Pink noise
The middle ground: softer than white, brighter than brown. Close to steady rain.
Layers — mix as many as you like
Tap a second sound to layer it — rain under brown noise, for instance.
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What is pink noise?
Pink noise sits exactly halfway between white and brown, losing 3 decibels per octave. That profile carries equal energy in each octave rather than at each frequency, which happens to match a great deal of natural sound: steady rain, wind through trees, a river. It is also the colour that appears most often in sleep research, though the studies that made it famous are narrower than the headlines suggested.
This page is a pink noise generator: the sound is computed in your browser rather than streamed from a file, so it starts instantly and never reaches a loop point. More on how that works.
Good for
- A balanced choice when white is too sharp and brown too muffled
- Something close to rain without the patter
- Masking across both high and low frequencies
The details
- Spectrum
- Falls 3 dB per octave — equal energy per octave
- Also known as
- 1/f noise, flicker noise
- Sounds like
- Steady rainfall, wind in leaves, a distant river
- Turns up in
- Heartbeat intervals, river flows, audio equipment testing
Questions
Does pink noise improve deep sleep?
Several small studies played pink noise in short bursts timed to the slow brainwaves of deep sleep, and reported improvements in sleep depth and next-day memory. That is a real result, but it used lab equipment reading brain activity in real time to place each burst. Playing pink noise steadily all night is a different thing entirely, and it has not been shown to produce the same effect. Promising, not proven.
What is the difference between pink noise and white noise?
White noise has equal power at every frequency and sounds like a bright hiss. Pink noise reduces power by 3 decibels per octave as pitch rises, taking the edge off the treble. Because the ear is more sensitive at higher frequencies, pink noise is perceived as flatter and more natural even though its spectrum is technically sloped.
Is pink noise the same as rain?
Close relatives rather than the same thing. Steady rainfall has roughly a pink spectrum, which is why they sound alike. Real rain adds irregular detail — individual drops, gusts, water on different surfaces — that pure pink noise lacks. For that texture, use the rain player.
Every colour of noise
White noise
Equal power at every frequency — the bright hiss that masks almost anything.
Play white noise →Brown noise
Deep and low, like a distant waterfall. The most popular colour for sleeping.
Play brown noise →Green noise
Mid-range noise, often described as the background sound of open countryside.
Play green noise →Blue noise
The mirror of pink: energy rises with pitch, giving a bright, airy hiss.
Play blue noise →Grey noise
Shaped so every frequency sounds equally loud, rather than measuring equally loud.
Play grey noise →Violet noise
The mirror of brown: rises 6 dB per octave into a thin, piercing hiss.
Play violet noise →Black noise
Effectively silence, with almost all energy below what you can hear.
Play black noise →Beyond the colours
Not noise colours in the strict sense, but built from them — and useful for the same reason.
Rain
Steady rainfall with the patter on top — the most requested sleep sound there is.
Play rain →Fan
A box fan running in the corner, without the draught or the electricity bill.
Play fan →Ocean
Slow waves arriving and drawing back, roughly ten to a minute.
Play ocean →Thunderstorm
Rain with distant thunder rolling through at irregular intervals.
Play thunderstorm →