14 DAY TRIAL // I had no idea that I would like Atmosphere so much. Used to reviewing wannabe ambient-softwares, from screensavers to silly PPS bundles and from lousy photography wallpapers to really stupid musical software, I thought about skipping this one as well. What really inspired me into not turning the page was its size. I just said to myself that a 30 MB program cannot include that much. Obviously, I was right (as ever) :))
Atmosphere is an extremely lovely software. In addition, and maybe more important than everything else, CREDIBLE; because credibility (the closeness to the real thing) is the main ingredient in creating such a software. And yes, Atmosphere is a well-developed software. But well?enough with the praises and on to the description.
What It Does
Atmosphere is an ambient software. Meaning that it brings the nature sounds, combined in your room. Be those sounds from a storm, a campfire, huge amounts of bird-trills, rain, winds and so on. The big difference is that you can choose and mix those sounds as to fit you mood. From volumes to adding or taking out various sounds, you can create your own environments.
This way, your PC can easily be transformed into a virtual window towards the farthest outdoors and seasons. Little does it matter that outside is winter and -18 degrees...nothing can stop you from having a tropical forest singing its rarest trills in your ears or a summer night caressing you with the sweet sounds of the fading embers.
Looks & Works
The main interface of the Atmosphere Deluxe is a complicated one at first sight. There is a multitude of buttons and sliders, which may be confusing for a short time. However, once you have gotten to read the contents and see what is all about, things begin to clear up. They work the random sounds of birds, animals and even sounds you choose to load in the software.
A cool thing is the fact that each theme has an attached thumbnail image, which lets you know instantaneously what goes with that set-up. Opposite to the numerous slider bars are some buttons which trigger a diversity of theme-related background sounds such as campfire, rain, wind in the trees and so on. There are also generic presets as woodland, desert, tropical, country, autumn etc. that are easily selectable/customizable with few mouse clicks.
Handy and useful tabs are also at the bottom of the main interface, regarding timing, alarm, visuals, general options, a load/save section, the minimize-to-tray and exit. The whole operation of this software can be easily timed so this feature of automation helps to the home-environment integration.
Other cool features concern the music CD playback, to complete the "atmosphering" with a music of your own choice, dynamic setup for sounds as thunder or crickets (setting up max and min volumes, rates and so on), own custom sounds loader and even a sound recorder, so you can practically import and insert new sounds you choose to create more and more themes.
Overall, working with Atmosphere Deluxe is an easy task and it takes very little time to get used to almost every feature. The large amount of sliders controlling different sounds may seem agglomerated, but as you develop and grow your skills in creating and administrating themes, you'll quickly see that only a small part of them must be altered - since adding too many of them would result in mayhem.
Even skins and fonts are customizable, so I must admit that Atmosphere Deluxe is a software that gets high marks at this chapter. At the same time, being provided with this kind of freedom doesn't mean this program needs so much human intervention: one can really just go on with the presets?but that would be a pity!
Another really nice feature is the ability of Atmosphere Deluxe to display panoramic photographs. It even has some bundled, and you can add some more in the registered version; they are displayed continuously according to user-specified rotation, speed and others.
One thing I've noticed just now is the auto-fading that the Atmosphere Deluxe does to maintain the smooth atmosphere. As I started the software while listening some fav tracks from the CD, the main volume went slowly down and then came back mixed with the default theme's sounds. Cool!
The good
It exists and it works. A 21-days trial is more than enough to fall in love with what Atmosphere Deluxe does. Besides the inner features, one thing I must congratulate its maker for is the high level of customization this program can withstand. You can practically change it all.
The bad
Apart from the eternal fun-related "it's not free" - line, I can't think of nasty things for now. Hope tomorrow things will be the same. As a minor detail ... a little makeup on the main window wouldn't hurt at all. The more professional it looks, the better.
The truth
Truth is I am seriously thinking of getting Atmosphere Deluxe for myself. That should say almost everything.
