All sounds

Free brown noise for focus and studying, with a timer

Deep, steady, and low. Brown noise sits below the range of human speech, which is why it covers a talking office at a volume that does not fatigue you. Press play and the timer runs in the same tab.

The player runs on a desktop browser only. Open this page on your laptop.

What you are hearing

Brown noise loses 6 decibels per octave as the frequency rises. Almost all its energy is below 500 hertz, so it sounds like a river heard through a wall or the cabin of a plane. It is named after Brownian motion, not the colour.

What it does

There are no controlled trials of brown noise specifically. What is well established is masking: other people's speech is the single most disruptive sound for tasks that use working memory, and steady broadband sound covers it. The "irrelevant speech effect" has been replicated since the 1970s, and it does not matter whether you can make out the words.

Set the volume just above the sound you are covering and no higher. If you can feel it, it is too loud. If you stop noticing it after a minute, it is right.

When to pick something else

On laptop speakers brown noise turns to mud; choose rain. If a low rumble makes you drowsy, choose pink noise or a natural recording. If you have never tried noise for focus, start here for a week, then compare.

Salamé & Baddeley (1982), Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 21(2). Full comparison: our article on brown, white and pink noise.

Questions

Is brown noise safe to listen to for hours?
At a moderate volume, yes. The risk with any sustained sound is volume, not colour. Keep it just above the room and take the breaks the timer gives you.
Brown noise or white noise for an open office?
Brown. Speech sits roughly between 100 and 3,000 hertz, and a low rumble covers it at a lower overall level than white noise, which is harsh at the volume needed.
Do I need headphones?
No, but they help. Headphones let you keep the volume low. Speakers work if the room is quiet and you are not using a laptop's built-in ones.
Is the brown noise here free?
Yes. Brown noise and rain are free with no time limit, together with the focus timer. You can press play without an account.
Does brown noise help with ADHD?
Many people with ADHD say it does, and a few studies found that background noise helped children with attention difficulties on some tasks. There is no trial of brown noise for ADHD specifically, so treat it as something to test for a week, not a treatment.
Brown noise or pink noise?
Brown is deeper and covers low sounds and speech better. Pink is a little brighter and less likely to feel heavy or make you drowsy. If brown feels muddy, try pink.