CrowdPleaser 1.0

A modest little sound-effects app, CrowdPleaser has much to be modest about. Billed as providing a laugh track application, — presumably for your online life — CrowdPleaser (are crowds really pleased by creepy samples of people chuckling?) intrigues me mightily with its mysterious multifaceted character.

Eight laughs should be enough to get any crowd chortling boisterously, right? Too bad only two of them contain any actual indications of merriment. For example, what is the “Rock on, brudda!” sound doing in here? And “Go to back the Bronx, you bum!”? What’s up with THAT? Perhaps when one is feeling a few clowns short of a circus, a jaunty “Rock on, brudda!” would serve to raise one’s spirits, although the cheerfulness of “Go back to the Bronx, you bum!” is cause for some doubt.

Interestingly, it features the sound of a jeering crowd as well. This, you may think, is not so interesting. After all, you might wish to use this at the next pop concert you attend. What IS interesting though, is that the sound lasts a full 28 seconds, while the other, more upbeat sounds only last about 5 seconds each. This brings up questions that we must ask ourselves, like what of Quinn’s contention that moral debts cannot be transferred as easily as monetary debts?

The answer to this question is beyond the scope of this review, thus we will leave it as an exercise for the reader. But what of the backwards speedometer-like images above each of the buttons which initiate sounds? The needles on these contraptions perform a curious wiggle-dance when the corresponding button is pressed. At first, the dance appears to represent the audio level of the noise emanating from the speakers, but no, these hopes are dashed when one realizes the dance is exactly the same for every sound. So these too, will remain a mystery.

Yet another enigma presents itself when we attempt to discern the purpose of the radio buttons clinging to each button. Why are they here? What do they want? No possible usage occurs to us, though truly, we have racked our mighty brains as if searching for the key to a door, a door in an alley where a mob of rabid hens is about to steamroller through. They make the interface look as it fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. Which pretty much describes the whole application, down to the creepy, one-man, Steve Ballmeresqe laughter sounds.

I never forget a laugh, but in this case I’ll make an exception.

Although the list of mysteries is growing long, I present to you one more: The icon. It’s a very nice icon, of that there is no doubt. But exactly how a lighter with a green glowing power button on it represents a laugh track, alas, eludes us. Comments are welcome.

Due to the eery nature of the entire ensemble of effects, we suggest that “CrowdDisturber” may be a more fitting name for this rhinestone in the rough. Indeed, CrowdPleaser may look like a REALbasic application and act like a REALbasic application, but don’t let that fool you. It really is a REALbasic application.

AFComix, for an application about as useless as a kick-stand on a horse, I award you your very own 8.5.

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