White Noise

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Duration: 66 minutes 48 seconds, Size: 91.7 MB.

Victoria Falls — the Seventh Wonder of the World; the largest waterfall in the world.

Victoria Falls is a natural source of “brown noise” (a lower-pitched and less irritable form of “true” white noise) that is ideal for sleep and masking unwanted background noises. It is a powerful, thundering, and expansive recording that relaxes the listener with a full-spectrum spacious sound, apt for masking both rumbling and high-pitched distractions.

While Victoria Falls is neither the highest nor the widest waterfall in the world, it is claimed to be the largest. This claim is based on the fact that it plunges 108 meters (360 feet) over a width of 1,708 meters (5,600 feet) into a basalt lined gorge, forming the largest sheet of falling water ever to be discovered by man (and thus, the largest concentrated source of environmental brown noise).

In March and April of 2009, record rainfalls in the watershed created an extra volume of water that had to be released over the falls around April 12th. This recording and photo were taken at that time, from the eastern cataract at the Zambian side.

Victoria Falls features no fade-in or fade-out at the beginning or the end, so there are no distractions in sound volume when played on repeat. No sounds of people, birds, animals or planes are included. No music has been added.

Extensive testing conducted through many years of travel has led me to conclude that Victoria Falls combined with the Sennheiser HD 380 PRO at 85% iPad volume provides seven times (7x) the sound attenuation of merely using foam and silicone earplugs alone. This MP3 is literally a bedroom for one's ears. Get yourself a pair of over-the-ear headphones with ample amounts of bass response, take a seat somewhere in a boisterous coffee shop or relax in a hotel room with adjacent noisy neighbours, and then play Victoria Falls. You will hear the sound of one hand clapping.

Victoria Falls is a natural white noise soundscape composed of a non-looped digital stereo quasi-binaural field recording. This recording technique produces a 3-dimensional audio portrait when listening with headphones. Encoded at a bitrate of 192 kbps for quality listening.

Companion field recordings: Top of the Chasm, Devil's Pool

  Soundmasking attributes of Victoria Falls

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPad volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer
Godzilla

= inaudible       = audible

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Duration: 63 minutes 57 seconds, Size: 87.8 MB.

It was one of those mornings where the mist and wisps of fog had twisted and risen in the valleys, lingering like the last river spirits of the night, reluctant to admit that the break of dawn had already arrived.

‘Twas in this befoggled morning dawn during a rainstorm that I recorded Rain on the River, right on the bank of the Deerfield River with my trusty pair of DPA 4060-BM omnidirectional condensor microphones mounted onto my GUY HRTF baffle. My Sound Devices 722 and Lunatec V2 mic preamp were both safe and sound in my watertight Pelican 1500 case but while they were sitting there basking in their warmth my 4060s had to take all the beating.

A cataract of constant plummeting rain falls throughout the recording, forming a high exuberant counterpoint to the lower bass and sub-bass of delicate rolling thunder rumbling across the tops of clouds above the listener. The thunder has a low soothing growl rather than startling claps or crashes or booms, so any progress you make towards sleep or being one with the universe will not be thrown into abrupt discomposure. Subtle, sparsely scattered bird calls can be heard in the distance.

Swift multitudinous drops of rain continually plash and patter the river's smooth glassy levels, and they are heard making little dimples and bells and spray in an ebullient melody of constantly shifting crescendos. The ecstatic flow of buoyant streaming water from the river has a more engaging, relaxing, random variation of natural white noise when compared to electronically processed white noise or white noise software. The duality of both low and high frequencies facilitates listening as our ears tend to crave for one or the other after prolonged singular exposure to either for an extended period of time.

A tirelessly shifting array of liquid awesome — this is the only MP3 that takes you right to the heart of the storm without getting your snugglebuns fried by lightning. No music, no voices, no planes, no synthesizers, no bilk. No layering or looping effects were used in any way to enhance the storm.

Rain on the River is a natural soundscape composed of an hour-long on-location digital stereo quasi-binaural field recording. This recording technique produces a three-dimensional audio image when listening with earphones or headphones. Click here to read more about me and my recording techniques.

The full 63:57 MP3 has no fade-in or fade-out at the beginning or end, so it can seamlessly be played looped without any distraction or sudden change of tempo. Compatible with all CD players, iPods, iPhones, and iPads. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for finest audio reproduction.

  Soundmasking attributes of Rain on the River

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPod volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer
Godzilla

= inaudible       = audible

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Duration: 61 minutes 43 seconds, Size: 84.7 MB.

Autumn Winds is a unique, constantly undulating form of natural white noise that is excellent for masking office noise and other distractions. It is unique in that it is always changing and evolving — never stagnant or static. This chill, laid back soundscape is an ebb and flow of completely natural white noise of moderate intensity.

The trees are still adorned with leaves, in which their presence modulates and colours the noise of the wind with rustling whispers. These features are complemented by a velvety relaxing tempo that makes this recording an ideal gadget for both sleep and study.

Autumn Winds is as ignorable as it is interesting — it does not demand your attention, but rewards it.

Recorded in the northern Canadian taiga of coniferous forests in September of 2007. There are no sounds of birds, animals, insects, planes, cars, voices or music. This is a non-looped soundscape of pure natural wind sounds (no synthesizers, no layering, no post-processing). Completely seamless and includes no fade-in or fade-out at the beginning or end.

Autumn Winds is a natural white noise soundscape digitally recorded using stereo quasi-binaural Sonic Studios DSM-6S/EHs dimensional microphones. Binaural baffle, omni-directional microphone technique. Encoded at a bitrate of 192 kbps for quality listening.

The complete aural equivalent of watching clouds...

  Soundmasking attributes of Autumn Winds

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPad volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer
Godzilla

= inaudible       = audible

Duration: 64 minutes 41 seconds, Size: 88.8 MB.

A field recording from my trip to the Rockies — descending swiftly from the ice fields of the Rocky Mountains, the Kicking Horse River is both a geological and acoustic wonder. It still follows the path it chose before massive glaciers filled the space between these mountains. When the great ice sheet finally disappeared, a broad U-shaped valley was left in its wake and at its bottom, the Kicking Horse River remained — a spectacular remnant of another age.

While exploring a Rocky Mountain river in 1858, surveyor-geologist James Hector suffered a near-fatal kick by his packhorse. Hector survived, and the river and a nearby mountain pass were named in honour of the incident.

The recording location for this MP3 was rather catalytic — my hubby and I were able to move the raft to a calmer area but while he was sitting there oafing away I stranded myself up on a rock for an hour in the middle of its unruly raging waters with my Sonic Studios DSM-6S/M (in a WHB headband) and Edirol R-09.

