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Show HN: Increase your productivity with ambient noise

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Re: Show HN: Increase your productivity with ambient noise

#191

Post by lukev »

duncanmcdowell wrote: post #54
lukev wrote: post #13

Very interesting, but I find I get much the same effect with the right types of music (which are also more aesthetically pleasing, to me). Also, recorded environmental sounds always have a certain degree of annoyance for me. There's nothing on earth I love more than the sound of rain or a crackling fire, but recorded versions just don't cut it (for me). This seems to fall into the same category.

Any recommendations on specific music that helps you (artist/album)? I find that Radiohead/In Rainbows is good for me

Well, I really doubt this will work for you, but as a metalhead I find abstract and atmospheric death or black metal works quite well for me (Lately I've been on an Agalloch (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4ih3JVrRPE) kick).

Also I find that medium-intensity electronica will put me in the zone - Deadmau5, Justice, etc.

Re: Show HN: Increase your productivity with ambient noise

#192

Post by scep12 »

phatbyte wrote: post #190

What I like to listen while coding: Aes Dana - Memory Shell Aes Dana - Season 5 Black Sands - Bonobo Carbon Based Lifeforms - Interloper I also find jazz and post-rock pretty good for ambient noise

Bonobo is fantastic. Based on what you've listed, I think you'd enjoy Emancipator as well.

Re: Show HN: Increase your productivity with ambient noise

#193

Post by erinaceous »

This doesn't work on me. Even with the volume down low, I couldn't help trying to listen to the coffee shop conversations the instant it started playing. All the voices were somewhere in front of me in space, and after a few seconds I felt pretty overwhelmed. Completely lost my ability to focus on anything else, unfortunately.

This could be due to the fact I get sensory overload easily (and I'm somewhere on the broad autism phenotype). It was a jarring experience.

Plus the coffee shops I frequent are usually quieter than that - that sounded more like a busy canteen than a coffee shop to me! Needed less echo, more muffling, less voices, and some ambient background coffeeshop music, in my humble opinion of small-coffee-shop patron-hipster :)

If I want to focus on stuff, often I have to completely block out people talking and ambient noise and stick music on. The best kind of music is lyricless (or at least, no coherent words - Sigur Røs' english-icelandic gibberish mix is a good example of that), usually long movements, lots of prolonged chords and repetitive segments and a steady rhythm. That stuff helps with my sequencing ability and I find I flit between tasks less.

I've also tried white noise / "binaural beats" (those audio signals that use gentle modulation to supposedly alter your brainwaves), but those are pretty overwhelming too.

I do wonder if it would have a better on me had they used binaural recording (two microphones where the ears would be on a fake head, plus some algorithms to create a 3-dimensional sense of space from the signals) - which to me sounds more natural.

I can't read the whole paper on this, but I'm wondering if they took account of the spectrum of different neurotypes when studying this "coffee shop creativity" effect?

Also, since I've seen other people doing it, here's the artists/bands I listen to like 24/7 when in work to help me concentrate: Godspeed You! Black Emperor (favourite <3), Set Fire To Flames, Explosions In The Sky, Lovett's "Ghost of Old Highways" album, Sigur Røs, Ludovico Einaudi, Philip Glass, Massive Attack, Portishead, Liquid Stranger, Radiohead, DJ Shadow, RJD2, Kid Koala, Hybrid, Deadmau5, Hans Zimmer soundtracks, Nine Inch Nails' "Ghosts I-IV", 65daysofstatic (some stuff anyway, some of their stuff is crazy loud and overwhelming)

Re: Show HN: Increase your productivity with ambient noise

#194

Post by neya »

ScottBurson wrote: post #108
phreeza wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a lot of space for improvement left in binaural recordings and presentation. For me the suspention of disbelief required to hear a sound from my headphones as actually being remote is really hard. I still mainly hear it as being right at my ears, or maybe somewhere between my ears. Does anyone feel the same?

For a headphone with a particularly "live" sound that's not too awfully expensive, let me recommend the German Maestro GMP 8.300 D ( http://www.amazon.com/German-Maestro-GMP-8-300-Professional/... ) or 8.35 D ( http://www.amazon.com/German-Maestro-GMP-8-35-Headphone/dp/B... ). The 8.35 is a 35Ω model but otherwise identical -- it will play louder and is intended for use with portable players (but I just tried my 300Ω…

Beware of heavily marketed expensive headphones! I'm not saying the one you suggested is bad, but you gotta make sure you don't fall for the Psychological marketing that is heavily abused in the world of headphones, where you end up paying more for the brand than the headphone components themselves. For example, when they say "You will hear sounds you've never heard before" you will suddenly almost always feel that way, because of how psychology works. I can suggest you two excellent, professional, accurate, inexpensive, comfortable headphones that are better than even the most popular Sennhs:

1)http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-RPHTF600S-RP-HTF600-S-Stereo...

2)http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDR-V6-Monitor-Series-Headphones/...

Cheers

Re: Show HN: Increase your productivity with ambient noise

#197

Post by fixedd »

duncanmcdowell wrote: post #54
lukev wrote: post #13

Very interesting, but I find I get much the same effect with the right types of music (which are also more aesthetically pleasing, to me). Also, recorded environmental sounds always have a certain degree of annoyance for me. There's nothing on earth I love more than the sound of rain or a crackling fire, but recorded versions just don't cut it (for me). This seems to fall into the same category.

Any recommendations on specific music that helps you (artist/album)? I find that Radiohead/In Rainbows is good for me

Nine Inch Nails presents Ghosts I - IV: http://ghosts.nin.com/main/home

Re: Show HN: Increase your productivity with ambient noise

#198

Post by notmarkus »

duncanmcdowell wrote: post #54
lukev wrote: post #13

Very interesting, but I find I get much the same effect with the right types of music (which are also more aesthetically pleasing, to me). Also, recorded environmental sounds always have a certain degree of annoyance for me. There's nothing on earth I love more than the sound of rain or a crackling fire, but recorded versions just don't cut it (for me). This seems to fall into the same category.

Any recommendations on specific music that helps you (artist/album)? I find that Radiohead/In Rainbows is good for me

If you have Spotify, I made a playlist that puts me into beast mode:

http://open.spotify.com/user/notmarkus/playlist/6pehPUR4xsO5...

Note that Port St. Willow's album "Holiday" should come right after Tim Hecker's "Ravedeath, 1972".

Holiday isn't on Spotify currently, but it'll be back on in April. If you can find it, give it a listen. On its own, it's great as work music.

Re: Show HN: Increase your productivity with ambient noise

#199

Post by DerKommissar »

cowpewter wrote: post #149
DerKommissar wrote: post #18

My brain must be wired differently. I listened to that for about three minutes before I wanted to pull my hair out. The only ambient sound I've ever been productive listening to is rain. I've tried to work in coffee shops before. Every few minutes I realize I've been listening to my neighbor's conversation and not doing work. I really dislike working in noisy places.

Not just you, this made me want to scream and throw something after a few minutes too. I program best listening to music I've heard a million times before, preferably something a little bit technical, like progressive rock or metal. It has to be familiar enough that my brain can anticipate every sound that's coming and not be surprised by anything, yet complex enough to give the idle parts of my brain that are prone…

Music is even worse for me than chatter. I think it's because I'm a musician, I can't help but concentrate on it.

One other thing I've noticed about myself in this regard is that annoying noise irrationally enrages me when I'm trying to concentrate. For example when I'm working in my cube and a manager or maintenance guy walks by whistling, I really want to scream at them. Even if it's only for a few seconds. I ignore the feeling because I know it's totally irrational, it goes away and I don't actually feel any ill will towards people.

I've heard others talking about this kind of thing before so I'm pretty sure it's not just me. It's annoying because I'd like to be able to work around noise better, and I don't like being angry.

Re: Show HN: Increase your productivity with ambient noise

#200

Post by terhechte »

ed209 wrote: post #187
terhechte wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't recommend CAN highly enough. I've written code to their music since 2006 (with pauses when I couldn't stand it anymore). Their music ranges from kinda rock to kinda ambient but they usually have a solid beat which helps me concentrate and somehow makes me type faster since I try to align to it subconciously I guess. They also have minimal vocals, and if there're vocals, there're hard to understand since it is…

Thanks for the link. I actually have that playing as well as the cafe background noise. Kind of feels like I'm listening to music in a cafe! Working pretty well so far :)

Great idea to have the cafe noise in the background, too.
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