The Sound Center

Hear the colors of noise: white, pink, brown, green and grey.
Generated live, right here.

Every sound here is synthesized as you listen, by the same algorithms Veil runs on your phone. Press play and find the color that fits your ear.

White Noise: full-spectrum masking

White noise carries equal power per hertz across the spectrum: a bright, dense hiss that forms a consistent wall of sound. It is the raw material every other color here is shaped from. Veil eases off the top, where many find the hiss piercing.

Sounds likeTV static  ·  a rushing shower  ·  an untuned FM radio

Best forBlocking sharp, sudden sound: voices, traffic, snoring.

Skip it ifThe hiss reads as harsh or tiring. Try pink or grey.

How Veil generates it

Millions of fresh random samples per minute, then two gentle low-pass stages at 2.5 kHz and 8 kHz. That is the entire difference between the dotted line and the solid one: textbook white noise is flat, and left unshaped its top end is the part most people find piercing. No file is ever read, and the static you hear is being computed as you listen.

White vs pink vs brown, in depth →

Veil output by frequency

Textbook white noiseVeil

20 Hz1 kHz20 kHz

Pink Noise: softer and more balanced

Pink noise rolls off steadily as frequency rises, matching the way sound is distributed in nature. Warmer and softer than white, and the most closely studied of the colors for sleep. The safest first choice if you have never tried it.

Sounds likegentle rain  ·  wind through leaves  ·  a distant waterfall

Best forSustained focus and deep sleep. Not sure? Begin here.

Skip it ifThe room is genuinely loud. White blocks more completely.

How Veil generates it

Six leaky integrators at staggered corner frequencies, the Paul Kellet cascade, shape white noise into a true 1/f spectrum: minus 3 decibels per octave, the same slope rain and wind follow. Two decorrelated generators run against each other so the texture never settles into a pattern.

White vs pink vs brown, in depth →

Veil output by frequency

20 Hz1 kHz20 kHz

Brown Noise: deep, low-frequency rumble

Brown noise concentrates its energy at the lowest frequencies: a deep, enveloping rumble. The darkest of the classic three, and the color that went viral for quieting busy minds. Closest to heavy rain or distant surf heard indoors.

Sounds likerolling thunder  ·  a powerful waterfall  ·  a distant jet

Best forA busy mind, or when white noise feels too sharp.

Skip it ifYou share a wall. Bass travels furthest of any color here.

How Veil generates it

A leaky-integrator random walk with a corner near 65 Hz produces the 1/f² spectrum: minus 6 decibels per octave, twice as steep as pink. Two decorrelated walks loop at coprime lengths, so the combined signal repeats only once every 18.5 minutes.

Brown noise and ADHD: the research →

Veil output by frequency

20 Hz1 kHz20 kHz

Green Noise: a midrange focus, no bass

Green noise lives in the middle of the spectrum, with the deep bass and the high hiss rolled away. It feels open and light, and masks without adding any weight to the room. Useful when you want cover without any pressure from bass.

Sounds likea steady breeze  ·  distant surf  ·  air through a vent

Best forMasking with no low rumble, when brown feels too heavy.

Skip it ifTraffic or a rumble is the problem. Green has no low end.

How Veil generates it

The same 1/f cascade as pink, then high-passed twice at 380 Hz for a decisive bass cut and capped at 3.6 kHz to remove hiss. What survives is the middle of the world’s sound.

Green noise for sleep, in depth →

Veil output by frequency

20 Hz1 kHz20 kHz

Grey Noise: balanced for human hearing

Grey noise, or gray noise, is tuned to how hearing actually works: scooped where your ears are most sensitive, lifted where they are not. It measures uneven but sounds even to you. Often the answer when nothing else has sat quite right.

Sounds likea quiet plane cabin  ·  a large empty room  ·  weightless air

Best forWhen white sounds piercing and brown sounds muffled.

Skip it ifAnother color already works. Grey corrects, it does not upgrade.

How Veil generates it

White noise shaped along the inverse of an equal-loudness contour: a broad 13 dB scoop at 3 kHz, where hearing is most sensitive, and a 9 dB lift at 110 Hz, where it is not. It is shaped along one of those curves rather than derived from a definitive one, because equal-loudness contours shift with playback level and with the listener. Veil also rolls off above 7 kHz instead of lifting the top end, which keeps the most intense hiss out of it at sleeping volume.