White noise permeates this soundscape through the relaxing auditory medium of constant streaming water. The overflow from the rapids eddy around to the left and to the right as light spirited waves lap against the rock's perimeter. You can hear the rushing flow of water from the main current shifting amongst the rocks, the harmonic splash of spray, and volumes of water gushing over and around the rocks and boulders all around me. The atmosphere is suffused by white milky mist thrown up into the air by splash and spray everywhere.

Kicking Horse Rapids is a natural soothing source of “pink noise” (a less harsh and less hissy form of “true” white noise) and includes no distracting sounds of birds, planes, music, animals or people. Digital stereo quasi-binaural field recording. Listen with headphones to produce a 3-dimensional auditory experience. Link to binaural recording techniques.

  Soundmasking attributes of Kicking Horse Rapids

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPad volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer
Godzilla

= inaudible       = audible

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Duration: 65 minutes 37 seconds, Size: 90.1 MB.

I have never been more charmed by a country quite like Sri Lanka. As ubiquitous as poverty is, right alongside the high infant mortality rates, these people are albeit proud, educated, genuinely hospitable, and sedulously spiritual.

For example, my guide Carlu had an advanced collegiate degree, could speak several languages fluently, knew almost every single plant and animal by both their Latin and common names including hilarious scientific anecdotes, but most importantly he was remarkably at ease and eager to discuss the meaning of life for hours on end during the lazy evening hours.

Even though he was in his sixties, he was tireless. One morning he forgot to arrange for my brunch to be packed up for the field, so without comment we promptly stopped at a small communal village so that he could buy me a meal (equivalent to several days' worth of wages). I irrevocably pried the truth out of him and he confessed that he'd rather labor for days than to have me skip a brunch because he was forgetful. I bussed him on the cheek and squeezed his testicles.

Carlu is just one of the many reasons that Arthur C. Clarke (author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, R.I.P March 19, 2008) lived here, which introduces how I had come to visit Sri Lanka in the first place.

A good childhood friend of mine had just returned from Sri Lanka on a business trip, and she suggested that I travel to the island country to record some of the environment because the denizens are so spiritually uplifting. Though despite the dense population, she assured me that it was also a quiet place, relatively free of noise pollution in the rural areas. The biosphere reserves are very well respected and preserved which to my favor complemented generously my existing library of environmental ambience and wildlife recordings.

She also suggested that I write to Sir Clarke, “You don't need an address for a BAMF like Arthur C. Clarke, just use Colombo, Sri Lanka, and it'll get to him.” Oy, could there really be such a place left in this world? I wrote the correspondence letter that same day. Three weeks later, I received a hand written letter in my mailbox from Mr. Clarke graciously referring me to several scholars and experts on nature and Carlu was one of them.

Carlu took me to the Kanneliya Forest, Hurulu Reserve, Horton Plains, and Kalutara Beach, and all four places produced environmental ambience recordings of sexcellent quality.

Sleepy Beach Waves takes place on the secluded Kalutara Beach, which is a long, narrow strip of land of situated 38 kilometers south of Mr. Clarke's house and rests between the waters of the Laccadive Sea and a wider inlet of water to the east.

The weather and tide conditions were nothing short of perfect that evening — a crème de la crème of widely spaced waves sweeping singularly and sensuously across the smooth, moist, shimmering sand. The lush ebb and flow of waves — both distant and near — gently caress the shore as they break and recede, leaving a light hissing symphonic trail of sound as the surf ever so softly sizzles itself in.

There was no wind at all, which was pretty rare for an open beach — so I removed the microphone windscreens to allow every creamy little detail to be recorded. At the conclusion of this hour long field recording session I snapped up this photo.

Relaxing beach ambience at its best - without the seagulls, without the swimmers, without the sailors. No birds, no animals, no people, no music. No looping or layering effects were used. This is one full hour of pure, unadulterated, wholesome beach waves — both distant and near — lapping against the sun-kissed sandy shores of the Kalutara on a sleepy September sunset twilight.

This soundscape captures the most primal essence of stranded seaside serenity and solitude in 360-degree binaural surround sound. Ah... so peaceful here. Yet there's fighting going on somewhere at this very minute. Slip on a pair of stereo headphones and dare to cast yourself away.

Sleepy Beach Waves is a non-looped natural undulating “brown noise” (a lower-pitched and less hissy form of “true” white noise) soundscape composed of an hour-long on-location digital stereo quasi-binaural field recording. This recording technique produces a three-dimensional audio image when listening with earphones or headphones. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for finest audio reproduction.

  Soundmasking attributes of Sleepy Beach Waves

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPad volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer

= inaudible       = audible

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Duration: 65 minutes 05 seconds, Size: 89.3 MB.

Far beyond the hectic concrete jungle of modern life there exists a parallel reality, an undiscovered world where you can still see and hear things in their purest and most innocent forms.

This field recording situated at the end of a cavern is as primal as it gets. Listen and swathe yourself in melancholy as you experience a private world perhaps as old as human consciousness itself where the most primeval origin and essence of human personal security remains preserved.

Chill out and relax to the low, slow, halcyon breaths of the Atlantic as they resonate, naturally lulled and muffled, into the hollow undulating tunnel walls of nature's own reverberator — the deep claustral interior of a secluded beachfront cavern I found off the coast of Lydstep Beach.

The cavern is shaped like the human ear canal which collects sounds naturally — the sound of the tide sweeping against the granite walls of the cavern all amalgamate and bounce towards the center where my mikes are carefully positioned.

A deep, smooth, dark ambient texture of prenatal, primordial memories... where the only porn that existed in our time was no more grandiose than horribly malproportioned phalluses on the walls of such most humble abodes.

End of the Cavern is a non-looped natural soundscape composed of an hour-long digital stereo omnidirectional HRTF field recording. This recording technique produces a three-dimensional audio image when listening with earphones or headphones. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for finest audio reproduction.

Duration: 66 minutes 17 seconds, Size: 90.1 MB.

A cold early winter wilderness wind drifts through the trees as the sun peeks over the horizon. Frost in the trunks and branches crunches and pops as the trees flex.

Winter in the forest is a quiet time. Most of the birds have all but migrated south and most of the animals are fast asleep in their winter hibernation. Lakes, ponds, and small streams are frozen, and a thick blanket of snowcover acts as a sound absorbent. As the days get shorter and a little colder in early December, subtle changes occur in the early morning forest soundscape. The winter birds become more vocal.

In this recording, as the rising sun illuminates the tops of the trees, nuthatches chant and hairy woodpeckers drill. Red squirrels become more mobile after a crust forms on the deep snow. Their warning chatter becomes more frequent as they stray into each other's territory. An occasional goldfinch sings. The wind chills.

This is a very quiet minimalist recording — you'll notice that the restless winter air leaves its own background noise imprint. The beginning of the recording has quieter sections, whereas the second half has more wind. Listening with headphones is recommended.

Early Winter Wilderness is for those who enjoy a minimalist soundscape which has long stretches of low volume inactivity, and accurately represents the activities of wind and animals at daybreak in early winter. There is an audible hiss in the recording produced by the recording equipment. It has been encoded at 192 kbps for better audio quality.

Slip on your headphones, hop into your pajamas and cozy bedtime booties, grab a sumptuous fair cup of hot sizzling cider, and chugalug!

bbbrrrrrrrrr...

Duration: 66 minutes 48 seconds, Size: 91.7 MB.

Dreamshower was recorded in the middle of the night at a narrow passage in the mystical white crystalline La Cloche mountains. The area has an “other world” feel and awareness. Dreamshower exudes a particular ambience and unique vibration.

The recording encompasses the middle to upper audio spectrum with variations caused by the water flows and splashes which creates a mesmerizing rhythm that plays up and down in pitch.

This is a crisp clean rain recording enveloped by a depth and spaciousness that slowly evolves and unfolds. The natural variability makes it less fatiguing to listen to when compared to electronically generated rain sounds. A natural source of “white noise” that is ideal for masking ambient noise and office distractions — no synthesizers, no layering, no looping and no post-processing.

Everyone is snuggled into their beds to stay dry, being gently lulled to sleep. There is no thunder, no animal sounds to distract, and no mechanical sounds — just the sounds of steady soft “female rain”.

The perfect non-drug sleep aid to help you relax and fall asleep. Play Dreamshower at bedtime and drift off to a peaceful and relaxing slumber to alleviate insomnia and sleeplessness.

“The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Soundmasking attributes of Dreamshower

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPad volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer

= inaudible       = audible

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Dream Forest — perfect to use as a sleep aid or peaceful background noise. I have recorded this area of Canada's boreal forest more than 300 times and each time I visit this wonderful little amphitheater I fall deeper in love with its changing voice.

Dream Forest is a digital binaural recording of one of those sacrosanct nights that follows a warm spring day. The first thunderstorm of the season has passed, its lightning having released a nutritious rainfall of freshly ionized nitrogen. Leaves are just beginning to unfold, ferns are unfurling, and water is everywhere. Water is running and on the move.

The sounds of peaceful trickles of running water come from all around, and larger moving volumes can be heard in the distant background. Emanating from around, seemingly without a direct source, a velvety sound fills the atmosphere. It constantly evolves and undulates, seemingly self-creating, just like the evening mist that gently floats through the maze of ferns and thickets of shrubbery. It sounds like insects, but this time of year is too soon after winter for the six-leggeds to be reproducing. Surprisingly, the trilling is toads.

In the distance, amid the loose debris of the forest floor, a subtle soothing chorus of spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer) can be heard as well, the earliest frogs in the spring to call in this area. They call from the pools and puddles caused by the spring melt waters and previous winter rains. Their crescendo of nighttime whistles from amorous males are as much a sign of the end of winter as the return of migratory birds. Spring peepers are very small, only about an inch to an inch and a half long. Rarely do I get to see one — I have stood right by the pond where they are calling and suddenly shine a flashlight into the shallow water only to see nothing. No movement — just dead leaves on the pond bottom. Oy, these guys have good camouflage! Spring peepers will also climb and lift themselves up out of the water on twigs and stems, perhaps to make their call carry further.

Most people from the city don't know what they are, thinking they are a kind of insect like a cricket.

They start calling here in late April, and they will continue calling into June when these small wet areas begin to dry up. In May other species start to join in. They usually sing after dusk, and stop when the temperature gets down to about 12 C (53 F). Though they may start up for a short chorus during the day, if it is cloudy and rainy.

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Duration: 66 minutes 51 seconds, Size: 91.8 MB.

It's early spring and this secluded Ontarion backcountry wilderness river is filling its streambed with fresh volumes of spirited, sparkling meltwater. The bright, radiant reflection of watery frequencies off the crystalline snow-breaded banks, coupled with the extra revitalizing flow of spring snowmelt, creates a special seasonal sound of exceptional vibrant sonic clarity.

Several unique properties give this field recording a special enchanting aura. The location I recorded it from was unique in that I had found a large two-yard wide, relatively flat-surfaced rock that was almost exactly centered in the riverbed where I set up my mikes and baffle. The river splits and flows past both sides of the rock and reintertwines right from behind. Water is also bubbling its own nuances from underneath this useful instrumental rock.

The headphone-clad listener will be facing upstream as a full 360-degree binaural panorama of surround sound water swishes and bubbles past omni-directionally to either side and behind. As lower-pitched kerplunks and soft percussive notes of water emanate from below, eddies swirl sensuously to either side, and a thousand spherical points of sound drift across the riverbed. Cedar and pine trees alternate with oak and maple among the surrounding flora.

A minimalist field recording, Wilderness River has no birds, no animals, no wind, no insects and no man-made sounds (cars, planes, voices, etc.) that'd act to occupy or engage your attention — only the constant, continuous stress-busting sound of gentle, soothing, streaming water.

Wilderness River is a non-looped natural soundscape composed of an hour-long on-location digital stereo quasi-binaural field recording. This recording technique produces a three-dimensional audio image when listening with earphones or headphones. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for finest audio reproduction.

  Soundmasking attributes of Wilderness River

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPad volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer

= inaudible       = audible

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Duration: 65 minutes 21 seconds, Size: 89.7 MB.

Gentle cleansing trickles of rain eagerly bruit the advent of a steady downpour of mild to moderate intensity. Low, rolling moans of thunder resonate across the skies in lingering intervals as they mend the mind and persona from a long day’s endeavors. A comprehensive auscultation with stereo headphones leaves the listener refreshed with a contemplation of purity and renewal.

Healing Storm is a clear crystalline atmosphere that is distant and non-threatening with tender, delicate rumbles rather than sharp crackling thunder. There is a wonderful sense of comfort and enjoyment of hearing nature's power from a safe distance.

No animals, birds, people, cars or mechanical sounds are included. No music or voices are added. Healing Storm is a natural soundscape composed of edited and mixed digital stereo quasi-binaural field recordings. This recording technique produces a 3-dimensional auditory image when listening with headphones. Encoded at a bitrate of 192 kbps for quality listening.

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Duration: 65 minutes 51 seconds, Size: 90.4 MB.

I am absolutely in love with Scotland.

Firstly, the accent here is so endearing. The soft accents are very sweet and congenial, while the thicker accents are thoroughly amusing. I kinda wish I had a Scottish accent. Although I can roll my R's pretty well, I can't seem to get the lilting of the Scottish melody down just quite yet.

Scotland is just darn beautiful. It has snow, it has beautiful glens and pristine rolling hills, it has zillions of miles of unspoiled picturesque wilderness.

