Rain Whitenoise

April 20, 2008 4:47 PM

Free Ambient Rain/Storm Recordings To Use As Working Whitenoise?

I work significantly better/faster without distractions. Ambient sounds are great, particularly the sound of storms and rain.

Anyone know where I can download long tracks of rain and/or storm recordings for free?

Some Other Things:

1. I am looking for lengthy tracks, not 1-2 minute "clips".
2. Has to be actual recording, not digital imitations. I am not being snotty, for some reason "fake rain" sounds don't do the trick.
3. Cannot have music interlaced with the rain the sounds. I am looking for whitenoise, not Enya.
4. If anyone know other sounds that work well as whitenoise, I would love to hear them.

posted by chrisalbon to work & money (14 comments total)

Here.
posted by bigmusic at 4:53 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

Here's one I recorded about 5 years ago with a Minidisc recorder and a set of binaural mics. It's not a professional recording by any means but I quite like it.
posted by zsazsa at 4:58 PM on April 20 [17 favorites]

That is an excellent recording zsazsa - the compression on the freesounds mp3's are really bad - I can hear all kinds of artifacts, but yorus is very clear.
posted by bigmusic at 5:03 PM on April 20

I have stumbled across Freesound, and while I have appreciate what they offer, I agree with Bigmusic that the quality is lacking.

I am really looking for sounds more like Zsazsa's recording.

And, btw, thanks Zsazsa for that recording. Great sound.
posted by chrisalbon at 5:11 PM on April 20

Some sounds from strawberryviagra, who posted the link in a previous post.
posted by mpls2 at 5:43 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

With freesound, make sure you're signing up and dowloading, the previews are downsampled iirc.
posted by phrontist at 5:50 PM on April 20

Waves on a beach are a wonderful form of white noise, the slow and rather repetitive beat of the waves is soothing without drawing too much attention. If we had storms here ever (stupid drought) I'd make some recordings.
posted by tomble at 6:15 PM on April 20

If you're at a computer, you can download and run this nifty ambient-noise generator called Atmosphere Lite. It has all kinds of nature sounds to use as white or ambient noise. You can not only have your rain, but you can add birds, crashing waves, wind, chimes, etc. You can adjust the volume and frequency of each part as well. I find it really relaxing (and I learned about it here on MeFi, in a thread I can't seem to find at the moment).
posted by sarahnade at 6:45 PM on April 20 [2 favorites]

too bad you aren't willing to pay for it: the echoes of nature series has just what you're looking for (sounds of a rainstorm) recorded so clearly and realistically that people, upon hearing it in the background, will say "is it raining? it was totally clear just a minute ago!" also i've got/heard many others in the cd series, everything i've tried is of equal (excellent) sonic quality, and all are just the thing to put on in the background to soothe your nerves and wash out more annoying ambient sounds surrounding you (including, perhaps even especially, frog chorus)
posted by messiahwannabe at 7:18 PM on April 20 [1 favorite]

2nding Echoes of Nature. I have three of their collections that I've used in the past ten years to help with stress relief and relaxation.
posted by netbros at 8:15 PM on April 20

Quiet American has lots of great field recordings, mostly from SE Asia, along with some excellent compositions constructed from them.
posted by chbrooks at 10:22 PM on April 20

iTunes has some nice, hour-long recordings of rain, ocean, etc., but you have to pay about $4 for them.
posted by leahwrenn at 3:47 AM on April 21

Yeah - if you play mine back to back they cover the white noise/ambient journey - all quite relaxing (not just rain). Just download them and burn and put them into your iTunes and they'll blend nicely - I think there's about 45 minutes - thanks for remembering them mpls.
posted by strawberryviagra at 6:41 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Ooooh, zsazsa's recording has thunder in it! I've been trying to work out how to record that for ages - it's a rarity in the Bay Area, & I was seriously considering setting up an ambient noise webcam at my parent's house...

Also, I recorded the surf. It's about an hour's worth. I already mentioned this on the podcast thread, but it should fit in here too...
posted by Pronoiac at 5:42 PM on May 15