Best Sound Mixing Apps

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 set-up that covers other noise best. Set the volume of each sound and save your mixes. It plays with no internet connection, has a sleep timer that fades out, shows no ads label on Google Play, and is free on Android and iPhone. Premium removes the limit on mixing.
• 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 removes the limit on mixing.
• Apple devices only, with Siri and widgets: Dark Noise.

How This Comparison Was Checked

BRW is listed first as our pick. The other apps follow in alphabetical order. The facts about BRW come from the app and its store listing. Every fact about the other apps comes from the app's own store listing, the “Contains ads” label on Google Play, or Apple's help pages. All of it was checked on 24 September 2026 in the US stores. When a listing does not mention a feature, the table says Not stated.

Eight Sound Mixing Apps Compared

Ratings are the average star rating in each store on the date 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 we do know is how layered sounds behave, and that decides whether a mix does its job.

To cover noise, a sound needs to be steady, not interesting. This is sound masking: covering one sound with a steadier one, so your brain stops noticing it. A 2020 review in Indoor Air brought together 34 tests from 14 lab studies. In them, a steady noise played in the background to make nearby talking harder to understand [1]. People started to do worse at tasks with words once they could make out even a little of the talking. In those studies, the steady noise did the covering. Birdsong, waves and crackling fire rise and fall, and a voice can come through in the quiet moments. So a good mix puts a steady layer — a noise colour, a fan, steady rain — underneath, and adds nature sounds on top for comfort. How sound masking works explains why.

Layers add up. Two different sounds at the same volume add up to about 3 decibels louder than either one alone. Four add up to about 6 decibels louder. Each time you add a layer, turn the others down, or the total slowly gets louder without you noticing.

Keep the total at a safe level. The WHO-ITU safe listening standard sets a weekly limit of 80 decibels for 40 hours for adults [2]. For sleep, a 2021 review of many studies rated the evidence that steady 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 the other apps in the same order as the table.

BRW — Brown Noise for Sleep — Our Pick

You can layer several 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 sleep timer that fades out. Premium unlocks unlimited mixing and the full library. Google Play shows no ads label.

BetterSleep

A full sleep app 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 hides the point where a sound starts again. 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 with Siri Shortcuts, from widgets, or on a HomePod. It has a timer that fades out. The current version needs iOS 26 or later, and there is no Android version.

myNoise

The most detailed 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. 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 its website. The official iPhone app turns on one or more sounds, each with its own volume slider. It saves your mixes, 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 app from one developer, 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 sounds that repeat with no audible gap, 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 needed. An Android version is on Google Play with 100+ installs.

Rain Rain Sleep Sounds

The most inventive mixer tools here. You can set the volume of each sound and save mixes, which sync through iCloud. The Oscillator slowly fades each sound in and out at a speed you choose. Soften turns down the high, hissy part 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 the ad.

White Noise Lite (TMSOFT)

The mixer with the most settings. Its Mix Pad sets the position, variance, volume and pitch of each sound. You can record your own sounds and play them on a loop, and you can share mixes 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 softer layers on top, such as a fire, birds or distant thunder, well below the base. If you can pick out a top layer 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. Brown noise is the most common base layer. If it covers what you need, add other sounds on top 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 medical guidelines and a large review say about sound therapy.
• Brown Noise App — Which brown noise app to install, whether it is really free, and what an app can do that a browser tab cannot.
• Sound Masking — Masking does not block sound. It raises the background so the noise stops standing out, and the colour has to match the noise.
• Brown Noise — The deepest colour: a steady rumble that is best for traffic noise and long nights.
• Pink Noise — The balanced, natural-sounding colour: a good default, and the sound engineers use to test speakers.
• Brown Noise for Focus — Why focus is mostly about blurring speech you can follow, and why brown noise beats every colour for rumble but loses to white for voices.