HSL-Noise

HSL-Noise is an experiment trying to map noise profiles to colors. Because classical Colors of noise (White, Brownian, Pink, Blue, Violet) are far from enough. HSL-Noise lets you fine-tune your favorite noise profiles and give it a precise color name.

This noise generator uses HSL color space paired with Gaussian distributions:

• Hue is the center frequency of the bell curve. Hue is limited from red (0° = 20hz) to blue (240° = 20khz). Violets and magentas are omitted to signify that it's not a circle — audio frequencies don't perceptually mix the same way colors do. Green (120°) also places itself in the middle — a truly neutral color, neither warm nor cold.
• Saturation decides the width of the bell curve. Fully desaturated colors become grey (white noise). Fully saturated color becomes an (almost) pure tone.
• Lightness artificially cuts or expands the bell. Dark colors have their bell's skirt trimmed, making them sound dull or hollow. Bright colors sound fuller until it's all white noise again.

There's also some bonus effects:

• Alpha, or opacity replicates Velvet noise. Transparent colors are sparse, they sound fuzzy or grainy.
• Comb filter is just that — it adds a ringing resonance, like the "twang" of raindrops hitting glass or metal.

Slider controls are tweaked to be responsive and give perceptually varied results.

Actual settings are reflected in the URL, so you can copy it to share with friends. Also try doing complex noises by starting two browser tabs at once, like fire hum + fire crackle.

HSL-Noise can't perfectly recreate classical noises like Brownian or Pink, because they have straight slopes, not bell curves. But they can be approximated close enough.

Personally I am a fan of Green noise — it reminds me of a distant highway. I feel like this type of noise is under-represented in the community of background noise enjoyers.

Source code is available on Github, along with notes on math and design decisions. You can contact me at hello@mitpit.com