Recording the Relaxing River Sound

As I began to build my “perfect” nature sounds collection, I realized there was one white noise sound that Mother Nature provided that I did not have in my collection: the soothing sound of a flowing river.

After doing some research to find a great river location that was close enough to get to in a day’s drive, I loaded up the van with recording equipment and, in the middle of the night I left for the northeast section of Florida near White Springs, Florida. At sunrise, I pulled into Big Shoals State Park to record river souns along the banks of the beautiful Suwannee River. (Yes, the same Suwannee River made famous by songwriter Stephen Foster!)

Upon arriving, I spent most of the early morning walking around the park and trails trying to find the perfect location that had enough “white water” to produce the white noise sound I wanted, as well as give me access near the water’s edge but yet far enough away from “people” noise to get a clean pure recording. My searching paid off and I found the most amazing perfect spot, a gentle curve in the river with just enough white water to make the white noise water sound yet to gentle enough to be relaxing and soothing. So I hiked back to the van to get all the recording equipment and take it back to “my spot.”

I set up all the equipment, positioned the microphones, set the levels, tested, repositioned the mics, made adjustments, re-tested, made more even more adjustments and finally I was ready to record. This was exciting: I was in a great location, the weather was perfect with a light crispness in the air, the sun was shining and the flowing river sounded amazing! And I was finally going to get to use one of the brand new expensive microphones I had invested in, just for this very purpose. This was a good day with lots of promise!

I hit the record button and then settled in for the next five hours on the shore of the gorgeous Suwannee River.  Then I heard it. Was that what I thought it was? Oh no! A plane was headed right overhead and was destined to ruin my perfect river recording. I jumped up, hit pause and waited until the plane and its obnoxious noise had passed by and could no longer be heard.  Then I began to record again.  But it was not the last time a plane tried to squash my attempts of a great recording.  This dance of recording around planes went on all day. 

Later, as the sun began to fade, I finally had to pack it all up and head to the van as the park would be closing at sundown.  My hope was that I had captured enough of the beautiful flowing Suwannee River to make a wonderful white noise river album.  After all, I had been rolling tape for over five hours.

It was almost midnight by the time I got back to the studio and unpacked the equipment.  I was exhausted yet excited, looking forward to getting in the studio the next day to play the raw tape to see if I had indeed achieved my goal.  By this time tomorrow night I could have that perfect white noise river sound I had been chasing. I could even burn it to a CD and try it out tomorrow night at bedtime!

I spent the next day going through the five-hour recording, minute by minute and was unpleasantly surprised to find that there were sounds on the tape that I had not heard when recording.  My new expensive mic was much more sensitive than I had thought.  While it did capture the true dynamics and sonic fidelity of the river, it also captured some birds and insects I did not want in my “pure” recording.  These extra wildlife sounds, if not removed, would be distracting and annoying to someone using the album to fall to sleep…mainly me!  They had to go. It became quite disappointingly clear that I would not be falling asleep that night with my new Relaxing River CD. There was much much work left to do.

Over the next 2 weeks I began to “clean” up the recording, remove birds, insects and any plane noise residue from the raw recording. I was left with about 2 hours of white noise river sound that was clean and usable. I then located the perfect pristine 74-minute section inside the recording for my Relaxing River white noise album. I took this section and touched it up, edited and mastered it for a CD. Then made copies for testing and evaluation purposes and sent them out for my “testers” to try.  After a couple of weeks the reports came back and I had a winner! 

Listen to the calming flowing water sounds of Relaxing River

I still use the Relaxing River for help getting to sleep as well as blocking and masking noise.  I have found it to be especially useful to mask bothersome noises when I am reading.  I have now downloaded the mp3 into my iPod to use when traveling also.

It was a lot of hard work to record, edit and prepare the Relaxing River nature sounds album. But it was so worth it as Relaxing River is a wonderful relaxing and soothing nature sound CD and a great addition to my pure nature sounds collection.

I hope you think so, too and enjoy playing Relaxing River CD or mp3 download for relaxing, sleep, studying and noise masking.