me at a party
February 5, 2017 6:47 PM   Subscribe

White Noise Sounds of Frozen Arctic Ocean with Polar Icebreaker Idling - Creating Delta Waves [slyt]
10 hours video of Arctic ambience with frozen ocean, ice craking, snow falling, icebreaker idling and distand howling wind sound. Natural white noise sounds generated by the wind and snow falling, combined with deep low frequencies with delta waves from the powerful icebreaker idling engines, recorded at 96 kHz - 24 bit and designed for relaxation, meditation, study and sleep.
The video, of the unmoving icebreaker puffing smoke as snowflakes whip around it, is also charming.
posted by grobstein (28 comments total) 70 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is very, very relevant to my interests, thank you!
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 6:49 PM on February 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


Not a big fan of the additional low-frequency + delta wave thing myself. But the idea of 10 hours of ambient sound has an appeal.
posted by mikelieman at 7:14 PM on February 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm pretty busy, so I'll just watch it at 2x speed
posted by aubilenon at 8:04 PM on February 5, 2017 [11 favorites]


Is the video real? Is it looped? Or is it one of those looped gif thingys? Not a lot of detail on the youtube page. I'm trying to track single snowflakes to see if they repeat and ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzZZ zzZzz ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZ zzz zzzz zzzZzz z z z ZzzzZzZzzz
posted by valkane at 8:06 PM on February 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


Is it looped?
Yes. Watch at 2x speed, and look near the right large light. There's the same bouncy snowflake just to the right of it, about every 5 seconds.
posted by slater at 8:09 PM on February 5, 2017 [5 favorites]


I struggle with self-knowledge a lot, but if there is one thing I can damn well say for sure it is that I am the sort of person who said "FUCK YES" when he read the description of this video and then said "HELL OF FUCK YES!!" when it started. Thank you for this anchor against which I can stay my sense of self.
posted by invitapriore at 8:09 PM on February 5, 2017 [16 favorites]


Using clipconverter I downloaded the file for offline listening, but since it's obviously studio-made, I wouldn't mind the original-length version (and I don't believe for a second it's actual recording of icebreaker engine noise) to save space over the 1 GB file size.

Regardless, atmospheric ambience in my earballs forever.
posted by doctorfrog at 9:02 PM on February 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


Expansive, crackling drone is where my heart is at, real ice breaker or not. Whatever the truth, come to my party
posted by lakersfan1222 at 9:48 PM on February 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


Is the video real? Is it looped? Or is it one of those looped gif thingys?
My money is on a video loop comprising a static shot of the ice breaker and quite short, composited loops of smoke and snow stuck on top. The audio recording is not on a loop - or at least not one I've detected in 15 mins of listening. The sound of the "engine" fades out a few minutes in - and it sounds like we are actually listening to a number of recordings from different arctic locations spliced together. Would be interesting to know its provenance.
posted by rongorongo at 10:38 PM on February 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


This is very, very relevant to my interests, thank you!
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 6:49 PM on February 5 [1 favorite +] [!]


This is very relevant to my interests. I've been waiting 7 years for this.
posted by WhitenoisE at 10:39 PM on February 5, 2017 [6 favorites]


I really like what they're doing here, but I think having read The Terror disqualifies me from enjoying this particular soundscape. Gave me a case of the creepers.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 10:40 PM on February 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


I fell asleep to Harold Budd, Brian Eno, and my CPAP and the humidifier last night. The humidifier provided the white noise to cover the CPAP noise, and the Eno/Budd sanded the edges off those two, and made it feel like I was an the resting phase of a video game.

