Best Sound Mixing Apps

Eight apps that let you layer rain, noise, fire and more, compared only on what their own store listings state — plus how to build a mix that actually masks.

Which Sound Mixing App Should You Use?

Our pick for most people is BRW. After that, choose by what matters most to you:

• Our pick — BRW: five noise colours to use as a steady base layer, with rain, ocean, fire, fan and more on top — the structure that masks best. Set the volume of each sound and save your mixes. It plays fully offline, has a sleep timer that fades out, shows no ads label on Google Play, and is free on Android and iPhone. Premium mixes without a limit.
• The most control over each layer: White Noise Lite by TMSOFT (position, pitch, variance and volume for each sound, plus recording your own) or myNoise (up to 10 sliders taken from any soundscape).
• Movement without effort: Rain Rain, whose Oscillator slowly varies each sound's volume, or myNoise's Animate Mode, which moves the sliders for you.
• Buy once, no subscription, no ads: Noizio on iPhone ($2.99) or myNoise. Noisli is also a one-off $1.99 on iPhone, but its app has not been updated since 2017.
• A mix built on brown noise, on Android and iPhone: BRW (the app from this site). Premium mixes without a limit.
• Apple devices only, with Siri and widgets: Dark Noise.

How This Comparison Was Checked

BRW is listed first as our pick. The facts about BRW come from the app and its store listing. Every fact about the other apps comes from the developer's own store listing, the “Contains ads” label on Google Play, or Apple's support documentation, checked on 24 September 2026 in the US stores. After BRW, the other apps are listed alphabetically. When a listing does not state a feature, the table says Not stated.

Eight Sound Mixing Apps Compared

Ratings are the public store averages on the day in the caption, with the number of ratings in brackets.

Not stated means the developer's own listing does not say it. It does not mean the feature is missing: the app may have it and not advertise it.

Does Mixing Sounds Actually Help?

No study has compared sound mixing apps, so nothing on this page claims that a mix helps you sleep or focus better than one sound. What is well established is how layered sound behaves, and that decides whether a mix does its job.

Masking needs coverage, not character. A 2020 review in Indoor Air modelled 34 tests from 14 laboratory studies that used steady broadband noise to make background speech less intelligible [1]. Performance on verbal tasks began to fall once speech rose above a Speech Transmission Index of about 0.21. In those studies, the steady noise did the masking. Birdsong, waves and crackling fire rise and fall, and a voice can come through in the quiet moments. A practical mix puts a steady layer — a noise colour, a fan, steady rain — underneath, and uses the nature sounds on top for comfort. How sound masking works explains why.

Layers add up. Two unrelated sounds at the same level combine to about 3 dB louder than either one alone, and four combine to about 6 dB louder. Each time you add a layer, lower the others, or the total creeps up without you noticing.

Keep the total at a safe level. The WHO-ITU safe listening standard sets a weekly allowance of 80 dB for 40 hours for adults [2]. For sleep specifically, a 2021 systematic review rated the evidence that continuous noise improves sleep as very low quality [3], so a softer mix is not a worse mix.

Each App in One Paragraph

Our pick first, then in the same order as the table, with store links so you can check each claim.

BRW — Brown Noise for Sleep — Our Pick

You can mix and layer multiple sounds — five noise colours plus rain, ocean, fire, fan and more — set the volume of each sound, and save your mixes to play again later. It works offline, with a fade-out sleep timer. Premium unlocks unlimited mixing and the full library. Google Play shows no ads label.

BetterSleep

A full sleep platform with more than 300 sounds and music tracks, a sleep tracker and stories. Its listing mentions saved favourite mixes and a Smart Mix feature that “makes distracting audio loops disappear”. It does not say how many sounds you can layer. Premium is a subscription.

