The Title Says It All

When I was a infant, my room was bordered on 2 sides by large windows. At night the upstate New York air was cool and refreshing. I would sleep peacefully. The only thing better was when it rained (and rained). The sound of this rain soothed me to sleep. When I would wake up during the night, the sound of the continual rain would lull me back into dreamland.

Through the years I have been seeking a record/cassette/CD which emulated this wonderful sound. The closest I ever found was accompanied by boring "new age" music. (Question: What do you get when you play New Age Music backwards? Answer: New Age Music!)

This wonderful, digital recording (with discretely added "white noise")
is the closest thing to "being there" that I have ever heard, or rather, experienced. It is almost 3-dimensional, as you can hear (especially with headphones) the rain hitting various surfaces at the same time. The rain sound is warm and fully textured and...it lulls me to sleep within minutes. Because of it's length (well over an hour of continuous rain), I can wake up and go peacefully back to sleep. I haven't tried it over speakers, but I'm sure it would make for a very relaxing atmosphere.

[Thursday, April 17, 2008]

Dear lord, this thing actually works!!!

I live in an apartment across the road from a backpackers/youth hostel as well as a park. Because of the warm weather in Australia, every night the students, who are in their late teens early twenties and mostly from across Europe, congregate outside the hostel, or worse, over in the park (which is actually outside my window) drinking and carrying on. I've been suffering for weeks having to sit through their loud and drunken carousing and flirting (in terrible english, they're too busy drinking all night to concentrate on their studies!).

I've called the hostel, council, environmental protection authority and the police and no-one really wants to do anything about it. Because of the layout of the street, my apartment bears the brunt of the noise, as well as a couple of neighbours, but other places aren't so badly affected.

It only occured to me that white noise might be a temporary solution to my problem. So I went out and bought a fan, which was great, but also a bit of a nuisance because of the constant wind. Another problem with the fan was that it wasn't actually loud enough (!) and the volume couldn't be adjusted. Also, I'm a bit concerned about how much energy the fan would use being on all night.

White noise generators don't seem to be easily available in Australia so they're not an option.

So I took a punt and bought this cd and its absolutely fantastic. I was playing it for a few moments and thought to myself that it was good, but the backpackers probably weren't out tonight so there was no way of knowing how truly effective it was. So I stopped the cd to see if they were out tonight and instantly I heard screaming and shouting from outside. I looked out my window and sure enough there were about 10 backpackers congregating around a park bench drinking. So the cd has proven itself to be able to block out the noise really effectively. At such a small outlay its tremendous value for money.

As for the sound of rain on the cd, well, its a lot more intense than usual rain. Its a bit like a torrential downpour. I was concerned that it would be a monotonous roar of white noise, but it does have very slow rhythms to it like a real rainy spell would. It can be turned up surprisingly loudly without being too disturbing, though of course it may prevent you from doing other activities like listening (carefully) to music or watching television. And its definitely restful listening to the rain rather than having my brain chasing around the shouts and squeals of post pubescent tourists all night.

Anyway, this cd has preserved my sanity for a while. You can probably sense the relief in my review! As for the noisy backpackers, I'm still going to be moving out as I'm not sure I can really live with a simulated rainstorm at all hours of the day. Anyone looking for a flat mate in Sydney??????

[Friday, February 15, 2008]

"Restful Rain"

I thought this C/D was fabulous. It was exactly what I needed to relax and get me to fall sleep. The sound of the falling rain mixed with the white noise was helpful in blocking out street noises which helped me to get a more restful sleep.

Marie Antionette

[Monday, October 29, 2007]

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