Green vs Pink Noise
Short answer
Pink noise is the better everyday choice. Green noise on this site is made from pink noise: we make the middle louder and cut away the deepest bass and the highest hiss. That makes green better on small phone or laptop speakers, and a good fit if you find brown noise too muffled and white noise too harsh.
At a Glance
The quick version. The rest of the page explains each row.
| Green noise | Pink noise | |
|---|---|---|
| Sounds like | Close and enclosed, like a room; the middle steps forward | Open, with some airy sound at the top |
| Best for | Small speakers, and people who find brown too muffled and white too harsh | A default when you just want something on |
| Covers well | The fullness of a voice, so a conversation feels less present | A little of everything, across the whole range |
| Weak at | Deep noise such as traffic, and words you can still follow | Deep rumble and clear words |
| Definition | None agreed; it differs between apps | Exact; it sounds the same in any correct app |
| Try it if | You play sound on a phone or laptop speaker | You have no particular complaint |
One of These Is Made From the Other
Every other comparison on this site puts two separate sounds side by side. This one does not, because the green noise here is pink noise with a few changes on top. If you know the changes, you can answer most questions about the pair.
Here is how we make it. We start with pink noise. We make the middle range louder with a wide, gentle boost, centred on the range where a human voice is fullest. We cut away the deepest bass, to take out the rumble. And we cut away the highest hiss. We measured the result: the loudest part sits in the middle, with gentle slopes on each side. It is a broad lean towards the middle, not a narrow, honking peak.
So "green or pink?" really asks: what do those changes give you, and what do they cost? That is easier to answer than most colour comparisons, because we know exactly what both sounds are.
One thing we cannot do is describe green noise by how fast it fades as the pitch rises, the way we can for the other four colours. Green noise has a shape, not a steady fade, and giving it a single number would mean making one up.
One Has an Exact Definition. The Other Has None.
Pink noise has an exact definition: the same share of sound in each step of pitch, as the ear hears it. It is exact enough that sound engineers use pink noise to test speakers, set up sound systems and measure rooms. If the test shows a bump, the bump comes from the room, not from the sound. Two correct pink noises from different makers are, in practice, the same sound.
Green noise has no agreed definition in sound at all. Nobody has agreed how it should fade, where its middle should be, or how wide it should be. The usual description, the middle part of white noise, comes from Lau, Arce and Gallagher's Green-noise digital halftoning (Proceedings of the IEEE, 1998). That paper used the name for a way of placing ink dots on paper. Sound apps borrowed the name from a printing paper and added the idea of nature.
This matters, and few pages say it: everything on this page is true of the green noise on this site, and may not be true of anyone else's. A green noise centred higher, or with a narrow peak instead of a broad one, is a different sound with different strengths. It is not wrong, because there is no rule for it to break. Pink noise has no such problem, and that reliability is one reason some people stay with it.
What Green Takes Away, and What It Adds
We set both colours to the same loudness. Green noise covers a narrower range, so the same loudness is packed into less space. That means inside its range, green noise is actually stronger than pink. It is not a quieter piece of pink noise. It is the same loudness, packed tighter.
In the deepest sounds, green noise has given up. We cut that range away completely. Pink noise does not have much deep sound compared with brown, but it has some, and against a distant road or a boiler that helps. If deep noise is the problem, neither of these is the answer, and green least of all.
In the highest sounds, green noise has also given up. Pink noise keeps some sound right up to the top. That top part gives a sense of air, and it also does the little that pink noise can do against the sharp parts of words. Without it, green noise sounds closer and more enclosed, like a room instead of an open space.
In the middle, green noise is clearly louder than pink. That is the boost, and it is where most outdoor sound lives: running water in the distance, wind through leaves, the hush of a large space. It is also where a human voice is at its fullest.
Voices: Fullness Against Words
This is the most useful practical difference between them, and it goes in a direction you might not expect.
A voice through a wall has two parts that matter. Its fullness, the vowels and the general sense of someone talking, sits in the middle range. Its words are carried by consonants, the sharp edges of speech, which sit higher up. Green noise's boost sits right on the fullness, and it fades away before the consonants. Pink noise covers both parts a little and neither part strongly.
So green noise is better at making a conversation stop feeling present in your room. It is no better, and maybe a little worse, at stopping you from following the words. Pink noise is the reverse, on a small scale. If you can still make out sentences through either one, that is normal for both. The fix is white noise, which is strong where the consonants are and is the only colour here that reliably makes speech hard to follow.
One more quirk has no match on the pink side. Green noise boosts the same range where your own voice is strongest. So some people feel it competes with them when they are on a call, reading aloud or talking. Pink noise, which is the same smooth fade all the way, never does this.
Small Speakers: The Honest Picture
People often say green noise works well on cheap speakers, and this is true. The two parts it cuts away, the deepest bass and the highest hiss, are the two parts small speakers handle worst. They cannot play deep bass at all, and many of them make high sounds harsh and spiky. Green noise loses less on a phone, a laptop or a small Bluetooth speaker than any other colour. If you cannot sleep in headphones and have no proper speaker, that is a real reason to choose it.
