Question 1

Is this white noise generator free?

Accepted Answer

Yes, all of it, with no account and nothing held back. Every color, the ten-band tone control, the filter, the sleep timer, layering, saved setups, the share link and the WAV download are free, and the file you save has no length gate and no watermark on it.

Question 2

What's the difference between white, pink and brown noise?

Accepted Answer

They're the same random sound with different slopes, which is all the colors of noise really describe. White carries equal energy at every frequency and sounds like a bright, even hiss. Pink falls about 3 dB per octave, so the top is softer. Brown falls about 6 dB per octave and comes out as a low rumble, closer to heavy surf than to a hiss. Which noise color suits you is a matter of taste and of what you're trying to cover, so press White, then Brown, and watch the curve under the buttons tilt as you switch.

Question 3

Which color of noise is best for sleeping?

Accepted Answer

No color is objectively best. People reach for brown noise for sleep more than anything else, because the softer top end is easier to leave running for eight hours, and plenty of people who find white noise harsh get on with brown immediately. The way to settle it is to play one, then the other, at the volume you'd actually sleep at, from where the device will actually be. Anything that sounds pleasant at desk volume can sound sharp at 2am.

Question 4

Can I play brown noise on its own?

Accepted Answer

Yes, one click on Brown. It works as a brown noise generator on its own, at any level, for as long as you want. Every sample is calculated as it plays rather than read back from a recording, so there's no loop coming round every few minutes and no seam to start listening for. Leave it on all night and it never repeats itself.

Question 5

Can I play pink noise?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it's the second button. Beyond sleep and masking, a pink noise generator is a standard piece of audio kit: pink noise carries equal energy per octave, which is close to how both ears and measurement microphones read a spectrum, so playing it through a PA and looking at what comes back tells you what the room is doing to the sound. For a channel-by-channel walk through a stereo or surround setup instead, Speaker Test does that step by step.

Question 6

What is green noise?

Accepted Answer

Green noise is weighted toward the middle of the range, roughly where a stream, rain on leaves, or distant surf sits. It has less of the bright top of white and less of the deep bottom of brown, which is why people describe it as the most natural-sounding of the set. It's the fifth button here, so free green noise is one click away and starts playing straight away.

Question 7

What is grey noise, and how is it different from white?

Accepted Answer

Grey noise is white noise weighted to your ear's own sensitivity curve. Your hearing is far less sensitive at the very bottom and the very top of the range than in the middle, so grey noise puts extra energy at both ends to compensate, and the result sounds equally loud from one end to the other rather than measuring flat. Some people find it the least fatiguing of the seven for exactly that reason. On the spectrum view it looks bass-heavy, and that's what it should look like.

Question 8

What about blue and violet noise?

Accepted Answer

Both tilt upward instead of down. Blue noise rises about 3 dB per octave, violet noise about 6, so violet lives almost entirely above 5 kHz. They're sharp, and that's the use: when the sound you want to cover is itself high-pitched, noise shaped like it works better than a rumble sitting underneath it. Violet is the one people try against a high ringing tone.

Question 9

What is black noise?

Accepted Answer

There's nothing to play. Black noise means silence, or near-silence broken by the occasional burst, so a button for it would be a button that does nothing. If you came looking for something very deep and very quiet, brown noise with the low-pass filter pulled down to around 500 Hz is almost certainly what you had in mind.

Question 10

Does it have a sleep timer?

Accepted Answer

Yes: 15, 30, 45, 60 or 90 minutes, all night, or any number of minutes you type in. It fades out over the last minute instead of stopping dead, because a sound that cuts off abruptly at 3am wakes people as reliably as an alarm does. You can set or change the timer while it's already playing, and the countdown runs at the top of the page.

Question 11

Will it keep playing with my phone screen off?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Lock the phone and the sound carries on, with a pause button and the time remaining on the lock screen, and no app to install for it. One thing to check on an iPhone if you get no sound at all: the silent switch on the side of the phone mutes browser audio.

Question 12

Can I download white noise as a file?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Pick a length up to ten minutes, choose 44.1 or 48 kHz, and your browser renders the file and saves it. The white noise download is free, with no queue on a server and no watermark, and whatever you've shaped on the page is what ends up in it: the color you picked, anything layered under it, the ten EQ bands, the filter and the stereo width. Nothing is uploaded to produce it, because it's built on your own device.

Question 13

Can I shape the sound myself?

Accepted Answer

Yes, under "Shape the sound yourself". Ten sliders cover the audible range, one per octave, so you can lift a single band to sit right on top of one specific sound. If the whine bothering you is a fan somewhere around 4 kHz, raise the 4 kHz slider and leave the others alone: you'll cover it at a much lower overall volume than by turning everything up. The low-pass and high-pass filter is the quick, blunt version of the same idea, and "Flatten" puts the sliders back where they were.

Question 14

Can this help with tinnitus?

Accepted Answer

Masking is an ordinary, everyday use for this, and it's what most people mean when they play noise over ringing. The practical part is the level: set it just below the ringing rather than over the top of it, so the two blend instead of one winning. Higher-tilted colors usually work better against a high tone, which is why the tinnitus setting here is white with violet over it and everything under 800 Hz taken out. This isn't a medical device and it isn't a substitute for seeing an audiologist. Tinnitus that's new, in one ear, or getting worse is a reason to book an appointment.

Question 15

Is it safe to play white noise for my dog?

Accepted Answer

Steady noise can cover the sounds that set a dog off, thunder, fireworks, a door slamming down the hall, and some dogs do settle with it. Keep it quiet: a dog hears much higher frequencies than you do, and a level that seems mild to you carries further for them. Leave the door open so the animal can walk away from it, and don't put the speaker in the crate. White noise for dogs covers a sound, it doesn't treat anxiety, and a dog who panics through every storm needs a vet rather than a browser tab.

Question 16

Is it safe to use around a baby?

Accepted Answer

Keep it quiet and keep it far away. Put the device across the room rather than in or on the cot, hold the level well under a normal speaking voice, and switch it off once they're asleep. This one is worth taking seriously: noise machines sold for infant sleep have been measured putting out levels loud enough to matter at close range over a whole night. The setting here for a baby's room starts at the quietest level on the page for that reason.

Question 17

Do I need a white noise machine, or is this enough?

Accepted Answer

For the sound itself, this is enough, and it costs nothing. What a white noise machine gives you is physical: a dial by the bed, no screen, no notifications, nothing to unlock at 2am. What it doesn't give you is better noise. If you want the convenience of a box on the nightstand, buy one; if you want the sound, it's already playing.

Question 18

Does this record anything or upload my audio?

Accepted Answer

No. It only plays sound. There's no microphone permission, no upload, and nothing to send: this tool doesn't even have a server to upload to. The WAV file is rendered by your own browser, saved setups stay in this browser, and a share link carries its settings in the part of the URL that never reaches a server at all.

Question 19

Does it work offline?

Accepted Answer

Yes, once the page has loaded. Every sample is calculated in your browser rather than streamed or fetched, so no audio files are downloaded at any point. Turn the connection off and it keeps playing exactly the same.

White Noise Generator

Pick a color

What you're hearing

Set up for a job

Sleep timer

Mix colors

Band-by-band tone control

Filter

Slow movement

Download as WAV

Save this setup

Frequently asked questions

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