White Noise & Ambient Sound Mixer

Steady background sound can make a noisy room easier to ignore. People use it to cover traffic, a neighbour’s television or office chatter, to settle into work, or to fall asleep. This generator makes it on your device: three kinds of noise, four natural textures to blend with them, a master volume and a timer that stops playback by itself. There is nothing to download and the sound never loops audibly.

The three colours of noise

White noise has equal energy at every frequency, which is why it sounds bright and hissy, like a detuned radio. Pink noise has less energy as the frequency goes up, falling 3 dB per octave, so each octave has about the same energy; this is closer to how the ear hears, and it sounds like steady rain or a waterfall. Brown noise falls 6 dB per octave and is dominated by the bass, a deep rumble like distant thunder or a jet. Many people find pink and brown gentler than white.

The textures

Rain is pink noise filtered to the mid and upper range with a slight random flutter. Ocean waves are brown noise rising and fading about every ten seconds. Wind is filtered noise whose tone drifts up and down slowly. Fan is a low steady noise with a faint hum. Each layer has its own slider from 0 to 100 percent and a short description under it, so you can see what it does.

A worked example

Press Sample or the Focus preset, which sets pink noise to 55 percent and everything else to zero. Sleep sets brown noise to 50 and ocean waves to 25. Rainy day is rain at 60 with brown noise at 15 underneath, and Quiet fan is the fan layer at 65. The master volume starts at 30 percent. Set Stop after to 45 and the page counts down, then stops; a message shows the time left.

Mixing by ear

Start with one layer and add a second at a lower level. A little brown noise below pink noise gives a fuller sound than either alone, and a low ocean layer adds slow movement that stops the sound from feeling flat. If every layer is at zero while playing, the page tells you to raise one. Settings are kept in your browser, so a favourite mix is waiting next time.

Safety and expectations

Keep the volume low enough that you can talk over it. Steady noise at a high level over many hours can damage hearing, so do not put speakers near an infant’s head. Noise also masks sounds that matter, such as smoke alarms, so do not use it where you need to hear them. Noise helps some people sleep and concentrate and does nothing for others, and this page makes no medical claim.

Edge cases

Browsers wait for a click before they allow sound, so press Play. Laptop speakers reproduce brown noise poorly because they cannot make deep bass, which makes it sound like pink noise. The sound loops an eight-second buffer, which is long enough that the repeat is not noticeable. Closing the tab stops playback.

Related tools

• Sound Level Meter measures how loud the room is with the noise playing.
• Tone Generator makes single frequencies instead of noise.
• Speaker Test checks that both channels and the bass work.
• Countdown Timer can run a separate countdown for a nap or a work session.