Fireplace and Brown Noise for Cozy Relaxation
A fire crackling over a deep, even rumble, for an evening when the room feels bare.
- Brown Noise 58%
- Fireplace 40%
How to Mix Sounds for Sleep, Focus or Reading
Decide what the mix is for before you pick a single sound. Almost every mix that works is two things: one steady base that covers the noise you can actually hear, and one quieter sound over it so the base doesn’t feel bare. If what reaches you is a deep rumble, like a truck outside or a boiler, brown noise goes underneath. If it’s voices, a television or a keyboard two desks away, a brighter hiss does more. Rain is the usual second sound, because it softens things without adding anything that jumps out at you. Keep the whole mix quiet enough to talk over. You can build one at slonoise.com in a browser, free and with no account, with a volume for each sound and a button to save the result.
More Slo listeners play brown noise than anything else, which makes it a fair base to hear first.
Pick the base by what you can hear
The base is the sound that runs the whole time. Its job is to sit at the same pitch as the noise that’s bothering you, so a few seconds of listening tells you more than any description. Play these three at one low volume and notice which one the noise in your room disappears into.
Brown noise is a deep rumble, down at the pitch of traffic outside or a boiler firing. White noise is a bright, even hiss, up where voices and televisions sit. Grey noise is a hiss shaped so no part of it stands out to the ear, and many people find it easier to sit in for hours than plain white noise.
Whatever you choose, covering a noise never removes it. Voices are the hard case for every base, because your ear keeps hunting inside any sound for speech. A steady hiss blurs the words until following them is too much effort, and that’s usually enough to stop you listening in.
A mix for sleeping through outside noise
A bedroom has its own rules and its own guide. The short version: brown noise underneath for the truck or the boiler, rain over it for the television next door, and rain over brown noise is the pairing to open before you build anything yourself. For the volume, the timer and the mistakes that cost you a night, read how to create a sleep soundscape.
A mix for focus in an open office
The noise at a desk is people: half a conversation behind you, someone on a call, a chair rolling. Grey noise is the base to try, because its hiss is level all the way across, and level is what you want when the noise arrives from every direction. Put rain over it, well under the grey noise, so the mix has some movement and doesn’t sound like a vent.
Leave out anything with events in it. Birdsong, thunder, a crackling fire and anything with words will keep interrupting the sentence you’re writing, which is the opposite of what you came for. Set the level so you’d still hear someone say your name from a few desks away; past that you’re running loud headphones for eight hours a day, which your ears will notice. Grey noise and rain for office privacy is this mix already balanced, and the best sounds for focus guide goes further into what people actually keep on at work.
A mix for reading
Reading usually needs less sound than an open office does. You aren’t covering a room full of people, only the small sounds that pull your eyes off the page. Start thin and high rather than deep. Blue noise is a bright, thin hiss, and rain on a window over it sounds like weather without anything sudden happening in it.
Leave out recordings of places with people in them. A cafe or a restaurant sounds right for reading until a phrase surfaces out of the chatter and you read the same paragraph twice. Keep the mix low enough that it’s gone from your attention by the end of the first page, and if you notice yourself listening to it, turn the top sound down before you reach for a third. Blue noise and rain for reading opens with the balance already set, and the best sounds for reading guide compares more of them.
A mix for winding down in the evening
This is the one case where a mix can be interesting. Nothing is going to wake you and nothing needs concentrating on, so a fire that crackles or a river with splashes in it is welcome. Keep one sound clearly in charge anyway, or the room turns into a soundtrack you listen to when you meant to relax into it.
Relaxation presets
Two evening mixes to borrow
Open one in the browser, then turn a sound down or off until it suits your room and your speaker.
River and Soft Green Noise for Meditation
A river out front with a soft hiss behind it, for sitting when the room is too quiet to settle in.
- River 55%
- Green Noise 30%
If the evening mix is also meant to carry you to bed, take the crackle out before you lie down. A fire is pleasant at ten in the evening, and at two in the morning it’s a string of small pops beside your bed.
A mix for a baby’s room
Quiet and dull is what this room wants. A low, even base is all it needs: soft pink noise under a little rain, nothing with a bird or a bell in it, and no sudden changes.
Volume and distance matter more in this room than anywhere else on this page. When researchers measured infant sleep machines at full volume in 2014, they told parents to move the machine away from the crib and turn it down; our white noise for babies guide covers what they found and what it means for a bedside player. Put the device across the room, not beside the crib, run it quietly, and ask your pediatrician if you have any concerns. Soft pink noise and rain for baby sleep starts quiet on purpose.
How loud, and what to play it on
Set each sound on its own first, then set the total. Every sound you turn on gets its own volume, and Master volume moves all of them together, so the order that saves time is: get the base where you want it, bring the second sound up until you can just hear it, then pull the master down until you could hold a conversation over all of it.
