Noise is bad for us, right? Well, certain kinds of noise. Loud construction noise, factory noise, the constant road of an overly loud engine or even an air conditioner can be bad for your health. Yet, some noise can actually be soothing; white noise comes to mind, for people at home trying to sleep, or the piped-in white noise in a crowded office building.
Well, dear Mac users, rejoice. Here’s a free way to add noise to your Mac– the kind that’s actually good for you (although it can be disconcerting for nearby co-workers if you work in a cubicle farm; I do).
The free app is called Noizio. It’s a cute name for a remarkably pleasant Mac utility which pipes good sounds through your Mac’s speakers.
Officially, this is Noizio:
Noizio is an app that will drown out the noise of the street and allow you to concentrate on the work at hand, increasing your productivity. On the other hand, it can also set the mood for a romantic evening or lull you to sleep, ensuring that you will dream soundly all night long. An ambient sound equalizer app for creating a mixture of ambient sounds available for Mac OS X.
Unofficially, this is about as useful as a free app can get at helping you block out unwanted sounds by filling your Mac’s speakers with sounds that are soothing and beneficial, yet highly customizable.
Noizio features 10 basic ambient sounds, including October Rain, Paris Cafe, Thunderstorm, Campfire, Winter Wind, Sea Waves, River Stream, Summer Night, Sunny Day, Deep Space (think Star Trek). Each sound has it’s own volume controls so you can mix and match sounds to fit your workspace, home space or mood.
The app lives in the Mac’s Menubar so it’s available for adjustments within any app. Click to start, click to adjust the volume, click to adjust the volume audio mix for each sound.
Noizio looks and feels like a good Mac app citizen; setting it up and using it takes barely a minute, but the sounds loop so it can play all day.
Here’s what’s missing (besides a version for iPhone and iPad)– an option to save sound mixes, and, a few more background sounds. Water, rain, and thunder are nice, but so are certain electric fan sounds. But those are nit picky thoughts to what amounts to a great bargain.