And everywhere that I go there is the smell of soft grandmotherly perfume wafting in the air, not harsh overpowering perfume like the kind that women smokers wear to cover up the stench of nicotine, but rather, a flowery smell soldered with the scent of a fresh, clean baby.

Another thing is the people here are so decidedly friendly — strangers have invited me out on several occasions, from which one of them is how this recording came to be.

It was a long hike before we set up camp, which I found out later was around -10°c — and even though it was only four o'clock, night was washing over us. My gore-tex alpine bivysack and -20°C sleeping bag did keep me toasty when I was basking in its warmth but come morning my boots and water bottle were completely frozen, and packing up the bivysack/thermarest/sleeping bag and various other sundries was a serious challenge with hands and feet I wasn't sure belonged to me anymore.

Nevertheless, throughout the morning I traipsed about aimlessly through the snow–listening. Not for anything in particular, just the whole place; not a thought, not a word.

Eventually I sussed out a spot in a large area of pine trees especially chosen for its particularly musical qualities, about 20 feet into the cluster. This particular patch of trees was relatively dense which barred the wind from sundering itself, but rather, allowed it to sing its way around and over the trees.

I found that this exuberant sound is special to this particular spot, because when I tried a few other locations that were easier to get to, all failed to match the essence that I captured here. I set up my recording equipment quickly and in hushed amazement pressed RECORD.

Caledonian Squalls is a delightfully rousing white noise MP3 with 65 minutes of deep, balming winds heartily rushing through the pines of the Scottish Cairngorms.

Wandering through fields of stridulate noise, wafting on languid breezes, these winds conjure a pleasantly piquant air doused with low-pitched frequencies that lend a pensive edge to this delicate aural lattice.

They as well provide an elusive foundation for the aerial sonic stream, gradually accumulating a subtle puissance until reaching a level of heightened intensity naturally crafted to stimulate the subconscious, only to nimbly glissade back into moderate aplomb.

Excellent for both sleep and study, this wintry field recording is a breathy atmosphere conveyed by relaxing rhythms of infinite scope, naturally executed with placid restraint. No birds, animals, or planes are included.

  Soundmasking attributes of Caledonian Squalls

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPad volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer

= inaudible       = audible

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Duration: 67 minutes 44 seconds, Size: 93.0 MB.

Thousands of joyous sinuous streams are born in the snowy range, but nary a poet among them all can sing like my little friend here.

Men are not born equal, neither are streams. This snowy alpine stream here was born a poet, a perfect seraph among its palavering fellows.

This stream sang cheerily at every ripple, establishing liquid tempos amid pleasantly shrill chords of crystalline demeanor, and its tasty dose of bubbles strived to elevate the frivolous mien.

Even in these barren white fields frozen with snow, these alabaster deserts ostensibly devoid of all life, here lies an emphatically frolicsome, simultaneously imperterturbable wilderness glacier stream — a tenuous bubbling soup of placid sonic textures and pleasantly shrill ricocheting notes of water.

And even if one harbors no interest in these brilliantly sculpted pine-tinged mountain topographies and their contemplative environments, this songful silvery rill mesmerizes and captivates the listener with its lush ruminative qualities, expertly banishing tension and transporting the listener to realms of contagious relaxation.

Snowstream is a non-layered, non-processed natural white noise soundscape composed of a digital stereo binaural-baffled on-location field recording. This recording technique produces a three-dimensional audio image when listening with earphones or headphones. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for finest audio reproduction.

  Soundmasking attributes of Snowstream

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPad volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer

= inaudible       = audible

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Duration: 63 minutes 45 seconds, Size: 87.5 MB.

Recorded on a quiet misty summer night, light rain dribbles upon a small moonlit bank while a deep mesmerizing concert of gentle chirping night crickets peep and whistle along with a backdrop harmony of myriad other night time insects. You can hear the occasional fall of dewdrops from the leaves.

I have supplemented this with a steady stream of soothing white noise. Designed to provide the nostalgic auditory summer stimulus that winter and urban living lacks, this'll help you find your organic sense of grounding that you usually seem to lose during the winter months.

The elements of rhythm are complimented by a natural randomness factor that is relaxing, soothing, and pleasantly refreshing. These combinations of sound best stimulate one's auditory sense, while the absence of bass frequencies leaves the attention unperturbed. These unique characteristics make this MP3 an aid for meditation, relief for depression and stress, and a natural drug-free gadget for insomniacs.

This passes beyond the realms of awesome into dimensions of quantum hyperliquidawesome not yet charted by humankind that if you were able to grasp the mere concept of it its awesomeness would simultaneously explode both your bladder and brain.

NyQuil in the form of audio.

Listen to this while driving and you'll die.

You may also like: Healing Waves Sleepy Beach Waves Baltic Waves Midnight Surf End of the Cavern

Duration: 64 minutes 06 seconds, Size: 88.0 MB.

Although some parts are only accessible by boat, spend a week within and around the Small Isles off the coast of Skye in Scotland and it'll happily dawn upon you that the beauty and splendor of this breathtaking island archipelago finds itself aesthetically rivaled only by its soothing canorous bluster and melodious maritime soughs.

This breezy seashore soundscape was binaurally recorded and photographed at Laig Bay on the Isle of Eigg. In the distance, the sun takes a seat atop the Isle of Rùm, respite from the heat of its long day — and I'm sitting on a rock tickling the sand with my feet as I replay in my mind the shifting moods and varied venues of my own vested day.

In the background, a soothing low breeze quietly bustles along the surface of the water as it spreads across the ocean and permeates into the bay. It is calmer here, and it's somewhat of a mitigating relief to listen to the ocean's song from this location — most of the waves and winds that would have made it into the bay are blocked by the surrounding cliffs.

The muffled ocean swells and complaisant sighing winds are in tranquil unison, and they act upon one another in joyful confluence to wash away the listener's worries. The background breeze constantly mumbles in low monotonous baritone, the distant rolling waves are blended and modified by the ocean's draft and multiplied by the bay's echoing cliffs, and water from the enervated surf gently laps against the foreground conglomeration of rocks and small boulders in whispered laughs of splash and spray.

Ocean Breeze is a natural soundscape composed of edited and mixed digital stereo quasi-binaural field recordings. This recording technique produces a three-dimensional audio image when listening with earphones or headphones. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for finest audio reproduction.

You may also like: Babbling Creek Snowstream Meadow Brook Meditation Streamside Sojourn Wilderness River Underwater Tarry Dream Forest

Duration: 63 minutes 43 seconds, Size: 87.5 MB.

I'm strolling through the woods, sunlight filtering down through the verdant canopy above, my feet rustling through several inches of yesteryear's cast off leaves. At first, I notice a seemingly special ambience to the area without being able to put a finger on exactly what has changed.

