Change Empathy sounds for Ubuntu

The empathy sound that is played when you receive a new message is contained in this file: /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/message-new-instant.ogg

which is in the ubuntu-sounds package. To see all the sounds in this file you can type, in a terminal,

dpkg -L ubuntu-sounds

I found the message-new-instant.ogg to be much to 'quiet' to be useful, especially since it often blends in with background music. Personally I like the 'drip' sound better, so I changed the the message-new-instant.ogg to /usr/share/sounds/gnome/default/alerts/drip.ogg by issuing the following command in a terminal:

sudo cp /usr/share/sounds/gnome/default/alerts/drip.ogg /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/message-new-instant.ogg

NOTE:

This is not the "right" way to do things, since you are overwriting /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/message-new-instant.ogg irreversibly. ... but I couldn't find the proper way (changing the setting with gconf-editor) and I'm sure I never want to change the sound back. If you're want to change it back, either back-up the sound first, or reinstall the ubuntu-sounds package.