
The Many Colors of Sound (2016) - gysien
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/02/white-noise-sound-colors/462972/?single_page=true
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combatentropy
Pink noise is also called 1/f noise. I was confused by the article when it
said, "The inverse pattern of pink noise, also called 1/f noise . . . " It
first seemed to mean that the inverse of pink noise is another noise, called
1/f noise. But no, they are the same thing. The writer meant "Pink noise's
pattern, which is an inverse relationship between frequency and power, is also
called 1/f noise." It only took me five readings to figure it out. The noise
that is the inverse of pink noise is blue noise, mentioned later. An article
in Wikipedia is clearer to me, it mentions more colors, and it has more audio
examples:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise)

The Atlantic article mentions brown noise, which is named after Brownian
Motion. But the Wikipedia article tells you that it's also called red noise,
because pink noise is halfway between it and white noise. Red noise falls 6 dB
per octave, pink noise falls 3 dB per octave, and white noise changes 0 dB per
octave.

This resurrects my lifelong mental block with dB, electricity, etc. It says
here that 3 dB is a doubling. But I had always thought it took 6 dB to double
something. I know that on my videocamera that if I raise the gain by 6 dB that
it is the same change as 1 f-stop, which is a doubling of light. It turns out
that it depends on the unit. With sound, 3 dB is a doubling of power, but 6 dB
is doubling of volume. With electricity, 3 dB is doubling of power (watts?)
but 6 dB is a doubling of voltage. I can do the math all day long (Watts =
Volts x Amps) but it's just equations. I can't picture the reality in my head
in the way I can other concepts. I suppose part of it is my layman usage of
technical terms. To me I would think "sound power" and "sound volume" are the
same thing, but to physicists there are distinct. It reminds me of horsepower
and torque. Horsepower is "power," but torque is "twisting force" \--- which
is what I imagined when you told me that horsepower is power.

Oh well, my takeaway is that red noise sounds better than pink or white, to me
and others. It sounds like the ocean (if there were no variation).

~~~
escherplex
Well, in electronics they use log to base 10. For power, dB = 10 * log
(p2/p1). For volts dB = 20 * log (v2/v1). For power, 3 dB would represent 10 ^
.3 or around 1.99X gain, 6 dB = 10 ^.6 or around 3.98X gain. For volts then 6
dB (10^.3) is around 1.99X and 3 dB becomes (10^.15) around 1.4X

Many colors of sound? Figured maybe it was going to be an article about
synesthesia

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stephengillie
The office of my current employer has speakers in the ceiling, every 20 feet
or so. They play white noise through these at about 40-60 decibels - about the
volume of a moderately busy coffee shop or bar. This lets them buy shorter
cubicles, so you can look across the entire office building.

The noise they use is maddening to me, despite sounding like air going through
the air ducts.

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classichasclass
I couldn't live without Chroma Doze when out on business. You can easily tune
it to mask out nearly anything. I generally set it to a pink-like spectrum;
true white really is too harsh to sleep with.

[https://github.com/pmarks-
net/chromadoze/blob/master/README....](https://github.com/pmarks-
net/chromadoze/blob/master/README.md)

~~~
gysien
Chroma Doze looks amazing, I will give it a shot. I have been using Brain.fm
for several months, but switched to (white/brown/pink) noise or ambient
records. It works like a charm.

