Rain sounds for sleeping
Steady rainfall with the patter on top — the most requested sleep sound there is.
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 rain?
Rain is asked for more than any other sleep sound, and the reason is easy to hear: it is steady enough to fade into the background but varied enough that your ear never locks onto a pattern. This player layers a low body of brown noise under a brighter high-passed layer for the patter, with the balance drifting slowly so the rain never falls at quite the same rate twice. Its closest pure colour is pink noise.
Good for
- Falling asleep when your mind will not settle
- Working or reading with a soft background
- Anyone who finds pure noise too clinical
The details
- Built from
- A brown-noise body under a high-passed pink layer, slowly drifting
- Sounds like
- Steady rain on a window, no wind
- Closest colour
- Pink noise
Questions
Why does rain help you fall asleep?
Rain is a broadband, non-threatening sound: it covers a wide frequency range so it masks other noises well, and it carries no information your brain needs to act on. A voice or a car door makes you attend to it; steady rain does not. The wide spread also means it covers both low rumbles and higher-pitched sounds.
Is generated rain as good as a recording?
For sleeping it has one clear advantage: no audible loop point. Recordings repeat every few minutes, and once you have noticed the repeat it is hard to stop hearing it. What generated rain lacks is the character of a specific place — rain on a tin roof, or falling through leaves. A good recording will sound richer; this will sound steadier.
What noise colour is closest to rain?
Pink noise. Steady rainfall has roughly a pink spectrum, falling about 3 decibels per octave, which is why the two are so often compared. Rain adds the irregular detail that pink noise does not have.
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 →Pink noise
The middle ground: softer than white, brighter than brown. Close to steady rain.
Play pink 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.