix’s famous ‘tudum.’

YouTube is rolling out a new startup sound that sounds a lot like a Google-y version of Netflix’s “tudum.” You can hear it right here or in the trailer at the top of this post, which also features a slick new startup animation.

I wasn’t aware of this sound until Thursday, but Google says in a new blog that you might have already noticed the new sound if you’ve used YouTube on a TV. I just checked the YouTube app on PS5, and sure enough, there it was. But it didn’t play for me on the Apple TV YouTube app.

Google’s blog goes into extensive detail about how it designed the sound in partnership with the “sonic branding” studio Antfood. The intention was to make a sound that was:

Human. A sound that conveys the emotion, texture and organic imperfection of humanity.

Connected. A sound with musical gestures like melody, harmony and modulation that reflect the idea of connecting interests, people and cultures.

Expressive. A sound with dynamic textures and bright melodies, ranging from small to large, close to far and intimate to bold.

Story-driven. A sound that, even though it’s short, gives a sense of a narrative arc, with a clear beginning and end.

I’ll let you decide if you get all that from the three-second sound.

Google also detailed the work it did with the creative company Buck to make the accompanying startup animation, which I’m a big fan of. You can see it in the GIF below.

The sound and animation will start to appear “in more places over the next few weeks and months,” according to the blog post. We’ve asked Google for more details.