Dusk · Notes
Noise "colours" are not marketing names — each one describes how the sound's energy is distributed across frequency, and that distribution is the whole difference between a track that disappears behind your thoughts and one that sits in the front of your head like static. This is the practical version: what each colour sounds like, what it covers well, and which ones we actually sell. Dusk's catalogue is deep brown, pink, fan hum and ocean swell. We do not sell white or grey noise, and we describe them here anyway because you cannot choose between four things by hearing only two of them.
Every octave you go up covers twice as much frequency range as the one below. So a noise with equal power per hertz — white noise — ends up with half its total energy in its top octave alone, and your ear is at its most sensitive right about there. That single fact is why white noise sounds bright and effortful, why pink sounds balanced, and why brown sounds like weather in the distance. The colours are just different answers to how steeply the energy should fall as pitch rises.
Equal power at every frequency. It is the reference point everyone starts from and the one most people bounce off: a hard, hissing sound, closest to an untuned FM radio or an extractor fan at close range. It is genuinely the strongest masker of high-pitched intrusions — a whining fridge, a shrill alarm two floors down, tinnitus-adjacent tones — because it puts the most energy exactly where those sounds live. It is also the colour that people describe as harsh, fatiguing, or "static in my skull". Dusk does not sell white noise.
Pink noise falls about 3 dB per octave, which works out to equal energy in every octave rather than every hertz. That is the balance most natural continuous sound already has: steady rain, wind through trees, distant traffic. It is audibly softer than white without going dull, and it is the sensible starting point if you have no idea which colour you want. Our master is Pink Noise — 12 minutes: 720.0 seconds measured, and deliberately the quietest average level in the catalogue at a mean −20.8 dBFS, because masking works best when it is only just loud enough.
Twice pink's slope, so the top end is dramatically reduced and the low end dominates. This is the sound people reach for when white noise has already failed them: a low, weather-like roar with almost no hiss in it. It covers low and mid-range intrusions best — a television through a wall, footsteps upstairs, the low mumble of a conversation — and it is much easier to leave running for hours because there is very little in it for the ear to fatigue against. Our master is Deep Brown — 20 minutes: 1,200.0 seconds measured, rolled off above 700 Hz, mean −18.6 dBFS.
Grey noise takes white noise and bends it to an equal-loudness contour, boosting the frequencies your ear is less sensitive to and cutting the ones it favours, so the result is meant to sound equally loud everywhere rather than measure equally loud everywhere. In practice that means a scooped-out midrange. Some people find it the most neutral of all four; plenty of others cannot hear the point of it. It is a preference, not an upgrade. Dusk does not sell grey noise.
Fan hum and ocean swell are shaped noise rather than pure colours, and for sleep they often beat the textbook options.
| Sound | Character | Masks best | Weak against | Dusk sells it? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| White | Bright hiss, flat per Hz | High-pitched whines, shrill alarms, sharp electronic tones | Nothing much — but it is the most tiring to listen to for hours | No |
| Pink | Balanced, rain-like | General room noise, mixed indoor sound, mid-range speech | Deep thumps and bass through a floor | Yes — 12 min, −20.8 dBFS |
| Brown | Deep, weather-like roar | TV through a wall, footsteps, low conversation, traffic rumble | Sharp high-pitched sounds; they cut straight through | Yes — 20 min, 700 Hz roll-off |
| Grey | Scooped, "flat to the ear" | Broad ambient noise, for listeners who dislike both white and brown | Very preference-dependent; no clear masking edge | No |
| Fan hum | Dull, almost hiss-free | Low intrusions at a level that will not disturb a partner | Anything above roughly 400 Hz | Yes — 15 min, 380 Hz roll-off |
| Ocean swell | Brown noise that breathes | Steady background noise, when flat noise feels oppressive | Intermittent noise landing in the quiet part of the swell | Yes — 18 min, 0.12 Hz swell |
The most common report we see is some version of "white noise sounds too harsh" or "white noise keeps me awake". The instinct is to turn it down, which usually does not help, because the problem is the balance rather than the level — quieter glare is still glare. Moving down a colour is the fix that works: white to pink if you still need some brightness for high-pitched intrusions, white or pink to brown if you want the sound to sit underneath your hearing rather than on top of it, and brown to fan hum if even brown has more air in it than you want. Anyone sensitive to specific sounds tends to land at the brown-to-fan-hum end, where there is simply less material for the ear to pick at.
How to choose in one night, without buying anything. Play any free white noise, any free brown, and any free pink at a level just above the noise you are trying to cover. Do not compare them for thirty seconds each — compare them for twenty minutes each, because harshness is a fatigue effect and it does not show up straight away. Whichever one you stopped noticing is your colour. Then buy that one, or don't.
Steady noise masks more reliably because it never varies: the floor stays exactly where you set it, so an intrusive sound has nothing to poke through. A texture that moves — ocean swell, rainfall, wind — is easier to enjoy and easier to notice, and if a door slams during the quiet part of a swell you will hear it. Choose steady when there is a specific noise you are fighting. Choose a texture when the flat wall of sound is itself the thing keeping you awake. Neither is the sophisticated answer; they solve different problems.
None of this is a treatment for anything. Masking is a physical effect on the sound in your room — it narrows the gap between the background level and a sudden noise so the sudden noise stands out less. That is the whole mechanism, and it says nothing about what happens in your head afterwards. Some people sleep better with steady noise, some sleep worse with it, and a systematic review of continuous overnight sound is a good deal less enthusiastic than the marketing around it. If your sleep problem is persistent, that is a conversation for a clinician rather than a speaker. We make no claims about infant sleep at all — ask a paediatrician.
Four finished masters: Deep Brown (20 min), Pink Noise (12 min), Fan Hum (15 min) and Ocean Swell (18 min). Every duration above is the measured one, checked with ffprobe rather than rounded, and every level printed here is the number our own tooling reports. Each file opens over about four seconds, holds without volume creep, eases out at the end, and contains no ad break. There is no white master, no grey master, and no rain master yet — a rain track is in production and is not for sale.
Not sure which colour is yours? Start at the deep end — Deep Brown is the one people arrive at after white noise disappoints them. Browse the masters at Dusk.
Related: how to tell if a sleep-sound track actually loops cleanly. More notes at penloomstudio.com.
Dusk sells comfort and masking audio. It is not a medical device, it does not diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition, and we make no claims about infant sleep.