Sometimes I also fall asleep to the BBC World Service. British voices recounting the day's events in other parts of the world on a 20-minute loop is lulling. If I could get Neil Nunes to read me old phone books, it would be the highest quality soporific.
posted by not_on_display at 11:46 PM on February 5, 2017 [7 favorites]


Seconds into this, my brain was already responding to the crunching and crackling . . . by inventing scenes where I'm stranded on the ice, just out of sight and hearing of the deck watchman, and some unspeakable thing is slowly advancing on my position, maybe from below . . .
posted by Caxton1476 at 5:06 AM on February 6, 2017 [6 favorites]


Another option for not_on_display might be the BBC's "In Our Time".
The topics are often quite interesting but those soft-spoken academics are so soooooothing. Zzzz.
posted by mmkhd at 8:04 AM on February 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


"Sometimes I also fall asleep to the BBC World Service."
Me, too. Even their BEEPM BEEPM, BOOPM intro, which never fails to prick up my cats' ears, is soothing music to my ears when falling asleep. But I sort of cheat by setting the sleep timer on the radio before retiring.
posted by primdehuit at 8:48 AM on February 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


I do like that video.

I live quite near a small lake and if you go out on the ice at night, the ice creaks and booms in an eerie way. At my son's, there's a a small pond next to the house. He was outside and the pond ice cracked; he thought the furnace had exploded, it was so loud. Winter is like a creature with personality and noises.
posted by theora55 at 10:05 AM on February 6, 2017 [3 favorites]


Sampling at 96kHz so unnecessary but I enjoy their bravado.
posted by Lutoslawski at 10:06 AM on February 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


Well, got to have it ready for Tidal.
posted by invitapriore at 11:10 AM on February 6, 2017


Ha! I just got into these video's last week. There's a couple about trains which I tried but they all sounded too faked. The one I appreciate most at the moment is this Rain on a Tent one.
posted by Kosmob0t at 12:49 PM on February 6, 2017 [3 favorites]


Needs an occasional tekeli-li!
posted by The Tensor at 1:47 PM on February 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm sure I've linked this here before, but: Star Trek TNG Ambient Engine Noise (Idling for 24 hrs)

When rdio was still a thing, they had all these Nippon Broadcasting Corporation albums of various train sounds that I used to put on while I worked. Should really see if I can find those again.
posted by brennen at 2:47 AM on February 7, 2017 [3 favorites]


I've been watching the Sigur Ros "Route One" videos, where they mount a camera on a van, and drive the rim road around Iceland.
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 1:05 PM on February 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


Motherboard shared this on FB. Must be cracking.
posted by lakersfan1222 at 6:36 PM on February 7, 2017


I'm really interested in real world idling, no offense to the Starship Fleet or whoever you linked to Brennen
posted by lakersfan1222 at 6:38 PM on February 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


I like this, but the listing is just weird. It doesn't really sound real, but I'm just listening on my laptop speakers and I've never been to the Arctic, so maybe it is. But why no more info on the recording, like who did it, when and where? I've rarely seen someone make a field recording like that and release it with no info. And it's really weird that it has the 96/24 info on there.
posted by bongo_x at 7:46 PM on February 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


I really have no idea where it comes from and I wish I did!

I assume there is some specialized community that goes nuts for this stuff and that's who the makers make it for and one just has to poke around their subreddit for a bit. Maybe the ASMR thing is a good clue? Or maybe it's a pure Youtube phenomenon that's sustained by like a bug in their ad pricing.

The poster of this video has posted apparently 70(!) of the same kind of stuff but no bio and the other descriptions don't seem more articulate.
posted by grobstein at 4:16 PM on February 9, 2017


Field Recording is definitely a thing with a specialized community, and it's not anything like new. Even on old LP releases it would say "recorded by xxx at xxx on xx/xx/xx with xxx microphone and blah blah blah" endless technical information. That's just part of the whole vibe.

That's why it's weird to have a listing that wants to give the impression of a field recording, even adding in the 96/24 part, but no other information.

I'm not trying to make this out as some sort of evil plot, just find it odd. Because who the hell sits out in the Arctic and records half a day of sounds but doesn't really say anything about it? It's not something that's easy that you just throw together. I can't think of a good comparison, but it's like saying "I ran the Boston Marathon. I don't remember when, how fast, or what place I was".

I'm pretty sure someone is just artificially creating these.
posted by bongo_x at 6:36 PM on February 9, 2017


Yeah, but like all natural? Or all ersatz? Or, like, what's the deal? It's not quite that I think it's an actual 10-hour field recording, but I still don't know what it is.
posted by grobstein at 10:15 PM on February 9, 2017


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