Five ambient channels — white, pink, brown noise, synthesised rain, and a coffee-shop loop. Mix them in any combination with per-channel volume. Loop forever; no downloads.
Noise is generated in-browser via Web Audio. Rain uses pink noise modulated by a slow LFO to mimic raindrop bursts; coffee-shop is brown noise with mid-frequency spikes. Total output is capped under -10 dBFS at full slider to protect your ears.
All three contain a continuous spread of frequencies, but with different power slopes. White noise has equal energy per Hz — sounds hiss-bright. Pink noise has equal energy per octave (a -3 dB/octave slope) and sounds balanced because it matches how human hearing weights octaves. Brown noise (also called red noise, after Brownian motion) drops -6 dB per octave, putting most energy in the low end, so it sounds like distant surf or a deep rumble. For focus, pink and brown are usually rated as less fatiguing than white.
It depends on the person and the noise. A 2022 meta-analysis in Scientific Reports found pink noise improved sustained attention in roughly 60% of subjects and worsened it in about 15%. The mechanism is 'stochastic resonance' — a gentle, broad-spectrum background masks intermittent distractions (footsteps, conversations) by smoothing the auditory floor. People with ADHD often report the largest gains. People who normally work in silence may find any noise distracting at first; give it 20 minutes before judging.
No — brown noise has existed for as long as physical processes have. The 2022 TikTok 'brown noise for focus' wave revived old laboratory recordings. The fascination is that brown noise lacks the high-frequency hiss that makes white noise tiring while still providing complete masking. Some users find it physically calming because deep low frequencies activate parasympathetic nervous responses, similar to ocean or thunderstorm soundscapes. Try it for 30 minutes before deciding — it sounds odd at first and very natural after a few minutes.
No — it is synthesised on the fly using filtered pink noise with a slow LFO-driven amplitude modulation to mimic the burstiness of rainfall. That keeps the page small (no streaming, no licensing) and avoids the looping artefacts that plague short rain recordings. The coffee-shop sound is filtered brown noise with sporadic mid-frequency bursts. The result is less realistic than a recording but never loops audibly. Mix it with pink noise for a thicker texture.
Quiet — below the level of normal conversation. Long-duration listening above 60 dB SPL can cause fatigue and creeping hearing damage; over 80 dB SPL for hours is genuinely risky. The sliders here top out at a safe level on consumer headphones, but always start low and increase only until distractions are masked. If you can hear your typing clearly the noise is too quiet to mask anything; if you cannot hear someone calling your name from across the room it is too loud.
Yes — each channel has an independent volume slider, so you can run pink noise plus rain plus coffee-shop simultaneously. Common stacks: pink + rain for a rainy-window effect; brown + coffee-shop for a 'café in winter' vibe. Total volume rises with each channel so reduce individual sliders when stacking. Combine with the Pomodoro timer (/utility/pomodoro) — the noise gives you a consistent auditory backdrop across focus blocks.