(xemacs.info)Audible Bell

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27.7 Changing the Bell Sound
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You can now change how the audible bell sounds using the variable
`sound-alist'.

   `sound-alist''s value is an list associating symbols with, among
other things, strings of audio-data.  When `ding' is called with one of
the symbols, the associated sound data is played instead of the
standard beep.  This only works if you are logged in on the console of a
machine with audio hardware. To listen to a sound of the provided type,
call the function `play-sound' with the argument SOUND. You can also
set the volume of the sound with the optional argument VOLUME.  

   Each element of `sound-alist' is a list describing a sound.  The
first element of the list is the name of the sound being defined.
Subsequent elements of the list are alternating keyword/value pairs:

`sound'
     A string of raw sound data, or the name of another sound to play.
     The symbol `t' here means use the default X beep.

`volume'
     An integer from 0-100, defaulting to `bell-volume'.

`pitch'
     If using the default X beep, the pitch (Hz) to generate.

`duration'
     If using the default X beep, the duration (milliseconds).

   For compatibility, elements of `sound-alist' may also be of the form:

     ( SOUND-NAME . <SOUND> )
     ( SOUND-NAME <VOLUME> <SOUND> )

   You should probably add things to this list by calling the function
`load-sound-file'.

   Note that you can only play audio data if running on the console
screen of a machine with audio hardware which emacs understands, which
at this time means a Sun SparcStation, SGI, or HP9000s700.

   Also note that the pitch, duration, and volume options are available
everywhere, but most X servers ignore the `pitch' option.

   The variable `bell-volume' should be an integer from 0 to 100, with
100 being loudest, which controls how loud the sounds emacs makes
should be.  Elements of the `sound-alist' may override this value.
This variable applies to the standard X bell sound as well as sound
files.

   If the symbol `t' is in place of a sound-string, Emacs uses the
default X beep.  This allows you to define beep-types of different
volumes even when not running on the console.

   You can add things to this list by calling the function
`load-sound-file', which reads in an audio-file and adds its data to
the sound-alist. You can specify the sound with the SOUND-NAME argument
and the file into which the sounds are loaded with the FILENAME
argument. The optional VOLUME argument sets the volume.

   `load-sound-file (FILENAME SOUND-NAME &optional VOLUME)'

   To load and install some sound files as beep-types, use the function
`load-default-sounds' (note that this only works if you are on display
0 of a machine with audio hardware).

   The following beep-types are used by Emacs itself. Other Lisp
packages may use other beep types, but these are the ones that the C
kernel of Emacs uses.

`auto-save-error'
     An auto-save does not succeed

`command-error'
     The Emacs command loop catches an error

`undefined-key'
     You type a key that is undefined

`undefined-click'
     You use an undefined mouse-click combination

`no-completion'
     Completion was not possible

`y-or-n-p'
     You type something other than the required `y' or `n'

`yes-or-no-p'
     You type something other than `yes' or `no'