Your Personal Concert Hall: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building Your First Custom Soundscape

The curated presets in Stillpoint are a great place to start, but the true power of the app is unlocked when you become the architect of your own audio environment. Building a custom soundscape is easy and incredibly rewarding. Let's walk through it step-by-step.

Step 1: Define Your Goal

Before you add a single sound, ask yourself: What am I trying to achieve?

• Deep Focus? You'll want a strong masking agent and minimal distractions.
• Relaxation or Reading? You'll want cozy, comforting, and atmospheric sounds.
• Sleep? You'll want deep, rumbling sounds that mask noise and feel safe.

For this guide, let's say our goal is Deep Focus for working in a noisy environment.

Step 2: Go to the Soundscape Creator

Navigate to the Soundscapes page. Here you'll see the full library of individual sounds, organized by category.

Step 3: Choose Your Sounds

Scroll through the library and select the sounds you want in your mix. For our Deep Focus goal, let's choose:

1. Brown Noise (from the 'Sleep' category, but excellent for low-frequency masking)
2. Heavy Rain (from 'Weather')
3. Distant Thunder (from 'Weather')
4. Coffee Shop (from 'Work & Public')

As you click on each sound, a checkmark will appear.

Step 4: Launch Your Custom Session

At the top of the page, you'll see a sticky bar that says "Start Custom Session" with a count of your selected sounds. Click it. This will take you to the soundscape player with just the sounds you selected.

Step 5: Mix and Adjust

This is the creative part! When you first land on the page, all sounds will be at a default volume. Now, you need to mix them.

1. Play the Session: Click the master "Play" button.
2. Adjust Individual Volumes: Use the pop-up sliders for each sound icon to adjust its volume.
   • Let's set Brown Noise to 60%. This is our main sound-blocking foundation.
   • Set Heavy Rain to 80%. This will be the dominant, most recognizable sound.
   • Set Distant Thunder to 40%. We want this as a background accent, not a primary sound.
   • Set Coffee Shop to 30%. Just a faint murmur to add a sense of life without being distracting.

Step 6: Fine-Tune the Master Volume

Use the master volume slider in the main control card to set the overall volume to a comfortable level. It should be loud enough to mask distractions, but not so loud that it's fatiguing.

That's it! You've created a custom soundscape tailored to your needs. You can have up to a dozen sounds at once, so don't be afraid to experiment. Try adding 'Alpha Waves' for a cognitive boost or 'Fireplace' for a touch of coziness. The possibilities are endless.