Rain is the sound people ask for most and the one hardest to find clean. Almost every version has something else put into it.
The usual story: you search rain, you find a track, and four minutes in a thunder crack goes off, or a piano fades up, or a voice says something. You put rain on to stop noticing things, and now there is a thing to notice.
Thunder is in rain tracks for the same reason every thumbnail is orange. A rumble reads as atmosphere in a two second preview, and a preview is what a track has to win on.
What it does over an hour is the opposite. A thunder crack is a loud sudden transient, and a transient is the single most attention grabbing thing in audio. It is the reason a dripping tap is unbearable and a running shower is not. Dropping one into a rain track sets a small trap on a timer: the sound is doing its job, you have forgotten it is on, and then it fires.
The same argument covers the music. A pad or a piano under rain has a key and a tempo, and a tempo is a thing to follow. It also puts the track on a clock. Rain does not resolve. Music does, and you can feel it coming.
This is the part worth knowing before you decide rain is not for you, because the split is real and it has a physical explanation.
A fan is the same every second. There is nothing in it to pick out, nothing to follow, nothing to wait for, and so it vanishes. Rain is not like that. Rain is broadband noise with texture: individual drops, density that changes, the odd gust across the window. There are events in it.
For a lot of people that texture is the whole appeal, and their attention slides off it within a minute. For others, attention keeps catching on the events, and the sound they put on to settle becomes the thing they are tracking. Neither reaction is a fault. If you are in the second group, the answer is not louder rain, it is a steadier sound, which usually means a fan, or pink noise, or something else with no events in it at all.
People say they dislike rain sounds far more often than they actually do. Usually they dislike one surface and have not met the others.
Sharp, high pitched, distinct taps with a lot of top end. Close and detailed. The most recognisable version of rain and the most eventful.
A tent or an awning. Broader and duller, more body, fewer separate hits. This is the one people mean when they say they want rain but nothing too busy.
The drops scatter across so many surfaces that they blur into a wash. The closest rain gets to plain broadband noise.
Between glass and canvas, and it usually brings splash and distant traffic with it. Cosy for some people, too much going on for others.
Muffled by a wall or a closed window, which rolls the top end off it. Quieter and softer at the same time, in a way that turning the volume down does not reproduce.
Steady heavy rain sits near pink noise, whose energy falls about 3 decibels per octave, which is why both sound fuller and more even than the bright hiss of white noise.
The difference is that pink noise is generated to a defined slope and holds still, while rain is thousands of small impacts and therefore wanders: it swells, thins, gusts and comes back. If you like rain but wish it would stop moving, pink noise is the next thing to try. If you find pink noise sterile, that movement is exactly what you are missing.
Almost every rain track is a short recording repeated. That is fine until you hear a moment twice: a particular gust, a run of heavier drops, a car passing. Once you have heard it come around, you are waiting for it, and you are now listening to the loop instead of the rain.
Rain is the worst case for this because it is full of recognisable moments. Plain noise can loop badly and get away with it. Rain cannot.
That is where the join lives, and where an outro voice or a fade would be. It is the least tested part of any sound app and it tells you most of what you need to know.
Rain is not judged in the first four seconds. The right one is the one you stop hearing, not the one that sounds richest at the start.
"Rain" tells you nothing. Glass, canvas, leaves and pavement are four different sounds and a track called Rain could be any of them.
Quiet rain loses its low end first, so a track that felt warm and full can turn thin and hissy at the level you would really sleep or work with.
Not as much as the internet implies. Rain sounds are not a treatment and nothing here is advice for a sleep problem. What holds up without stretching anything:
Luten is sound for the mind, and rain is where the difference between clean and decorated is easiest to hear.
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Because thunder is dramatic and a thumbnail has to compete. A rumble reads as atmosphere in a two second preview. The trouble is that a thunder crack is a loud sudden transient dropped into a track whose entire job is to stop you noticing things, so it works against the reason the track was put on. If you want rain to disappear into the background, you want rain without the events in it.
Rain is broadband noise with texture. Unlike a fan, it is made of individual drops, changing density and the odd gust, so there are events in it that an ear can pick out and follow. Some people find that pleasant and stop noticing it within a minute. Others find their attention keeps latching onto it. Neither reaction is unusual, and someone in the second group is usually better served by a steadier sound such as a fan or pink noise.
The surface, and the surface is most of the sound. Glass gives sharp high pitched taps with a lot of top end. Canvas gives a broader, duller patter with more body and fewer distinct events. Leaves and soil scatter the drops so much that the individual hits blur into something closer to a wash. Pavement sits between glass and canvas and usually carries traffic and splash with it. People who say they dislike rain sounds often mean they dislike one surface.
Steady heavy rain lands near pink noise, whose energy falls about 3 decibels per octave, which is why it sounds fuller and more even than white noise. It is not the same thing though. Pink noise is generated to a defined slope and holds still; rain is a recording of many small impacts, so it wanders, swells and thins. If you like rain but wish it held steadier, pink noise is the thing to try next.
Most of them do, and rain is the hardest sound to loop invisibly. Rain has recognisable moments in it, a heavier gust or a particular run of drops, and an ear that hears one twice will start waiting for it. From then on you are listening to the loop rather than the rain. The last ten seconds of a track is where the join lives, so it is the fastest place to check.
Yes. Rain On Glass, Rain On Canvas, Rain Without Thunder and Rain On The Other Side are all rain with nothing dropped into them, no music underneath and no narration. There are rain blends too, such as rain with birds or rain against distant waves, for people who want a little more going on.
Also worth reading: white noise, pink noise and brown noise, sleep sounds with no talking and sounds for waking up at 3am.