How to use Soundscape
- Press play. Browsers only allow sound after a tap or click, so nothing plays until you do.
- Tap a sound to turn it on or off, and drag its slider to set how loud it is in the mix.
- Start from a preset if you like, then adjust it to taste.
- Set the sleep timer for 15, 30, 60 or 90 minutes. The timer counts while sound is playing, and the mix fades out over the last two minutes before it stops.
- Keep or share your mix. The page address always holds the current mix. Bookmark it, or press Share to send it to someone.
Tips
- Start quiet. Background sound works best just loud enough to cover what distracts you, so raise it slowly.
- Deep sounds need a decent speaker. Brown noise, ocean surf, the campfire's low roar and distant thunder live in low frequencies that small phone speakers barely reproduce. On a phone speaker the campfire is mostly crackle. Headphones or a larger speaker bring the depth out.
- Steady or eventful. The noises, rain and fan stay even. Thunder, fire crackles, waves and café chatter and clinks come and go. If a sound keeps catching your attention, swap it for a steadier one.
- Keyboard. Once a control in the player, presets or sound list has focus (click one or press Tab), Space plays or pauses and keys 1 to 9 and 0 switch the ten sounds on and off, in the order shown. Elsewhere on the page those keys do nothing.
- No sound on an iPhone? Check the volume and the silent-mode switch, then press play again.
Questions
What's the difference between white, pink and brown noise?
They spread their energy differently across pitches. White noise has equal energy at every frequency, so it sounds bright and hissy. Pink noise loses energy as the pitch rises (about 3 dB per octave), which sounds more balanced, a bit like steady rain. Brown noise falls off faster (about 6 dB per octave), leaving a deep, soft rumble.
Are these recordings?
No. Every sound is synthesized in your browser with the Web Audio API. Raindrops, waves, crackles, thunder and café clinks are built from noise, filters and tones with random timing, so the details keep changing instead of repeating a short clip. The café chatter is a voice-like tone shaped into syllables: it has the rhythm and rise and fall of speech, but no words. There are no audio files to download.
Will it keep playing in the background or with the screen off?
On a computer it keeps playing while the tab is open, even when you switch to another tab or app, and media keys can pause it. When you leave the page or lock the screen, Soundscape switches its sound to a standard audio player, the kind music sites use, to give it the best chance of carrying on, and phones can show play and pause on the lock screen. Phones and browsers still vary, so if the sound stops, come back to this page and press play.
Is it free? Do I need an account?
It's free to use and there's nothing to sign up for or install.
Is my mix private?
Your mix is stored only in the part of the link after the # sign, which browsers don't send to the server. The page sets no tracking cookies. If you share the link, whoever opens it gets the same mix.