Then, as I continue hiking about, I recognize in the distance the faint familiar sound of running water. I detour towards the source of sound and start to explore. Suddenly — arriving at a small narrow valley, a neat little brook rambling about a bed of rocks unfolds before my eyes as melodic gurgles of sparkling wonderment greet me in welcome.

A constant mesmerizing chorus of babbling bubbles, gabbling gurgles, encircling eddies and subtly sputtering splashes, the sound produced is nothing short of magical - calming yet reinvigorating.

Contains no birds or animals. My special thanks and gratitude goes out to Kevin Flannery. He's the landowner of this wonderful brook and graciously gave me the permission to record it.

Forest Brook is a non-looped natural soundscape composed of an hour-long on-location digital stereo binaural field recording. This recording technique produces a three-dimensional audio image when listening with earphones or headphones. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for finest audio reproduction.

  Soundmasking attributes of Forest Brook

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPad volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer

= inaudible       = audible

Duration: 65 minutes 33 seconds, Size: 90.0 MB.

Darkness in the Amazon rainforest sneaks up on you swiftly and silently like a hungry snake going after its prey. Suddenly, against all expectation, it pounces on you violently, swallowing you whole into its belly.

Through the opening of my humble grass hut, as I laid in my hammock, I witnessed a rush of vibrant colors: a flash of crimson, a moment of magenta, a sudden burst of red, then — blackness!

The racket of birds and monkeys died as quickly as the sun, and night was ushered in by a horde of strange new voices: the warbling of tree frogs, occasionally accented with the bark of larger frogs, the chirping of bats and the shrill chorus of insects, the snoring sounds of unidentified animals and the distant howling of monkeys.

I grappled for my headlight as I ventured out of my hut and into my dugout canoe in total darkness and headed down the river. I casted my gaze upwards. The sky was dotted with countless sparkling stars like I had never seen, so unmuddled and clear that the constellations were apparent.

Lost somewhere amongst them was a full moon shimmering its pale light upon the water, regaling my eyes with incandescent sparkles of eternal rapture. I sat speechless, transfixed and gasping for air in a chimerical dreamlike aesthetic haze, wondering how one could describe such beauty without comparing it to something else. Words seemed clinical and inadequate.

Not even a poet could do it justice — it was simply the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in all my years of living. I was humbled. My mind melted and I absorbed with intensity all the strange noises creeping out from the jungle's silhouette as I glided through the velvety darkness in complete awe.

A moment later, I became aware of a subtle light, a deep rich amber refulgence dawning from far away, beyond the partly sealed rim of my weary eyes. It was a cloud of fireflies dancing about, fluttering and reeling in ecstasy, suffusing the night with a savory surreal bioluminescent mise en scène. Pandering to my infantile compulsions I paddled closer to catch one in my hand.

I doubted seriously if anything could top what I had already recorded but, incidentally, I had noticed with my ears something strange yet infinitely alluring — the environmental noise-to-signal ratio in this area of the jungle was remarkably high, and it was entirely natural. I pulled my canoe up onto the bank of the river, switched on my light and ambled about deep into the forest until I was satisfied with an excellent stereo arrangement, set up my equipment and pressed RECORD.

Sleepy Jungle Slumber contains no fade-in or fade-out and can be seamlessly played on repeat without any sudden distractions. Digital stereo binaural recording. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for quality listening.

You may also like: Sleepy Beach Waves Ocean Breeze Baltic Waves Midnight Surf End of the Cavern

Duration: 66 minutes 42 seconds, Size: 91.6 MB.

Healing Waves features soft secluded turquoise waves breaking offshore upon long ridges of sandbars, which then roll up and wash onto the glistening coast with positively relaxing vicissitudes of both impulse and impuissance.

Designed with a view of rest and recovery for tired bodies and aching appendages, for exerted minds and exhausted faculties, for wounded hearts and disenchanted souls, this silky smooth ocean soundscape relaxes and recuperates, recenters and re-equilibrates, revitalizes and refreshes the listener with a watery cradle of complete auditory zen.

To record Healing Waves a secluded low tide area was selected, surrounded by a stunning profusion of forests and rocky cliffs, far from homes and highways in an isolated bay. Recording took place during the early evening twilight.

You can hear the low rumbling frequencies of the distant breaking waves, which eagerly precede the final overspread upon the beach. Every so often the subtle strike of ocean spray can just as well be heard lapping against the large foreground rock sitting off in the distance a little to the left of the microphones.

This specific region proved to be perfect for recording the evening tide without any distractions. The result is a pure pristine recording that sounds very open, immediate, alive, and overflowing with the energy of harmonic ocean waves.

Healing Waves is a natural soundscape digitally recorded using stereo binaural HRTF microphones and includes no sounds of animals, birds, people, voices, or traffic. No music has been added. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for quality listening.

Listen to this if you ever reach into the blender to dislodge a stuck icecube without unplugging it first.

You may also like: Victoria Falls Detifoss Top of the Chasm Empty Conference Room

Duration: 67 minutes 31 seconds, Size: 92.7 MB.

The world-famous Devil's Pool — the most dangerous natural infinity pool on Earth. Recorded in late August of 2009.

The Devil's Pool is a naturally formed pool located right on the edge of Victoria Falls, the largest waterfall in the world. Because the water level was low, I was allowed to explore areas of Victoria Falls that were usually under heavy rushing water — so instead of overwhelming brumes of mist soaking me to the bone, I could see the cliff faces with steep scary drops to the mighty Zambezi River underneath.

Nevertheless, loud roaring caterwauls of forceful moving water was everywhere around me, everywhere I turned. The falls were spilling over only half of the gorge while the other half was somewhat dry for the moment, and I hiked along the edge. Just a few months after this recording took place, tremendous amounts of violent rushing water will be storming over my footprints. After a 40 minute hike along and through the myriad boulders and creeks, my arrival at the Smoke that Thunders was greeted by a man in khaki shorts who approached me with an exciting offer — and before I knew it, I was wading into the water with my recording equipment safe and sound in my Pelican 1500 waterproof case.

For a nominal fee you can dive off a rock at the edge of Victoria Falls into a naturally occuring eddy pool called the Devil's Pool. But it is literally right on the edge — on the lip of the edge — of the waterfall, and you jump into a pool of surprisingly unperturbed water. But just before the river's current washes you over the edge, you're stopped right on the brink — mere inches from the chasm — due to a natural rock wall just below the surface of the water that stops your progress. You can only do it in the dry season though (mid-August through January or February depending on rainfall), lest you wish upon yourself a terminal freefall descent into a jaggedy rock grave — any other time of the year and the sheer volumes of water will be entirely too much for you to stand your ground.

