Elpy

Elpy is a program that was created for people who need ambient sounds to enhance focus and concentration; it will help them stay present in the moment by minimizing mental and psychical distress caused by a noisy/agitated environment or, on the contrary, too much quietness.

On a superficial level, some people might argue that Eply does not address a real need. On the exact contrary, the program is a well-designed tool with real-life applications: meditation, relaxation, focus, sleep aid, therapy, and much more. The app offers a variety of ambient sounds that have suggestive and descriptive labels (e.g. ‘campfire,’ ‘fireplace,’ ‘night crickets,’ etc.)

When opening the program, it displays the panels associated with each sound. In order to create the ambiance, choose one sound. The panel’s color will become bright and the sound will start. You can choose to create a single-sound ambiance or a more complex one, by combining two or three distinct acoustics.

Elpy is quite a large program — it has around 300MB. However, once you download and install the app, the program’s size will become justified. It has a gorgeous GUI, clean, well-styled, responsive design with almost instant response time to any command. It is so intuitive that anyone could use it. The sound quality is impeccable; the sounds' adjustment can be applied globally, on all the selected acoustics, or on an individual one.

Elpy has a set of templates with coherent sound combinations (called ‘Sets’) for fast access (e.g. ‘Cafe By The Beach,’ ‘Rain In The Forest,’ ‘On Top Of The City,’ etc.) Each user can select the desired combination of sounds, adjust each element’s volume, and save that set for later use. The tool has a timer function for those who wish to stop the melodic atmosphere. The timer can be set to 15, 30, 45, 60, 90, or 120 minutes.

To conclude, Elpy is a unique tool because it offers quality and a simplistic interface. A minor downside would be that it limits users to choose a maximum of three audio samples per each set, compared to other tools that allow for unlimited combinations and additions. However, Elpy compensates with vivid, qualitative sounds; these are accurate replicas of the real-life ones. It is a tool worth trying for everyone who needs to create a pleasant ambient atmosphere, regardless of the purpose. The program illustrates the concept of ‘less is more.’