What you play it on changes the result more than the numbers do. Deep sound is beyond what a phone speaker can do, so brown noise comes out thin on one and you turn it up hunting for the part that’s missing. Flat earbuds, or a small speaker a few feet away, give you the low end back without pushing sound into your ear. Point a speaker at the wall the noise comes through rather than at yourself.
How many sounds, and which ones pair
Two is the answer nearly every time. A third sound is rare, and it usually arrives because the first two were set badly, not because anything was missing.
The pair works when the two sounds sit at different pitches: something deep underneath, something higher on top. Two hisses together mostly get louder, and two deep sounds turn into one thick one. To find out whether the second sound is earning its place, turn it off for a minute. If nothing much changes, leave it off; if the mix suddenly feels flat, you know what it was doing.
One more thing worth knowing: don’t pair two recordings that both have events in them. Thunder and birdsong together give your ear two things to track, and it will track them.
Using the mixer
Tap a sound to switch it on and tap it again to drop it. Everything you have on shows up under Active sounds with a volume each, so you’re never hunting through the grid to adjust one. Press Play to start audio; browsers won’t begin sound on their own.
Sleep timer offers 15, 30 and 60 minutes. Leave it alone and the mix plays until you stop it, which is what you want when the noise outside runs all night. Save mix asks for a name and keeps the mix in this browser on this device, ready under Saved mixes next time. Share mix copies a link carrying the sounds and their volumes.
There are 180 sounds on the web, free, with no account and nothing to install. The app has more of them and keeps playing with the screen off, which matters overnight more than it does at a desk.
What makes a mix worse
Setting both sounds to the same volume is the most common fault. When neither one leads, they compete and you start hearing where one ends and the other begins, so let one sound define the mix and keep the other under it.
The next one is adding when you should be taking away. A mix that irritates you rarely needs another sound; it needs the sound that irritates you turned down. Move one control, listen for a minute, and change the next thing after that.
Last, judging it in ten seconds. A sound can be lovely when it starts and grating four minutes later, and the only way to find out is to leave it running. Give a candidate a few minutes in the room and at the volume you’ll really use before you save it.
Where a mix isn’t the answer
A mix makes a noisy room less distracting. It does nothing about a quiet room you can’t settle in, a task you’re avoiding, or a bedroom that’s silent while you lie there awake. People use a steady sound for a busy mind or for tinnitus, usually as quietly as it will still help, and that’s the honest claim for it. A sound mixer is not a medical device. Tinnitus that’s new, in one ear only or getting louder should be seen by an audiologist, and weeks of bad nights are worth raising with a doctor.
Frequently asked questions
How many sounds should a mix have?
Two, almost always. One base that covers the noise and one quieter sound over it is enough for sleep, work and reading alike. Add a third only when you can say out loud what the first two are missing, because every extra sound is another thing that can catch your ear.
Which sounds mix well together?
A deep sound under a higher-pitched one. Brown noise with rain over it, pink noise under a river, grey noise with rain on top. Two hisses together mostly just get louder, and two recordings that both have events in them, like thunder and birdsong, pull your attention back and forth.
Do I need an app to mix sounds?
No. The mixer at slonoise.com runs in a browser, with 180 sounds, a volume for each sound you turn on and nothing to install or sign up for. The app carries more sounds and keeps playing with the screen off, which matters overnight more than it does at a desk.
How loud should a mix be?
Quiet enough that you could talk over it without raising your voice. Bring it up only until the noise you are covering stops standing out, then leave it. If you need it loud to get any effect, the sound has turned into a second noise problem, and earplugs or a closed window will do more.
Can I use a mix in a baby’s room?
How loud it is and how far away it sits matter more than which sounds you pick. When researchers measured infant sleep machines at full volume in 2014, they told parents to move the machine away from the crib and turn it down. Keep the player across the room, run it quietly, and ask your pediatrician if you have any concerns.
Why does my mix sound muddy?
Usually because both sounds sit in the same pitch range and are fighting for it. Two hisses, or two deep rumbles, blur into one thick sound. Turn one of them off, and if the mix barely changes, replace it with something at a different pitch instead of turning it up.
Can I save a mix and come back to it?
Yes. Save mix asks for a name and keeps the mix in this browser on this device, so it is waiting under Saved mixes next time. Share mix copies a link that carries the sounds and their volumes, so someone else opens the same mix and presses Play.
Research referenced
- Hugh and colleagues (2014), Infant sleep machines and hazardous sound pressure levels.
Related guides
Explore more sounds in Slo
Stack two or three sounds, keep the blend, and let the timer stop it. Slo, on iOS, Android and Mac.
