The Traffic Noise, without the pollution

Traffic noise is considered as a nuisance, and possibly one of the most difficult sources of noise to avoid in many places around the world. One way of reducing the annoyances of traffic noise is to mask it using more pleasant sounds - such as our rain and stream noises - or even this traffic noise!

If you can't beat your enemies, join them

When the frequency characteristics of the masking noise differ too much from the noise you are willing to camouflage, higher masking levels will be needed to cover the nuisance. When the masking levels become too loud for comfortable use, we suggest trying a strategy inspired from a well-know proverb: if you can't beat your enemies, join them!

In our case, this strategy consists of using one traffic noise to mask another. Of course, the masking traffic noise must be carefully designed such as to offer a better alternative to the original nuisance. Instead of using a simple traffic recording, we use re-synthesis to create an artificial traffic noise, which sounds like static - think of a waterfall - yet retains the important characteristics of the original sound. By sharing the same acoustic properties as the nuisance, our masking signal now achieves higher efficiency and can be used at quieter levels than any other masking sound. And because of the particular nature of our masking noise, even when the nuisance spikes above the mask, it will still be camouflaged.

Try listening to our traffic noise for a quarter of an hour, and see if your brain slowly learns how to filter it out from your conscious perception. In most cases, it will do so after a couple of minutes. Then, you will realize that not only has the masking noise been wiped from your perception, the unwanted noise has as well.

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