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I made a background noise website and app https://asoftmurmur.com https://asoftmurmur.com There are a lot of improvements I want to make, but due to life comm

I made a background noise website and app https://asoftmurmur.com https://asoftmurmur.com There are a lot of improvements I want to make, but due to life commitments it has been stuck in maintenance mode for far longer than I'm comfortable with

michaelbuckbee 5y ago
Just wanted to say how much I enjoy the site.
2pir 5y ago
I use this all the time, and I tell everyone else to as well.
shepherdjerred 5y ago
I used your app constantly before I picked up Sonos speakers and had to restort to Spotify playlists!
abetusk 5y ago
Do you mind going into where your main revenue stream comes from and how it breaks down? Is it mostly apple users? Google play? Do you get any revenue from the website itself?
- thrwy_ywrht 5y ago
  The basic model is people pay for access to more sounds. For the last few years this bas been separate transactions on the ios app, android app and for the web version. Ideally I'd move to a single subscription-based account that worked across all devices for extra sounds. Revenue breakdown is roughly equal between android, ios and web, somewhat surprisingly. Android converts worse but has higher user numbers. Web converts much worse, but converts at a higher price (justified by the fact that hosting/maintaining the web stuff take a lot more time and money)
  - abetusk 5y ago
    Thanks, that's pretty interesting to hear! Can you talk about how you advertise and got traction enough to get to $500/month?
    - thrwy_ywrht 5y ago
      > Can you talk about how you advertise and got traction enough to get to $500/month? Pure dumb luck. I made the site to scratch my own itch many years ago, and then it took off because there were few similar sites at the time (that let you mix together different sounds). Only promotion I did was mention the site on reddit a few times. Users were prepared to tolerate a lot of rough edges at first. There has been zero advertising. The site gets a regular influx of new users because it's been featured on a number of discover-interesting-website portals (the modern versions of StumbleUpon). This happened with no input from me. I assume it's a good match for these kinds of portals because it's immediately usable without any kind of instruction, signup etc. I only made the decision to monetize after a long period of the site getting lots and lots of organic traffic with no input from me.
      - tasha0663 5y ago
        > discover-interesting-website portals (the modern versions of StumbleUpon) Such as? Besides HN, of course.
        thrwy_ywrht 5y ago
        https://www.boredbutton.com/ https://www.boredbutton.com/ is one pretty high-traffic example
        Discovershizzle 5y ago
        boredhoard.com is a good option
voiprodrigo 5y ago
Amazing, didn't know this existed. This plus my NC headphones, bliss. Enjoying it while I type this. Thank you!!
gateless 5y ago
I'm curious about how much work goes into recording high-quality, looping sounds like this?
- thrwy_ywrht 5y ago
  > I'm curious about how much work goes into recording high-quality, looping sounds like this? When I started the site, I mainly used CC0 licensed sounds others had recorded. Then I started recording my own sounds. How much work it is is very situational - if you regularly find yourself in an environment which has the sound you want to record, and not many other sounds around, then it's pretty trivial. For example, you want to record rain in the forest, and you regularly walk in a forest where it rains and there aren't many other noise sources (e.g. other people, planes overhead, singing birds, etc). The actual recording itself doesn't take much work, because I shoot for a level of sound quality that will satisfy 80%-90% of people, rather than a real "audiophile" quality level. On the other hand, if you want to record something that only happens occasionally and with lots of other noise sources nearby, it can be a ton of work. For example, you want to record the sound of thunder, but you only get occasional storms, you live in a city with lots of other background noise, and it usually rains when it storms and you want rain on the recording. In that scenario, you might have to travel far and burn a ton of time trying to get the right conditions for recording.
juancampa 5y ago
I've been using it for hours and hours for the past few years. Thank you!
notamy 5y ago
I use this constantly, oh my gods. Thank you so much for making it!! <3
ahmed_ds 5y ago
This is a pleasant surprise. I remember using your app ages ago. I want to say at least 7 years ago when I believe you launched your website first on reddit. My memory is a bit hazy. I really liked your app. We had a construction project going on for the longest time and I would mix up your rain, storm, sea and the singing bowl sound everything together and blast it on my soundbox!! Thank you.
- thrwy_ywrht 5y ago
  Haha thank you for the nice memory! I've been running the site for 8 years, it's crazy that it's been that long
RandomWorker 5y ago
That's awesome! I've had that part of my favourites for years now. Every clean browser install I put your site in my fav bar.

michaelbuckbee 5y ago

Just wanted to say how much I enjoy the site.

