Noise: Pink? White? Both! Raise the (Noise) Floor
Hello. My name is Jordan, and I’m a snorer.
“Hi, Jordan.”
Phew, I’m glad I got that off my chest. It wouldn’t be a problem that I snore, except I snore so loudly that I keep my girlfriend up at night, that is, I used to until we discovered Noise.
Noise is another one of those tiny applications that does one thing very well. It generates two different ‘colors’ of noise. Thanks to the miracle that is Wikipedia, I can tell you that White Noise is “noise signal in the spatial domain which has an autocorrelation which can be represented by a delta function over the relevant space dimensions.” Noise will also generate Pink Noise if you’re feeling colorful. Got all that? When you run Noise, you have a very simple window with a volume bar, and an on/off button. This should be self explanatory.
When Noise is turned on, it generates what can best be described as static. It might jar you for a moment (my dog runs when I turn it on) but after about 30 seconds you hardly notice it’s there. When you run a white noise generator, it raises the noise floor of the room, causing any other sound to seem softer to your ears because your brain adjusts your hearing to compensate for the background noise. This helps some people sleep, some people concentrate, and some people relax. It’s the same idea as noise cancelling headphones.
We set Noise up as we’re going to bed, and we both sleep great. Download your own copy and start sleeping better tonight!
You guys should create a category for apps “that do one thing very well.” I have a number of little apps in the old Applications folder that do one thing very well. It is amazing how these things work when one needs them.
Better yet, rip two minutes or so of it with Audio Hijack and throw it onto your iPod (set on repeat one) for distraction-free studying. It’s been in my Study playlist from Day 1.
How loud does it has to be to be efective?
Does it take long to get used to it? I can’t focus on anything if I have it on :S
In my experience, it needs to be loud enough to drown out outside noises without being so loud as to be a distraction. It takes very little time to get used to…one usually stops paying attention to the static within a minute or so at most, unless of course you’re actively listening to it.
@pepi It doesn’t have to be very loud at all, I usually have it on very quietly and slowly raise it as necessary. Too loud and it’s overbearing.
cool little app. I never thought someone would thin to make an app like this, but I thought the same of pzizz and lots of people use it. I might have to use noise in some noisier situations when I’m trying to get some sleep.
Hrm, is it bad if I can’t hear anything at all?
I can’t hear anything either. MacBook Core Duo.
I would imagine it would be bad. Make sure you turn your volume up on your comp and click the ‘noise’ button to turn it on.
Indeed, I too cannot hear anything on MB C2D. There is ample volume (full) but nothing is coming from the speakers – except for the actual volume controller bleeps.
I’m also on a MB C2D and i can’t hear anything.
can’t hear a thing.. Mac Pro
Can’t hear anything either. I’m on a black MacBook.
same here i hac blackbook (MB) Core Duo it works with HEADPHONES but not with the built in speakers…i think thats the whole point though, with headphones the icon is headphones on top of picture so just try that first. Its actually a lil bit soothing sounds like a constant roar of the ocean.
I’m on an C2D MBP, and Noise works fine on it. I wish it were Universal though.
I too have a MB C2D and I couldn’t get Noise to work. Then I created a “Noise” folder in my Applications folder and copied both the App and the source folder over and it works fine.
While this app does should work (though not as effectively through the tiny speakers in a MacBook), it’s not really the same idea as noise-cancelling headphones. This app creates background noise to MASK distractions and extraneous sounds. The principle behind popular active noise-cancelling headphones is to literally create a sound wave in exact opposite polarity to the ambient noise arriving at your year, literally cancelling out the noise. Because of the slight delay necessary to process, and output the inverted waveform, noise cancelling is most effective at low- to midrange frequencies, and it works better with steady drones (computers, airplanes) than with intermittent, high-intensity noise.
A third kind of noise cancelling is noise suppression. Earplugs and earphones that seal (not the earbuds that come with iPods) can suppress perceived noise by around 25 dB. As anyone who has ever plugged their ears can tell you, this kind of noise suppression works best with high-frequency sounds. Low frequencies such as bass are heard because they travel through your cranium to arrive at your ears, plugged or not.
The cost for the processing in noise-cancelling headphones has come way down over the years. No need to pay the Bose premium to supplement their advertising budget (”Better Sound through Mass Advertising”). These days, even el cheapo headphones with active noise-cancelling circuitry deliver the goods.
i used to use this little app on my powerbook all the time. when i bought my new macbook it was actually one of the first apps i went to install, its such ashame it wont work. they got me addicted to pink noise!
I have Noise on a MacBook Pro at work — it’s invaluable. But it doesn’t work on my MacBook either. Someone apparently made a Universal Binary in Jan 2007, but his webpage is gone, even from the Internet Archive.
Is there anyone out there who can make a Universal Binary?