OUR GOALS
To provide high quality live feeds of nature’s songs from around the world.
High Quality
Combine prerecorded with live nature streams to provide quality content more of the time
Custom Mic Array
All stream data generated by our custom microphone array
Nature Streams
You will hear little deliberate music or voices in our nature streams
BACKGROUND
Vorbis
Originally we started streaming with 4.0 surround sound using Vorbis as the audio encoding format. With four channels of live audio nature stream, we were the only website providing this service. The problem was very few people understood how to listen to Vorbis and how to connect a multi-channel USB adapter to their computer to driver four audio signals.
MP3
So to make our streams be easier to listen to, we switched to stereo MP3 streaming. Someday when the listenership is high enough with a demand for the sourround streams, we will bring the surround streams back.
Weatherproof
In order to provide the live program material desired for this website, an Internet appliance has been developed that will capture sound in four 90 degree quadrants for surround sound capture or two sides for stereo capture. This appliance captures the sound, digitizes that data, compress the audio data then streams the audio data to our server so we can make it available to the Internet. These Internet appliances will be weather proof and connect wired or wirelessly through the Internet.
Raspberry Pi
The Internet appliance that captures the live stream has gone through several version of hardware. The current hardware platform we are using is based on the Raspberry Pi 3 credit card size computer. We use an off-the-shelf microphone preamp/audio encoder as the input to the Raspberry Pi.
Why live sound feeds?
Because if you have ever purchased a recording of nature sounds, after about the third time you listen to it, you begin to anticipate what you will hear next.
Why stereo sound?
With our stereo sound streams will give you the sensation as if you are in the location where the sounds are streamed from.
Anything else?
The sound sources we have are a mix of premium and good locations. The sites we have now are intended for listeners to experiment with the concept of getting HD stereo nature sound streaming from the Internet. These stream are on-line now in Mpeg stereo and located where nature sounds are generated.
24 X 7
We are on-line, streaming 24 x 7 so you can come back and check it out whenever you have time. When you come back to listen, we will welcome feedback on how we are doing. Also improvement suggestions will be appreciated. Hopefully, you will be as excited as we are about this total new concept in audio entertainment via the Internet.
