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Usually, when I need to focus in a distracting environment I just put on my earbuds and head over to SimplyNoise. But SimplyNoise is a bit too simple at times; it just generates a “wall” of white, brown, or pink noise. It can oscillate the volume a little bit, but that’s just about it. That’s not a flaw – it’s how SimplyNoise was designed.

But what if I want some atmosphere to go with my custom noise? What if I want it to have a certain “vibe,” or I want it to inspire me? Plus, some people simply dislike the monotony of a noise generator.

Introducing Nature Sounds. This beautifully simple Flash tool provides you with four audio channels. You populate each channel with a looping sample that you can choose from a vast palette. You’ve got sounds of whales, the beach, fire crackling, crickets, a heartbeat, drums thumping in the distance, etc. The palette is extensive.

You populate each of the channels with the sample of your choice, and then you can set the volume and the stereo balance (left/right). You can also have the volume oscillate; the continuous bar that you see at the bottom of each channel shows that, for my soundscape, I wanted all sounds to simply continue. There are four different patterns that you can select for each channel, or you can have the sound periodically fade out and start up again.

By adding and removing samples and tweaking the various settings, you can come up with a complete soundscape that really conveys a certain “feel.” Once you’re done, you can download your creation or save it under its own URL. Then, just access that URL whenever you want to listen to it again (or send it to friends). I saved mine under the classy title Whales and Stuff.