14 DAY TRIAL // Lots of people are surrounded by noises lately; if it's either so-called "music", or experiments, science, psychic issues or ?whatever. From clubs to home-use, seems like the noise (or at least parts of what people would usually call noise) has become a commercial good: programs that generate all sorts of noises, custom noise editors and so on, be them free or not.
Some time ago, I reviewed a software which claimed it could produce noise-types for enhanced creativity and such like. As I tested that program I could not notice any improvement in the works of my brain, nevertheless I rated the program quite fair: if I could not see either bad or good results, that did not did not mean the software was bad :)
Now it's time for me to take another tour in the noise-realm, but this time it's something easier to quantify: wave noises! Seashores, ocean shores, bay shores, everything in a small and dead-simple program. This time I can say that this kind of noise resembles something real, and is more "touchable", therefore easier to describe.
Should I be asked again on the effects of exposure to such sounds, I guess I could say it somehow soothed my hearing, especially when the wave-noise is just covering all small sound in the quietness of the room, at night.
The Looks
The Noise Maker has no looks and this is rather bad. Almost anything could go for a GUI, other than the settings panel: a seashore wallpaper, a sea-related slideshow, anything. Not that the use of Noise Maker is impaired by the lack of graphic elements, but that's just the way things are done, especially when it comes to programs that are somehow mood-related. Countless screensavers feature sound so it seems natural that nature sound-softwares should have images, don't you think?
After all, as one decides to play some of these sounds, I suppose he/she wants to relax and have a good and quiet time: so why not offering also a visually-warm atmosphere to further contribute to the wellbeing people are looking for?
Apart from the rather dull system tray icon, the only graphic element is the settings panel which is a Windows, XP-like common settings screen, with a dropdown menu for the wave-selection and two slider bars, one for volume and the other for the randomization of sound. And believe me or not, this concludes the GUI-description for the Noise Maker.
The Works
Even if the Noise Maker has absolutely no graphic interface in the strong sense of the word, it works pretty well. The noise-generating engine does its job pretty well, as the resulting sound is very linear and quite dense, yet not being annoying as many of those not acquainted to the "noiseworks" might think.
There are 4 noise types: Bay Waves, Gulf Waves, Oceanic Waves and Pink Noise, each with its own behavior which obviously I will not describe here. Noticeable though are the smooth changes in sound as you switch between the types of waves. Besides regulating the volume, the user also has the possibility to adjust the randomness of the generated waves; ranging from no randomization at all - resulting in a totally linear audio output and reaching full random generation of signal - resulting in a very realistic "seashore effect".
The output sounds are quite nice, especially when combined with the environment sounds around us, but slightly covering them: I am speaking about "mixing" with sounds around us just for creating a more life-like atmosphere. Needless to say that you are most likely to fall asleep while listening to the nice and slow waves bathing your hearing...
The Good
For a person who is really into ambiental sounds, the Noise Maker will be a nice asset, especially since it's a real bargain. Nice and realistic sounds guaranteed to create a nice environment for your moments of quietness.
The Bad
The only bad thing I can say about the Noise Maker is the total absence of a GUI: as I've said before, some slideshow or at least a wallpaper could very well do.
The Truth
The Noise Maker is a very nice software, especially for those enthusiasts who are into a bit of noise experimenting, be that plain noise or ordered noise, or even nature sounds.
See the few screenshots available for Noise Maker:
