LeSound has introduced AudioWeather Free, a freeware virtual instrument (VST/AU/AAX) designed for generating dynamic weather sound effects in real time.
Since “generating dynamic weather sound effects” sounds quite exciting, I was somewhat disappointed to find out that AudioWeather Free is essentially a sample-based instrument featuring only a couple of macro controls (one for the wind and another one for the rain generator), a global gain control and a preset browser with only five presets (manor, outside, lake, pool, dune). The different presets come with different wind sounds and slightly changed rain sounds, but these differences are far from drastic.
To be fair, the rain generator sounds excellent. I could easily see myself using this as the rain SFX source in future music project, or keeping it run in the background as a concentration aid while I work, if there weren’t for excellent websites like Noisli (the rain generator in AudioWeather Free sounds much better, though). On the other hand, the wind generator is a bit underwhelming. It feels too static and sounds like filtered white noise. If you mix it in with some rain at a very low volume, the results are passable, although certainly not spectacular.
See also: FREE Rain And Thunder Sound Library By 99Sounds!Still, another positive thing about AudioWeather Free are the “dynamic” controls. Although I was expecting something even more complex, the fact that the character and overall intensity of the rain/wind generator changes as you push the knob further towards its maximum value is pretty cool. In other words, these aren’t just plain old volume knobs. The value affects the character of the generated sound, so you can (sort of) emulate a slight drizzle that evolves into an epic rain shower and then settles down to moderate rainfall. It’s definitely fun to have this option in your DAW and it could be useful in a variety of cases, the most obvious of which are composing atmospheric soundscapes, or background sounds for use in video work. It’s worth noting here that the instrument is set to “ON” by default, so you will have to automate the output volume in your DAW if you don’t want to let the rain pour all over your latest project.
Being a rather basic sample-based virtual instrument, the CPU hit of around 15% for a single instance of AudioWeather Free running on an i5 processor is rather unexpected. It would certainly make sense for this instrument to have a somewhat larger RAM footprint (since it needs to hold the samples in the memory), but such a high CPU hit was quite a surprise for me.
The instrument is completely free to download and use, although you will need to register for a user account at the developer’s website. Once you’ve signed up and completed the checkout process, you’ll receive a download link for the installer. There’s no need to activate the software after installing it on your computer.
If you like AudioWeather Free and would like to try something similar but with more features, you should check out LeSound’s commercial AudioRain V2 Pro and AudioWind V2 Pro virtual instruments, priced at €329 each. The same developer is also offering a couple of other interesting freebies, namely AudioSteps Free (a footstep sound generator) and LS Levelator Free (a batch loudness/normalization tool).
Download
AudioWeather Free is available for free download via LeSound (7.48 MB download size, EXE installer, 32-bit & 64-bit VST/AU/AAX plugin format for Windows & Mac OS).
Last Updated on May 10, 2016 by Tomislav Zlatic.
