Colored Noise Generator

Play the full palette of colored noise - white, pink, brown, blue, violet and gray. Each color has a different spectral slope, so the balance between low and high frequencies changes with your choice.

Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored on a server.

Noise colorThe slope is how power changes across the spectrum. Brown and pink tilt toward the lows for a softer hush, while blue and violet tilt toward the highs for a brighter hiss.

Volume-12 dB

Muffle0%

A low-pass filter that rolls off the high frequencies. Left is open, right is fully muffled, like the sound through a closed door.

Sleep timer

Sound fades out over the last 30 seconds and then stops. The countdown runs on the clock, so it keeps going while this tab sits in the background.

Sound fades in when you press Play and fades out when you stop.

Audio starts on your first tap on Play, as required by your browser.

What a spectral slope is

Every color here is the same random signal with a different tilt across the frequency range, and the tilt is measured in decibels per octave. Brown loses 6 dB each time the pitch doubles, pink loses 3, white is flat, blue gains 3 and violet gains 6. A falling slope leaves the low end in charge, so the sound reads as a hush or a rumble. A rising slope hands the power to the top, so it reads as hiss or air. Gray is the exception: it is shaped so that no part of the range sounds louder than the rest to the ear, which is not the same thing as measuring flat.

How each color sounds

White

Flat across the range, which reaches the ear as a bright hiss, like static. White and pink both get more room on the noise generator page.

Noise generator: white and pink

Pink

Falls 3 dB per octave, so every octave carries the same energy. It is the color most people call balanced or natural, somewhere close to steady rain.

Brown

Falls 6 dB per octave, so the low end dominates and the sound is deep and soft, like distant surf. Brown noise has a page of its own.

Brown noise, on its own page

Blue

Climbs 3 dB per octave, which makes it pink turned upside down. The bass is thin and the top is bright, so it reads as airy rather than heavy. It puts its energy where a low rumble is not, so it can sit against traffic or a fridge without adding to it. It is a sharp sound to stay under for hours, so start it lower than you would start pink and reach for the muffle control if the top bites.

Violet

Climbs 6 dB per octave, the steepest rise here, so it is almost entirely high frequencies and has no body at all. It sounds like a thin, even hiss. It is the color people are least likely to leave on and the easiest to tire of, which is worth knowing before you sit under it. Some pick it precisely because it is as far as this palette goes from the low hum they are trying to get away from.

Gray

Weighted so the ear hears about the same loudness across the whole range, instead of the meter reading the same. Hearing is dullest at the very bottom and the very top, so gray puts more power there and less in the middle where hearing is sharpest. The result sounds even, and a little hollow. Whether that is pleasant is a matter of taste, and taste is the only claim this page makes for any color.

Frequently asked questions

What is blue noise?

Noise whose energy rises 3 dB for every octave you climb, so it is the mirror image of pink. Nearly all of its power sits at the top of the range, which is why it sounds bright and airy with almost no weight underneath. Outside listening, the same shape is used as dither in audio and image work, because pushing error into the high end is where it is hardest to notice.

Why does gray noise sound even?

Because it is shaped against a loudness curve instead of being left flat. The ear is far less sensitive at the extremes of its range than in the middle, so a flat signal like white noise arrives sounding top-heavy. Gray lifts the parts the ear is dull to and lowers the parts it is sharp to, so no region jumps out. It is a weighting of the same randomness, not a different kind of noise.

Which color masks best?

The one that overlaps the sound you want covered. Masking happens frequency by frequency, so brown and pink do more against a low rumble, traffic or a voice through a wall, while white and blue do more against thin, bright sounds like a fan whine or a keyboard. Any broadband noise helps a little, because it covers everything to some degree; the matching one helps most. Loudness is not the lever - a level that covers the sound is enough.

Does it need an internet connection?

Only for the first visit. Every color is calculated on your device as it plays rather than streamed from a file, and the page itself is cached once you have opened it. Install the site from your browser menu if you want it to open with no connection at all.