Tree.fm: Tune in to Forests Around the World | Hacker News Reader

Tree.fm: Tune in to Forests Around the World

tree.fm

199 pointsthrowup23835 comments

Nice idea but it's a shame the recordings are so short. I'd love some hours-long version that I could put on in the background and pair with a bit of ambient for fun.

I'd like to recommend a website I've been using for a very long time - mynoise.net - which seems to have exactly what you're looking for [0]. There are many different kinds of ambient noises you can play indefinitely, and there are even sliders you can use to compose your own "mix" of ambient sounds of a particular type (e.g. Wind Trees, Distand Stream, Close Stream, Owl, Birds, etc.).

There are many types of ambient sounds (I count 100 at the moment) available for free, and even more if you choose to donate to the site. You can donate any amount you want, and you get lifetime premium access to full site content.

The guy running the site, Stéphane Pigeon, is a signal processing PhD with a passion for sounds, and he travels the world recording ambient sounds for this website.

[0] https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/belgianForestSoundscapeGen...

A strong +1 for mynoise, especially the multi-noise mixing which is super-handy for drowning out coffee shops, offices, etc. whilst still having detail.

Oh wow, this is excellent, I love the ability to mix it, especially since the water sounds tend to overpower bird ones. This is exactly what I'd like, thank you so much!

If you want the real thing, there's live cameras with sound of various forests on youtube.

Like, Redwood River Cam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUqQdNAUC1c

wow, thank you for this beautiful gift

The sounds are also available in map format from the original source: https://timberfestival.org.uk/soundsoftheforest-soundmap/

This looks nice! If you like this it's possible you might like this thing I made a few years ago. It allows you to choose an area from a map of the world and play bird sounds from there:

https://trogon.onrender.com/

Looks neat. FYI, doesn't seem to work for me on mobile (Chrome 120.0.6099.210, Android 14). I see an empty map. Clicking help displays the help modal which I'm then unable to dismiss.

Same here, it's basically just an empty map.

Firefox 121.0 (Build #2015991663), Android 10

Device is an older Lenovo M8 tablet

I dig birds and birdwatching, would love to see this app work.

Take a look at the help page. You need to press right mouse button a the given location (or long press on a touch screen) for it to pull the data.

To the author - great work! But It would be really helpful to be able to check the family/genus/species names in my native language

I like how you can play more than one bird at the same time.

I was digging deeper into the species selector and started playing others. It really makes for a realistic bird watching/listening experience :)

Thanks for making this!

For anyone else curious, on a touch pad you need to do the two finger tap on a country to get the data to appear. Then click into the result.

Is this inspired from https://www.window-swap.com/ ?

I appreciate trips to the country for the incredible birdlife. An outdoor pool I frequent is nestled among such lively birdlife I nicknamed it the "avian orchestra".

Have bookmarked this to play in the background while working.

Very cool. Would be lovely if you paired this with some of the auto-recognition and ID libraries out there so we can listen to the sounds of the forest AND see in real-time which birds are currently making noises. That'd be really cool. Then if you want to ruin it all, you add gamification where you learn to train your ear based on bird sounds and test your skills within all sorts of forests around the world.

Hi there, sorry I posted above before I saw your comment but I should have posted here. You're describing something very like my bird ID challenge! https://trogon.onrender.com/

Re the first part of what you say, rather than writing any software how about play tree.fm on our laptops and stick our phone down next to it with Merlin? That'll take about 1 minute to set up and is free!

I detest the state that web design is in. This webpage is terrible on my 4K display. Continue scrolling endlessly. I miss information density.

Thank you for helping give a voice to the trees that were silently falling in the woods because no one was around to listen to the sound.

and thank you for this!

Would that you could set it on loop and use as a background sound. Awesome!

I like the concept, but I don't like the hopping every minute.

Aw, was hoping for live.

When I attended UCSD, one of the more noticeable entries in the Stuart Collection was "Trees" by Terry Allen: https://stuartcollection.ucsd.edu/artist/allen.html#About-th...

There was a "singing tree" which played music, and I would often walk past them as I headed to-and-from classes, not far from the Brutalist edifice that we would come to know as the Geisel Library.

Then the "literary tree" played poetry and spoken word. Last but not least, the "silent tree" made no sound at all.

Feels like I'm on a 'Generation Ship'

You are.

Nice

Nice, if the background image would slightly zoom in and out slowly that would add a more realistic feel to it, but nice work!

This is delightful, thank you.

what is the deal with the horrible iterative zoom of the background

Clever and unique idea.

Perfect tool +1

wonderful!

this will go so well with TreeTV : https://youtu.be/Wv-P2aN3-b4?si=g6YLSswosShVcV84

not to be confused with TreeJTV (Mac Miller): https://www.youtube.com/treejtv

If you like listening to forests, the BBC podcast Forest 404 might be fun for you: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06tqsg3

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