2pir 5y ago

I use this all the time, and I tell everyone else to as well.

shepherdjerred 5y ago

I used your app constantly before I picked up Sonos speakers and had to restort to Spotify playlists!

abetusk 5y ago

Do you mind going into where your main revenue stream comes from and how it breaks down? Is it mostly apple users? Google play? Do you get any revenue from the website itself?

thrwy_ywrht 5y ago
The basic model is people pay for access to more sounds. For the last few years this bas been separate transactions on the ios app, android app and for the web version. Ideally I'd move to a single subscription-based account that worked across all devices for extra sounds. Revenue breakdown is roughly equal between android, ios and web, somewhat surprisingly. Android converts worse but has higher user numbers. Web converts much worse, but converts at a higher price (justified by the fact that hosting/maintaining the web stuff take a lot more time and money)
- abetusk 5y ago
  Thanks, that's pretty interesting to hear! Can you talk about how you advertise and got traction enough to get to $500/month?
  - thrwy_ywrht 5y ago
    > Can you talk about how you advertise and got traction enough to get to $500/month? Pure dumb luck. I made the site to scratch my own itch many years ago, and then it took off because there were few similar sites at the time (that let you mix together different sounds). Only promotion I did was mention the site on reddit a few times. Users were prepared to tolerate a lot of rough edges at first. There has been zero advertising. The site gets a regular influx of new users because it's been featured on a number of discover-interesting-website portals (the modern versions of StumbleUpon). This happened with no input from me. I assume it's a good match for these kinds of portals because it's immediately usable without any kind of instruction, signup etc. I only made the decision to monetize after a long period of the site getting lots and lots of organic traffic with no input from me.
    - tasha0663 5y ago
      > discover-interesting-website portals (the modern versions of StumbleUpon) Such as? Besides HN, of course.
      - thrwy_ywrht 5y ago
        https://www.boredbutton.com/ https://www.boredbutton.com/ is one pretty high-traffic example
      - Discovershizzle 5y ago
        boredhoard.com is a good option

voiprodrigo 5y ago

Amazing, didn't know this existed. This plus my NC headphones, bliss. Enjoying it while I type this. Thank you!!

gateless 5y ago

I'm curious about how much work goes into recording high-quality, looping sounds like this?

thrwy_ywrht 5y ago
> I'm curious about how much work goes into recording high-quality, looping sounds like this? When I started the site, I mainly used CC0 licensed sounds others had recorded. Then I started recording my own sounds. How much work it is is very situational - if you regularly find yourself in an environment which has the sound you want to record, and not many other sounds around, then it's pretty trivial. For example, you want to record rain in the forest, and you regularly walk in a forest where it rains and there aren't many other noise sources (e.g. other people, planes overhead, singing birds, etc). The actual recording itself doesn't take much work, because I shoot for a level of sound quality that will satisfy 80%-90% of people, rather than a real "audiophile" quality level. On the other hand, if you want to record something that only happens occasionally and with lots of other noise sources nearby, it can be a ton of work. For example, you want to record the sound of thunder, but you only get occasional storms, you live in a city with lots of other background noise, and it usually rains when it storms and you want rain on the recording. In that scenario, you might have to travel far and burn a ton of time trying to get the right conditions for recording.

juancampa 5y ago

I've been using it for hours and hours for the past few years. Thank you!

notamy 5y ago

I use this constantly, oh my gods. Thank you so much for making it!! <3

ahmed_ds 5y ago

This is a pleasant surprise. I remember using your app ages ago. I want to say at least 7 years ago when I believe you launched your website first on reddit. My memory is a bit hazy. I really liked your app. We had a construction project going on for the longest time and I would mix up your rain, storm, sea and the singing bowl sound everything together and blast it on my soundbox!! Thank you.

thrwy_ywrht 5y ago
Haha thank you for the nice memory! I've been running the site for 8 years, it's crazy that it's been that long

RandomWorker 5y ago

That's awesome! I've had that part of my favourites for years now. Every clean browser install I put your site in my fav bar.