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Comment by gabemart | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for the feedback!

Wind would be a great addition I agree. I've had a hard time finding good audio that has the right feel, but it'll be added at some point.

White noise is on the todo list. What I really need to do is make the audio loading more modular. At the moment it's very naive and everything buffers at once. I want to create a system where there's a core set of sounds that load by default, and then a menu of sounds that expand and load when selected. This would mean I could support a lot more sounds. At present, to add another sample I'd have to remove something already there, because performance is a little flaky even with just the six current samples.

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>then a menu of sounds

I really wouldn't change the layout to anything menu like. Its got the clean & simple thing going for it. Maybe rather add a button that opens "advanced" options i.e. more sliders coming into view - white noise etc. Seems a bit artificial but it gives you a way to split off less popular and weird stuff like artificial white noise. Plus delayed loading of those sounds. Adding a drop down or similar would kill the clean layout in my view.

Since you reacted positively to the initial feedback:

- The share mix button at the top looks wildly out of place. Its outside of the main rectangle and looks weird as a result.

-I'm allergic to the word "share" tbh...consider replacing it with "publish"/"broadcast" or similar. Sounds a bit presumptuous...but "share" has become a seriously craptastic word online - even erotic sites have a "share on facebook" button. If you must have it rather move it as far down as possible - so that users can first toy with the sliders a bit & get a feel for things before being asked to vouch for it to friends.

- The colour scheme (stark black white) is not conducive to the tranquil vibe you're trying to convey. Best bet is adding some colour hint to it I think. Keep the basic idea, but add some faint highlight colour(s). Think earthy warm colours.

- The humans track is way too loud. If you set all the sliders to mid then all you hear is humans. Either lower it as a whole or dampen the 600hz-700hz frequency range gently (assuming my ears aren't failing me on that freq guestimate).

>I've had a hard time finding good audio that has the right feel

Yeah. Wind is a bit of a biatch in this regard since most microphones are engineered to specifically block wind noises. And those that aren't distort wind sounds like mad. Maybe something like this (bit short):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__O0RRiWcpk

Thanks for sharing (broadcasting?) your thoughts!

I struggled a bit with the positioning of the share button - I'll think about it some more. I hadn't considered that it's the first thing a new visitor sees, and I agree that's undesirable.

I used the wrong word when I said "menu". I actually had "palette of sounds" down before changing it because it sounded too pretentious. I was thinking of menu in the restaurant sense rather than the UI sense. I agree I don't want to overload the interface with more options.

I'm not 100% happy with the visuals or the audio samples either, particularly humans and rain as has been pointed out, so I'm going to look at cleaning them up.

My thoughts on wind:

1) Rustling leaves in an aspen grove.

2) Wind-whipped snow covered mountains (howling winds)

Both quite different but pretty cool in the right mix.

Rustling leaves...I like the idea of that. Its fairly difficult to come up with generic background noises that are calming at the same time. Leaves sound like a good bet though.

It has always seemed strange to me that some people find hostile weather sounds calming - Wind, heavy rain, thunder... those can all potentially damage the building you are in. Fire too (I like the sound of a fire only if I can see it.) Leaves would be a good addition though. So would a waterfall (there is a significant difference between a waterfall and rain.)

To be honest it never even occurred to me to classify it as "hostile".

I think its fairly dependent on the climate you grew up in. e.g. I'm from a fairly warm/dry climate so "storm" sounds mean rain & relief from heat. Plus the local farmers are much happier (except when there is hail involved).

>damage the building you are in

Again - never occurred to me. Its just a non-issue here. Buildings are built to last & we don't get natural disasters here.

I associate these sounds with the act of sheltering from these elements, which prevents all kinds of physical activities and encourages passive, calm ones. A tendency towards hibernation and hot chocolate by a fireplace, a calm and pleasant association. Even if I focus on the negative aspects -- getting caught out in the rain and being cold and wet, I generally bundle up and conserve my energy rather than start jogging... not positive, but still calm.

Sufficiently strong weather and uncontrolled fires could put you at risk, but the extremely vast majority of my experience with these sounds has been with the safe varieties -- I don't think I'd find it as calming otherwise.

soundcloud is a great place to look for sounds of nature. plenty of recordings under creative commons

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