Grey noise for sleep, in depth →

Veil output by frequency

20 Hz1 kHz20 kHz

Side by side,
at a glance.

Same masking job, five different characters. Which one works is personal: trust your ears over any chart.

Color Character Reach for it when
White Flat and bright, the strongest masker The room is loud and you need maximum blocking.
Pink Natural slope, warm and balanced You want the researched all-rounder. Start here.
Brown Deep and dark, all bass Your mind is busy and white feels sharp.
Green Mid-focused and open, no bass You want masking without weight in the room.
Grey Tuned to the ear, level everywhere White is piercing, brown is muffled.

The right volume is
quieter than you think.

Picking a color is half of it. Most people set the volume too high and never find that out.

  1. Start from silence, with the real noise present. Set it up at night, in your actual room, with whatever is bothering you actually happening. A sample judged in a quiet afternoon tells you very little.
  2. Raise it until the disturbance stops registering. Not until it disappears from the room, which is a different and much louder thing. You are waiting for the point where your attention stops being pulled toward it.
  3. Then come back down. Ease it lower until you find the edge where the masking starts to fail, and settle just above that. This is your minimum effective volume, and it is usually well below where step two left you.
  4. Leave it there for a full night before judging it. A color that seems too plain in a ten second sample is often the one you sleep through, and a color that impresses immediately can wear on you by 3am.

A rough test: if you would have to raise your voice to talk over it, it is louder than the job requires. Masking works by covering the contrast between quiet and sudden sound, not by being louder than everything else in the room. Sitting at the minimum that works is easier on your ears across eight hours, and it is the whole reason Veil uses a fine continuous volume control instead of a ten step slider: the difference between right and slightly too loud is often smaller than one step on a normal one.

Common questions.

What is the difference between white, pink, and brown noise?
All three contain every frequency at once. What changes is the balance between them. White noise holds equal energy at every frequency, so it sounds bright and hissy. Pink noise rolls the high end off gradually, which most people hear as a softer, more natural version of the same wall of sound. Brown noise rolls it off about twice as steeply again, leaving a deep rumble closer to heavy rain or distant surf. The long version is here.
Which color of noise is best for sleep?
There is no single answer, which is why this page lets you hear all five rather than telling you. Pink is the usual starting point: it is the most studied of the colors and the one most people tolerate across a full night. If your room is genuinely loud, white masks more completely. If white feels sharp, brown or grey will sit easier. Judge them at your real sleeping volume, not in a quick sample.
Is brown noise better than white noise?
Not better, different. Brown puts its energy at the bottom of the spectrum, so it feels calmer and less fatiguing over hours, and many people find it easier to fall asleep to. White puts more energy up where voices and traffic live, so it covers those particular sounds more effectively. Loud room, reach for white. Busy mind, reach for brown.
What is green noise?
Green noise is a mid focused variant, concentrated around the middle of the audible range where human hearing is most sensitive, with the deep bass and the very top end rolled away. It masks conversation and movement without adding any weight to the room, which suits people who find brown noise heavy or who share a wall with someone. More on green noise for sleep.
What is grey noise?
Grey noise is tuned to human hearing rather than to a measuring instrument. Instead of holding energy flat by measurement, it is shaped along the ear's own sensitivity curve so that it sounds equally loud at every pitch. The result sits between white and brown: less piercing than the first, less muffled than the second. More on grey noise for sleep.
How loud should noise be while you sleep?
Quieter than most people set it. The goal is the minimum volume that covers what is disturbing you, not a volume that drowns the room. Raise it until the disturbance stops pulling your attention, then ease it back down to the edge where masking starts to fail and settle just above. If you would have to raise your voice to talk over it, it is louder than the job requires.
Do I need to download the sounds, or be online?
Neither. Nothing on this page streams and nothing downloads. Every color you hear is being generated in your browser as you listen, and the app works the same way on your phone. That means it runs with no signal at all: on a plane, in a rural area, or with the phone in airplane mode.
Which colors are free in the app?
White, pink, and brown are free, along with a fan. Green and grey are part of the premium library, which you can take monthly, annually, or buy once and own outright. Every color on this page plays in full here either way, so you can decide what you actually want before paying anything.

Take every color with you

Veil runs these exact generators on your phone, plus fans and mechanical sounds, with tone shaping on every one. No loops, no downloads, works offline.

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