My guide performs a running dive straight into the pool, pulls himself up and stands on the extreme verge of the waterfall. One minuscule nudge from the tip of my little pinky finger and he'd have been a goner! He hollers over the trumpeting cacophony of deafening white noise and signals for me to hop in. My heart is pounding like a kettle drum. I lay my Pelican case onto a flat-faced rock, assume a steady stance, and — GERONIMO! — lunge forth into the world-renowned Devil's Pool.

It really is true — I'm stopped by a naturally formed barrier of petrified basalt submerged just a few inches below the surface of the water, and it protects me from tumbling into the river gorge far below. He's proposed to dangle me over the edge. Heck, why not! I crawl ever so precariously closer towards the lush miasma of thundering smoke, the vast void of milky white floating mist — until my belly button passes over the dead-end margin of the falls and runs perpendicular to the cliff's face.

He takes hold of my legs, and — I stoop my head to witness a bevy of beautiful double rainbows as soft squiggly rills of water trickle down my back and off into the Zambezi river chasm below.

I skipped a heartbeat. My stomach lurched. Adrenaline raced through my veins.

Amorphous liquid monoliths coalesced below, eminent and imperial.

It was such an amazing sight to behold — and such a long, long, long way down. Certainly an electrifying experience for the more acrophobic-inclined.

The constant turgid sea of broadband brown noise produced by the aggregate activity of countless collocated swiftly cascading rivulets of water stretched wide across an entire mile — married the simultaneous explosion of stratospheric pink noise bursting from neighboring waterfalls of the immediate vicinity; and the sound was like the snarling yawn of ten thousand slumbering gods — vociferously soothing with a degree of enjoyable vitality: invigorating and mesmerizing, voluminously robust and fretlessly bassful.

I swam my way back to my carefully reclined case of safely ensconced electronic paraphernalia, set up my headband-baffled omni-directional binaural microphone pair, laid prone atop the Devil's lip and pressed RECORD — my Sound Devices 744T audibly preserving the world's loudest infinity pool to its mechanical will. I snapped up this photo afterwards.

Devil's Pool is a non-looped natural soundscape composed of an hour-long on-location digital stereo, omni-directional binaural field recording. This recording technique produces a three-dimensional audio image when listening with earphones or headphones. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for finest audio reproduction. Includes no music and no sounds of voices or people, birds or animals, planes or cars. The full hour-length MP3 includes no fade-in or fade-out at the beginning or end, so it can be seamlessly played on repeat without any distractions or sudden change of volume.

  Soundmasking attributes of Devil's Pool

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPad volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer

= inaudible       = audible

You may also like: Dream Forest Nothing but Crickets

Duration: 62 minutes 00 seconds, Size: 85.1 MB.

Winter is over and spring is in the air. In Spring Nocturne, we are treated to a surround-sound panoramic symphony of distant spring peepers, one of the first among many vernal ensembles to announce the season's arrival.

The air is flowing with hazy white mist, the calm quiet midnight atmosphere vibrates with the deep spacious stillness of their hypnotic lullaby, and we hear the sweet accompaniment of the trilling of toads and chorus frogs that join in every now and then (whose vocals sound similar to running a finger along the teeth of a comb).

They are collectively awakened by the thawing of the earth as they slumber in their winter beds underneath a thick insulating layer of leaves and soil, and for 62 minutes we are pampered with the regal ambience of their melancholic crooning.

Usually they will begin to stir and peep during the warmer and rainy nights of spring, and even when there are still a few traces of snow and ice sitting on the edges of their ponds, they are not at all deterred — they just slip themselves under the ice and either drift about freely or hang onto a straying leaf or stick or other floating debris.

By the middle of April the male peepers will stake out their positions around the periphery of these ponds and puddles as they sing their little hearts out to entice the female peepers. It may take a few nights of intense singing, but in due time these considerably selective females will become attracted to certain males. The male peepers with tiptop voices draw in the most females — although with thousands of them singing all at once, it is difficult to single out just that one perfect voice.

Early mating this time of spring allows their newborn tadpoles to mature before the sweltering heat of summer starts to dry up their puddles and ponds. However, the only problem with doing this is that they may encounter a deviating “late” spring freeze. Once the youngsters are mature, they will spread out over the land to feast upon insects at night, and rest during the warmth of the day. Sexual maturity won't be reached until they are about 3 to 4 years of age.

As long as the weather conditions are warm and/or humid, the harmonious tumult of peeps and whistles carries on uninterrupted. If the weather becomes cool, the singing takes a temporary interlude until the next warm spell.

By early June, the singing ceases altogether except for the one or two odd loud mouths. It's no coincidence that these little frogs awaken just as the first bugs of spring begin to appear. On the same nights that I first hear these peepers, my windshield can always be found covered with bugs (which are also just rewakening).

People often wonder how it is that these tiny little creatures can make so much noise but, in direct relation to its petite size, the spring peeper is apparently one of the loudest animals on Earth! The male spring peeper has a special sac attached to his throat that allows him to sing — using this sac, he squeezes air over the vocal cords and proceeds to amplify the sound by extensively inflating his throat into a large balloon-like bubble, and this produces an ear-piercing high-pitched peeping sound that can be heard for almost 2 kilometers away. The females don't have this kind of fun — only the male peepers are endowed with this magical sac!

Spring Nocturne is a non-looped natural soundscape composed of an hour-long on-location digital stereo binaural field recording. This recording technique produces a three-dimensional audio image when listening with earphones or headphones. There are no other sounds of birds, insects, people, cars, planes, wind, rain or water. No layering effects were used. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for finest audio reproduction.

You may also like: Autumn Winds Caledonian Squalls Ye Olde Cozy Cottage Rain on the River

Duration: 65 minutes 7 seconds, Size: 89.4 MB.

A most acoustically serendipitous happenstance as it may be, this fabulous chance recording was chronicled right on the spur of pure tragedy — I honestly had not foreseen recording this magnificent auditory spectacle of mother nature on the steps of my friend’s porch during the series of severe storms on the dreaded afternoon of August 19th, 2005.

Honestly. I mean, we were discussing politics and homemade chicken pot pie in the dining room while simultaneously engorging ourselves with homemade chicken pot pie. We certainly weren't discussing torrential windstorms the size of Angelina Jolie's upper lip.

That's why you carry your portable field recording gear with you wherever you go no matter what, homeslice.

Having been armed with a matched stereo pair of DPA 4060-BMs clipped onto my hoodie (touching each ear for quasi-binaural imaging), a PA-24NJ battery mic preamp, and a Sony PCM-M1 DAT, I captured the complete sonic birth, early incursion and epochal cortex of a supercell storm.