The honest catch is that the gap is smaller than people say, because pink noise copes well too. A phone speaker removes pink noise's deepest sound, and what is left still sounds like pink noise, lighter but clearly itself. Brown noise is different: on the same speaker it falls apart.
So green noise beats pink on small speakers, but only by a little. You hear all of one sound against most of the other. It makes a big difference mainly on very poor speakers, or on speakers so harsh at the top that cutting the highest hiss is a relief in itself.
The Research Gap Is Total, and Matters Very Little
Pink noise has been used in published research. Green noise never has. Not weak research: none. And while green noise has no agreed definition, it is hard to see how it could be studied, because there would be no fixed sound to test. Any page that claims research supports green noise is making it up.
That sounds like a clear win for pink noise. But look at what pink noise's research actually contains first. Nigg and colleagues (Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2024) put white and pink noise together in one group. They found a small benefit on lab attention tests in young people with ADHD or attention problems, and none in others. That is a result about two colours together, on lab tests, not about pink noise for sleep. The famous 2017 deep-sleep study played short bursts of pink noise, timed by a computer to the deep-sleep brain waves of thirteen older adults. Deep sleep across the whole night was about the same as on a fake ("sham") night. It is not a study of pink noise playing all night. And a 2021 review in Sleep Medicine Reviews looked at 38 studies and rated the evidence that steady noise improves sleep as very low quality.
So the real comparison is between a colour with no research and a colour whose research does not apply to the way you would use it. Choose by sound and by what you will play it on. Nothing on this site is medical advice. If a sleep problem does not go away, talk to a doctor.
Which One
Pink noise is the better default. It has an exact definition, it sounds the same across devices and apps, it keeps sound across the whole range, and it is the one to pick if you have no particular complaint and just want something on.
Green noise is the better answer in two cases. The first is a poor speaker: a phone or laptop that spoils both ends of any sound. The second is a specific dislike. If you find brown noise too muffled and white noise too harsh, green does not just meet them halfway, as pink does. It removes both of the things you disliked.
The test is easy because they are close relatives. Start on pink, then switch to green. You will hear the bass and the air disappear while the middle steps forward. If you like that trade, green is your colour. If it feels like something has been taken away, it has, and pink is the one for you.
On this site, both sounds are made fresh in the browser as they play, not looped, so neither one repeats. Free sessions run for 30 minutes. The free BRW app (App Store, Google Play) has both, plus the other three colours, a sleep timer and offline play. Green and pink noise are free for one hour a day in the app, and Premium removes that limit. Green noise goes well with rain on top, because it leaves the high range free for the rain.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is green noise just pink noise with a boost?
On this site, yes, more or less, and we are open about how we make it. We start with pink noise, make the middle range louder with a wide, gentle boost, cut away the deepest bass, and cut away the highest hiss. We measured the result, and the loudest part sits in the middle. We set both colours to the same loudness, so green noise is not a quieter piece of pink. It is the same loudness packed into a narrower range, so in the middle it is actually stronger.
Which is better for sleep, green or pink?
Neither is better in general, and no research compares them, because there is no research on green noise at all. The useful difference is practical. Pink noise keeps sound across the whole range and is the safer default. Green noise cuts away the deepest and highest sounds, which makes it better on small speakers and a better fit for people who find bass heavy and treble harsh. If what wakes you is deep, such as traffic, machinery or footsteps, neither one is the right tool, and brown noise is.
Why does green noise sound different in every app when pink noise does not?
Because pink noise has an exact definition and green noise does not. Pink noise is defined precisely enough that any two correct versions sound the same, which is why sound engineers use it to test equipment. Green noise has only a loose description, the middle part of white noise. That leaves where the middle is, how wide it is, and how much it is boosted up to whoever makes it. So when you compare green noise across apps, you are comparing different ideas of green, not different copies of one sound.
Which sounds better through a phone speaker?
Green noise, but by less than people say. We built it to avoid the two ranges small speakers handle worst: the deepest bass, which they cannot play, and the highest hiss, which cheap speakers often make spiky. So what comes out of a phone is close to the whole sound. Pink noise loses its deepest part and still sounds like itself, which is far better than what happens to brown noise. The gap is real but small: all of one sound against most of the other.
Which is better for covering a conversation next door?
They each do half the job, and neither does all of it. Green noise boosts the middle range, where the fullness of a voice sits, so it is better at making a conversation stop feeling like it is in your room. Pink noise also has some sound where the sharp edges of words sit, so it softens the words slightly more. If you can still follow the words through either one, that is normal for both dark colours. White noise is the one that reliably makes words hard to follow.
Is there any research comparing green and pink noise?
None, and there is no research on green noise at all, not even weak research. It is hard to see how there could be while the name has no agreed definition, because there would be no fixed sound to test. Pink noise has been in studies, but less usefully than it sounds. The 2024 review on attention put pink and white noise together as one group. The well-known 2017 deep-sleep study played short bursts of pink noise, timed to the brain waves of thirteen people, not a sound playing all night.