Dark Noise

An Apple-only app with 50+ sounds and custom mixes you can start by voice through Siri Shortcuts, from interactive widgets, or on a HomePod. It has a fade-out timer. The current version needs iOS 26 or later, and there is no Android version.

myNoise

The deepest mixer in the list. Each of its 300+ soundscapes has its own sliders, Creation Mode builds a new soundscape from up to 10 sliders taken from any others, and Animate Mode moves the sliders for you so the sound keeps changing. Offline, no ads, and one purchase for life.

Noisli

The mixer many people know from the web. The official iPhone app turns on one or more sounds with a volume slider each, saves combinations, syncs them with a free account, and has a timer for work sessions. It costs $1.99 once, but its last App Store update was in April 2017, and it has no official Android app.

Noizio

A small one-developer app, first released in 2015, with 41 sounds including white, pink and brown noise. You balance each sound with its own slider, save the mix, and share or import mixes. Its listing promises seamless loops and a sleep timer from 1 to 60 minutes that fades out. On iPhone it costs $2.99 once, with no subscription, no ads, no account and no internet required. An Android version is listed on Google Play with 100+ installs.

Rain Rain Sleep Sounds

The most inventive mixer tools here. Beyond per-sound volume and saved mixes synced through iCloud, the Oscillator slowly fades each sound in and out at a speed you choose, and Soften cuts the high frequencies of any sound so it seems to come from another room. The mixer is free; the free version has a small banner ad, and Premium adds 60+ sounds and removes it.

White Noise Lite (TMSOFT)

The most technical mixer. Its Mix Pad sets the position, variance, volume and pitch of each sound, you can record and loop your own sounds, and mixes can be shared through the White Noise Market. The Lite version shows ads; on iOS the paid White Noise ($0.99) and White Noise Pro ($2.99) remove them.

How to Build a Mix That Works

The same three steps work in every app in the table:

1. Start with one steady base layer — brown noise for low rumble such as traffic, pink noise or rain for voices. Set it just loud enough to cover the sound you want gone.
2. Add one or two texture layers, such as a fire, birds or distant thunder, well below the base. If you can pick out the texture clearly, it is too loud to be background.
3. Save the mix, then use it the same way every night or every work session. Most apps in the table can save a mix, and a familiar sound is easier to ignore than a new one.

Try the Base Layer First

The player at the top of this page plays brown noise in your browser, free, with no account — the most common base layer. If it covers what you need, add texture in the app of your choice. BRW is the app from the same maker, free on both stores.

References

Every source below was opened and checked on 24 September 2026. The numbers match the markers in the text.

1. Haapakangas A, Hongisto V, Liebl A. The relation between the intelligibility of irrelevant speech and cognitive performance — A revised model based on laboratory studies. Indoor Air. 2020;30(6):1130–1146. doi:10.1111/ina.12726 · PubMed 32735743
2. World Health Organization and International Telecommunication Union. Safe listening devices and systems: a WHO-ITU standard. 18 September 2019. who.int
3. Riedy SM, Smith MG, Rocha S, Basner M. Noise as a sleep aid: A systematic review. Sleep Medicine Reviews. 2021;55:101385. doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2020.101385 · PubMed 33007706

Frequently Asked Questions

Related pages

• Best Brown Noise Apps — Seven brown noise apps compared on facts from their own store listings.
• Best White Noise Apps — Nine white noise apps compared on their store listings, with the research on what white noise can do.
• Best Tinnitus Masking Apps — Nine tinnitus apps compared on their store listings, next to what NICE, the AAO-HNSF guideline and Cochrane say about sound therapy.
• Brown Noise App — Which brown noise app to install, whether it is really free, and the five things an installed app does that a browser tab is not allowed to.
• Sound Masking — Masking does not block sound. It raises the floor so the sound stops standing out — and the colour has to match the intrusion.
• Brown Noise — The deepest colour, measured at −5.98 dB per octave — best for traffic rumble and long overnight sessions.
• Pink Noise — Equal energy in every octave, measured at −3.07 dB per octave — the natural-sounding default and the audio industry's calibration signal.
• Brown Noise for Focus — Why concentration is a masking problem measured in speech intelligibility, and why brown noise beats every colour for rumble but loses to white for voices.