The Toronto Supercell storm struck at 12:30pm as part of the Southern Ontario Tornado Outbreak of 2005, which later spawned two F2 strength tornadoes, produced winds of well over 100km/h, golf ball sized hail, extensively flooded more than half of the Greater Toronto Area, and completely laid to waste Finch Avenue near Sentinel Road in North York with damages in excess of $10 million CAD.

Everyone was inside their homes in quiet apprehension except for me. The winds were galvanizing — had I used my tripod or HRTF baffle to record this, my gear would've easily been swept away as supercell fodder in one succinct blast of wind. Thus, I sat, I meditated — and I reveled — in this profusely awesome auditive exhibit of nature's unrelenting power.

Birth of a Supercell is a non-looped natural soundscape composed of an hour-long on-location digital stereo quasi-binaural field recording. This recording technique produces a three-dimensional audio image when listening with earphones or headphones. Contains no sounds of birds, animals, people or voices. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for finest audio reproduction.

  Soundmasking attributes of Birth of a Supercell

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPad volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer

= inaudible       = audible

Duration: 63 minutes 45 seconds, Size: 87.5 MB.

Babbling Creek was digitally recorded using my binaural recording technique on a calm, cool, summer afternoon at Sinclair Creek in Kootenay National Forest. It's late summer, the sun is barely peeking through the trees, and deep down in a valley that sports some of the most exquisite western red cedars home to some of earth's rarest flora and fauna and most spectacular landscapes, the sound of rushing water here against the rocks and valley walls proves all but phenomenal.

I have to step and hop from rock to rock to carefully position my microphone baffle in the middle of where there is a water drop of about 1 foot (0.3 meters) as the creek then finds four paths to arrive at a small 4 foot (1.21 meters) wide pool. There it pauses a bit as if to gather itself together to flow further into a larger rocky pond. The natural, musical sound of playful little pitches is of both peace and seclusion.

  Soundmasking attributes of Babbling Creek

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPad volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer

= inaudible       = audible

Duration: 64 minutes 03 seconds, Size: 87.9 MB.

This soundscape was recorded in a secluded area of the Yosemite Valley, a quiet off-the-beaten-path trail void of any tourists. Robust yet tempered zephyrs stir and sift through the densely congregated treetops of towering pines and firs that soar shoulder to shoulder. The air is fresh, alive, and vibrant with a brisk zest of its own that you can smell right through your headphones. The tree needles and branches modulate the blowing wind and become alive with dance and song. It is a cleansing time as well, because old needles and branchlets are offered to the winds.

Pristine omni-directional birdcalls echoing back and forth create an ever gentle reverie of peaceful, soothing, calming sound to aid you with those long trains of thought that just warrant for deep, meditative contemplation and painstaking mental effort.

Mountain Valley Breezes is a form of natural white noise, the sound of serenity. As the leaves rustle and dance and the branches billow, we are reminded of the leisurely days of summer warmth and relaxation, beneath blue skies of meandering fluffy white clouds.

Slip on a pair of sound-isolating headphones/earphones (I recommend the Sennheiser HD 380 PRO headphones, and Etymotic Research ER6i earphones) and try listening to this while you're reading or working.

  Soundmasking attributes of Mountain Valley Breezes

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPad volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer

= inaudible       = audible

Duration: 64 minutes 27 seconds, Size: 88.5 MB.

The tropical rainforests of the Amazon Basin — home to the highest diversity of plant and animal species than anywhere else in the world. These sacrosanct jewels of the Earth comprise the world's largest pharmacy; nearly half the medicines we use were developed from rainforest plants — including the painkiller ibuprofen, synthesized from a vine prevalent in these very forests called the monkey ladder tree.

Without ibuprofen, the disparity proves incalculable in the department of productivity when the abject misery of physical pain overrides our willpower to do what must be done.

Yet we'd still be rubbing our foreheads and miscellaneous extremities in futile effort were it not for rain, arguably the most critical ingredient of the grand gestalt that has given seed to such beneficial monkey ladder trees and the astounding myriad of exotic wildlife in these most biologically diverse sanctums of mother nature.

The weather of the jungle in the middle region of the Amazon Basin is usually well flecked with rains and deep bellowings of thunder — but most of which are far too obviously joyful and life-giving to be regarded as storms. I was trekking deep in the jungle, entirely engrossed with its riotous beauty, when I peered up and over towards the sky — and suddenly, without warning, a massive wall of incipient dark thunderclouds had loomed above me.

A range of bossy grey cumuli had taken possession of the sky, huge domes and peaks rising one beyond another with deep canyons between them, bending this way and that in long curves and reaches, interrupted here and there with white upsurging masses that looked like the spray of waterfalls. Sharp zigzag lances of lightning followed each other in quick succession, and the thunder was so gloriously loud and massive it seemed as if surely an entire mountain was being shattered at every other stroke.

Though, in spite of that, I do trust that no mountain or mountain range — however divinely clothed with light — has a more enduring charm than these fleeting mountains of the sky — floating fountains bearing water for every tree and creature in the jungle, for the denizens of its macrocosmic interwoven plexus, for the buoyant spirits of its streams and lakes and rivers; brooding in the deep azure, or sweeping softly along the canopy as they linger with cooling shadows, refreshing every languished flower, every withering leaf, and soothing raucous ranting birds with a gentleness of touch and gesture wholly divine.

I ecstatically arranged my recording equipment and tarried in place as I surveiled the storm's debut. Down came a cataract of rain. Swift katabatic raindrops sifted through the dense arborescent canopy, plashed and pattered upon the jumbled assortment of reticulate green flora, and poured down the sides of trunks and vines in a network of grey, bubbling rills.

In Rain and Thunder in the Amazon Basin, we listen to the robust hammering of rain pellets against the lush foliage of the forest floor, understory plants and upper jungle canopy of emergent trees as thunder resonates and rumbles and roars and occasionally crashes and booms and circles about us.

In these forests, scarcely a raindrop can fail to find a beautiful mark: on the tops of arboreal thoroughfares of twisting columns and spiraling lianas, on the smooth chest-high fronds of verdant efflorescing fern, on the curves of slippery brown moss-enveloped logs, on the thousand forms of tropical forest sculpture with their tender beauty of balmy, flowery vegetation — laving, plashing, glinting, pattering; some falling softly on meadows, creeping out of sight, seeking and finding every thirsty rootlet, some falling with blunt tapping sounds, drumming on the broad leaves of trillium, cypripedium, granadilla; some falling straight into fragrant corollas, kissing the lips of lilies, some into the lakes and rivers and lagoons — patting the smooth glassy levels, making little dimples and bells and spray here and there and everywhere.

