  A recent comparative study evaluated all known thunder synthesis techniques
in terms of their perceptual realness. The findings concluded that none of the
synthesised audio extracts seemed as realistic as the genuine phenomenon. The
work presented herein is motivated by those findings, and attempts to create a
synthesised sound effect of thunder indistinguishable from a real recording.
The technique supplements an existing implementation with physics-inspired,
signal-based design elements intended to simulate environmental occurrences. In
a listening test conducted with over 50 participants, this new implementation
was perceived as the most realistic synthesised sound, though still
distinguishable from a real recording. Further improvements to the model, based
on insights from the listening test, were also implemented and described
herein.
