White noise generator apps (for working, studying, sleeping and more)

[Selene310187]

There isn't only white noise to mask unwanted noises in your vicinity, to help you relax, stay focused or sleep better. You can also use for example brown noise, pink noise, fan noise or nature sounds like a waterfall. YouTube offers a lot of videos and playlists for these purposes. But the internet is not always available (e.g. your are in a dead spot or your data volume is used up). The white noise generator apps fill this gap. Search in your app store for "white noise generator", "noise generator" or "sound masking" and you will find a lot.

Currently, I use myNoise by myNoise BV and White Noise Generator by AMICOOLSOFT.


myNoise

• rain, waves, white noise, binaural beat, warp speed and many more
• new sounds can be downloaded inside the app
• adjust the color (e.g. Infra, Speech, White, Brown) and the frequencies of the sound
• save your own custom preset

White Noise Generator

• waterfall, cave, river, wind, fan, train, lawnmower, chimney fire and many more
• mix the sounds and adjust the volume of each sound separately
• set a (sleep) timer

Play the sound of the generator app in the background or over headphones. You can combine the sound masking sounds with other strategies to combat noise.

Although I posted this thread in Autism, the white noise generator apps can also help if you have conditions like ADHD, High Sensitivity, misophonia, (social) anxiety or tinnitus.

[Avrie]

Check out the "Calm" and "Better sleep" apps. There are much more interesting "colors" of noise. Pure white noise just covers up existing noise by adding to it, but altering the frequency bands can actually influence your emotions. I used to program psycho-acoustic masking systems for Verrex communications in large "cubicle" floor plan office buildings. The equalization spectrums can alter your perceptions a lot.

Check out Brown noise... it helps to disrupt the "racing thoughts" a lot of us deal with. It helps me relax and also focus when I'm trying to relax. But I do love a good rain storm sound track to sleep to.

[Selene310187]

Check out the "Calm" and "Better sleep" apps

Thanks for the suggestions, Avrie!

There are much more interesting "colors" of noise. Pure white noise just covers up existing noise by adding to it, but altering the frequency bands can actually influence your emotions

I know that there are more "colors" of noise. I wrote "white noise" in the title of the thread because it's very common. That's why I mentioned the other colors in the text. But I didn't know that altering the frequency bands could influence the emotions. This calls for a deep dive in the web to learn more about it.

[Avrie]

I haven't done a deep dive into it myself, but as part of programming masking systems we were taught to avoid certain frequency groups. They were perceived by different people differently, and would make some people anxious, and others reported varying degrees of arousal. "Red" frequencies would trigger aggravation and varying levels of aggressiveness.

We worked with what was called pink noise which is actually mostly white noise but with the upper and lower bands rolling off sharply so that the frequency spectrums mostly fell into the range of normal human voice.

As you can imagine "red" profiles were to be avoided in large corporate office spaces... We didn't get into the details, it was simply an "avoid this" kind of thing while we were being taught how to use real time analyzers to blend the sources across large open areas for consistency, but there must be studies you can look up.