Everything is refreshed and invigorated, a steam of fragrance arises, and the storm is finished. Good work and happy work for these merry forest raindrops, each one of them a brave fall in itself, rushing from the cliffs and hollows of the clouds into the cliffs and hollows of the jungle; away from the thunder of the sky into the thunder of the roaring forest rivers; saturating all and fountainizing all with the melodious energy of nature's renewal.

As a cautionary note, I do not recommend this recording for sleep mainly because the occasional thunderclap can be startling, but rather, as a natural drug-free stimulant and thoroughly energizing auditory backdrop for accomplishing tasks and getting things done.

Digital stereo binaural recording. No fade-in or fade-out at the beginning or end is included. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for a rich listening experience!

  Soundmasking attributes of Rain and Thunder in the Amazon Basin

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPad volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer

= inaudible       = audible

Duration: 63 minutes 8 seconds, Size: 86.7 MB.

This clean minimalist recording of pure unadulerated rain sounds (and nothing else) was recorded in a small courtyard area between several houses. There was a concrete porch with a very small awning. The rich textures in the recording emanate from that concrete and the bermuda glass that surrounded the area, which adds a touch of granularity to the aggregate auditory spectacle.

The DSM-1S/H's are amazing microphones and a lot of this recording's magic I feel come by the subject's movement in the sky and the static nature of the rain by which my DSM's did a fantastic job capturing. I found a cute little rock and snapped up this photo. His name is Bunkerwuggy.

Nothing but Rain is pure peaceful refreshing rain. No birds, no thunder, no wind and no man-made sounds to distract. No music has been added. Bitrate has been encoded at 192 kbps for quality audio reproduction. Edited digital stereo, binaural-baffled HRTF field recording.

  Soundmasking attributes of Nothing but Rain

  when combined with Sennheiser HD-380 PRO headphones at 85% iPad volume

  (The 380s are amazingly comfortable for side-sleepers)

		< 6.5ft	> 6.5ft	> 20ft	> 49ft
Talking
Snoring
Crying baby
Barking dog
Shouting/yelling
Truck revving
Car horn
Lawnmower
Motorcycle revving
Fire truck siren
Jackhammer

= inaudible       = audible

Duration: 73 minutes 48 seconds, Size: 101 MB.

During my travels around the globe, I have come to see the Earth differently. For me, it is quite eloquently a solar-powered jukebox.

The more sunlight that is readily available for plants to grow, the more available energy there will also be to power a particular ecosystem's bioacoustics. Sunny places are, for the most part, louder places (for example, tropical rainforests). Ergo, darker places are quieter places. To put it in a nutshell — as you go towards the equator, the Earth gets louder; as you go towards the poles, the Earth gets quieter. (This effect is also naturally complemented by the fact that sound travels faster in warm air as compared to cold air; and sound just as well travels farther in humid air as compared to dry air.)

Jukebox Earth plays a variety of different tunes. Select any given set of latitude and longitude and you will hear an entirely different melody. The more time that any given location has had to further evolve to develop more complex, more ecologically intertwined relationships, the more symphonic the music becomes. Glaciation, logging, and other forms of devastation drastically reduce the composition back to elemental forms, where the composition begins to slowly rebuild again in rhythm, diversity, complexity. I’ve met people who have the uncanny ability to correctly identify a place, the corresponding season, and time of day based on the environmental sounds alone.

Plant life is essential to understanding the distribution of natural sounds and how sounds behave in such environments. Fauna is so dependent on flora for survival, it can be said that the vegetation can be interpreted as the musical score. From the plants and vegetation alone (i.e., structure and composition), it is possible to predict the kinds of animal sounds and other events that are likely to occur at other times of the day or year. I like to pretend that the plants themselves have voices, and this illusion is helpful as a conceptual sound designer when I am given only a photograph or video clip and must correctly apply the respective sounds.

The Earth is music, spinning in the deafening silence of space; and nowhere is this heard ever more clearly than in the Amazon Basin at daybreak. The sun has just risen, mist is flowing and swirling in the humid morning air above the warm jungle canopy, and the first rays of light can be heard as the stillness of chirping crickets and rasping cicadas grows punctuated by the resonating songs of birds at dawn.

Distant howler monkeys eagerly join in the forest's awakening chorus, insect-like calls of poison dart frogs and whistled notes of wrens and antbirds permeate the atmosphere, and surround-sound is being recorded as deep cries of wild animals parley amongst one another in 360 degrees around my binaural omni-directional microphone pair.

This forest is remarkably clean — constant ticks and snaps and thuds of distant branches can be heard falling to the ground as they climactically concede to the rainforest's warm temperature and humidity, favorable conditions for decay which keep the forest looking fresh and forever young.

What you hear is the interaction between fauna and flora, untouched by human development, which has formed from tens of millions of years of complete ecological symbiosis. Every inch of the forest is alive, and the closer you listen, the more life you will hear. Everything moves, everything breathes. Everything is animated with music and energy. Listen long enough, and you begin to hear the gentle side of the always-awake jungle spirits.

Daybreak on the Amazon Basin features a long 15 second fade-in/fade-out at the beginning and the end. Encoded at a bitrate of 192 kbps for better listening quality. Listen with headphones!

You may also like: Sprinklin' Crickets Spring Nocturne Sleepy Jungle Slumber Dream Forest

Duration: 62 minutes 55 seconds, Size: 86.4 MB.

Nothing but Crickets — perfect for sleep and tinnitus relief. Includes only the sounds of serene shrilling crickets — there are no other sounds of birds, animals, people, wind or water.

Nothing but Crickets was binaurally recorded in Canada at night on a grassy forest meadow, under a star-swept dome of glistening white dots. We are miles deep within this secluded virgin wilderness, at complete isolation from the modern world of bustling crowds and bellowing cars.

A symphony of serenading gryllidae harmonizes beautifully throughout the recording in a constant cadenced chorus of see-sawing chirps and long, low, simultaneous hums. One group chirps, and another hums. The sound is mesmerizing, soothing, sublime — this was the perfect lullaby I needed for sleeping under the stars. (And packing up my recording equipment afterwards, as I lied there in my bivy sack I witnessed a shooting star — truly one of life's greatest moments!)

The shrilling of these crickets is an intimate performance nevertheless — it is the males who sing, either to attract the female crickets (and to repel the other males) or to broadcast their post-copulatory bliss to the heavens (the resulting “happy hum”). This is called stridulation — and the crickets do this by rubbing the top of one forewing against the teeth of their other forewing, resembling the act of one playing a violin.

The crickets' noise level remains constant all throughout, never stopping to rest as they take turns cricking and rhyming their nightly ballad. Adjust the volume to your taste to control a sense of distance and proximity.

Nothing but Crickets is a non-looped natural soundscape composed of an hour-long on-location digital stereo quasi-binaural field recording. This recording technique produces a three-dimensional audio image when listening with earphones or headphones. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for finest audio reproduction.