Ocean wave sounds
Waves on the Baltic coast, a steady wash of surf. No seagulls, no voices.
A 2-minute recording played in random overlapping segments, the way the app plays it, so you won't hear a loop. Start with your volume low. Keep this tab open.
About this sound
These are waves on the Baltic Sea at Zingst, on Germany's north coast: a steady wash of surf rolling in and drawing back, with no seagulls and no voices.
We used about 9 minutes of the original, filtered out the rumble below 30 Hz and repaired three small clicks. The app plays random stretches of about half a minute joined with 4-second crossfades, so the same wave pattern never comes back in a predictable order. Unlike most other recordings it gets no extra volume drift, because waves already swell on their own. The player on this page uses a 2-minute excerpt the same way.
How people use it
Waves have a slow rise and fall that many people find easier to settle into than a perfectly flat noise. The swells are part of the sound, so if you need constant masking for a noisy street, put a little brown noise underneath.
Keep it quiet enough that the peaks of the waves do not stand out. The app's Seaside Night mix adds crickets at a low level for a summer night by the water.
Questions
Are these real ocean sounds?
Yes, a field recording of surf on the Baltic coast in Germany, cleaned of low rumble and a few clicks, nothing synthesized.
Why is the volume not perfectly even?
Waves come in sets, so the level rises and falls by nature. That rhythm is what many people like about it; for an even level, mix in some brown or pink noise.
Mix it with
Get ocean waves on your phone
Nightwool is coming to iPhone and Android. One e-mail when it launches, then we delete the list.