Ever wondered why white noise is white? It's not the only colour of noise you can get.

There are a handful of others too -- which are used in a variety of different situations,
including acoustics testing, electrical engineering and hard physics.

They're separated from each other by theirspectral density -- the way the power that the
signal contains is distributed over different frequencies. Different spreads are given
different colour names, including white, pink, brown, blue, violet and grey. Here's how
they differ from each other, and what they tend to be used for.
White noise
You might think of white noise as the sound of waves on a beach, or talk radio playing
quietly -- something that overrides background noise. Sound technicians define it more
tightly -- white noise has equal energy per cycle, meaning that its frequency spectrum
is completely flat. The band of signal between 20 and 40Hz contains the same power at
the band between 2000 and 2020Hz. It's referred to as white because it's analagous to
white light -- where every band of the spectrum shines equally brightly, combining to
produce white.
White noise's ability to cut through background noise means that it's easy to locate the
source, and as a result it's sometimes used as part of a siren on an emergency vehicle.
It's also used in audio synthesis to create percussive instruments like cymbals, which
produce a lot of noise.

As it contains an equal amount of high frequencies to low frequencies, white noise is

also found in sound-masking tools, such as those produced for tinnitus sufferers, and to
aid a good night's sleep. Finally, white noise is used as a basis for some random
number generators. Random.org uses atmospheric antennae to generate random digit
patterns using white noise.
Pink noise
While white noise has equal power in frequency bands of equal width, pink noise's
spectrum falls off logarithmically over time, with equal power in bands that are
proportionally wide. As a result, the band of signal between 20 and 40Hz has the same
power in it as the band between 2000 and 4000Hz.
That's useful because it's the same as humans hear -- each octave in the western
musical scale contains the same amount of energy as the octave above and below it,
despite encompassing a wider frequency range. Pink noise replicates that
phenomenon, making it very useful as a signal to test amplifiers and loudspeakers. Pink
noise is also seen in meteorological data series, the radiation output of some
astronomical bodies and in the statistics of DNA sequences.

Brown(ian) noise / Red noise

Red and brown noise are the same thing, and are more accurately known as brownian
noise. It's nothing to do with the fabled brown note, but instead is the type of signal
noise produced by Brownian motion. As it's heaviy weighted towards the lower end of
the spectrum, it sounds like a low roar. It's used in climatology to describe climate
regime shifts, but there's a certain amount of disagreement (PDF) within the scientific
community as to its value for such a purpose.
Flickr / CC-licensed: Altemark
Blue and Violet noise
On the other end of the spectrum to red and brown noise lie blue and violet noise. Blue
noise is a little like pink noise in that it changes proportionally with increasing frequency,
but instead of a decrease you see an increase. Retinal cells are arranged in a blue-
noise pattern, which a number of studies have shown yields good visual resolution.
Violet noise is, similarly, like an inverted version of brownian noise. Its power density
increases per octave with increasing frequency over a finite frequency range. It can also
be used in the treatment of tinnitus, as its high frequencies tend to mask the high
frequencies heard by many tinnitus sufferers.
Grey noise
So we've seen noises weighted to higher and lower frequencies. What about both at the
same time? That's grey noise -- which has lots of power at the top and bottom end of
the frequency spectrum but very little centred around the range of normal human
hearing. More specifically, it's designed such that given a regular human ear
experiences every frequency equally loud. It's white noise, but tuned specifically to
the psychoacoustics of the average human ear.
As a result, it's useful in studies of hearing difficulties, allowing researchers to assess
how a particular person's hearing differs from the average.

Others
They're all the colours of noise that have a widely accepted meaning, but there are a
selection of others that are less tightly-defined. Orange noise is a spectrum that has a
few bands eliminated entirely -- those centred around frequencies of exact musical
notes, meaning that it plays everything that isn't perfectly in tune, and nothing that is.
These "sour" notes give the noise its name. It can be used to check tuning.
Then there's black noise, which has a number of different explanations. Some define it
as pure silence, others describe it as the output of an active noise control system that
cancels out existing noise -- essentially negative noise. One maker of an ultrasonic
vermin repeller calls its output -- which is actually white noise that's silent below
20,000Hz -- black noise.

Finally, green noise is described as either the mid-point of the white noise spectrum, or
the background noise of the world -- as a power spectrum that's averaged over a very
long time in several outdoor sites around the planet. It looks rather like pink noise, but
with a hump added around 500Hz.

Thermal noise occurs in all transmission media and communication equipment,

including passive devices. It arises from random electron motion and is characterized by
a uniform distribution of energy over the frequency spectrum with aGaussian distribution
of levels. Every equipment element and the transmission medium itself
contribute thermal noise to a communication system if the temperature of that element
or medium is above absolute zero. Whenever molecules heat above absolute zero,
thermal noise will be present. The more heat generated or applied, the greater the level
of thermal noise.

Intermodulation (IM) noise is the result of the presence of intermodulation products. If

two signals of frequencies F1 and F2 are passed through a nonlinear device or medium,
the result will contain IM products that are spurious frequency energy components.
These components may be inside or outside the frequency band of interest for a
particular device. IM products may be produced from harmonics of the desired signals
in question, either as products between the harmonics or between a harmonic of one of
the signals and the other basic signal or between both signals themselves. The
products result when two (or more) signals beat together or "mix."

Crosstalk refers to unwanted coupling between signal paths. There are essentially
three causes of crosstalk: (1) electrical coupling between transmission media, such as
between wire pairs on a voice-frequency (VF) cable, (2) poor control of frequency
response (i.e., defective filters or poor filter design) and (3) nonlinear performance in
analog (FDM) multiplex systems. Excessive level may exacerbate crosstalk. Analog
transmission is distorted by crosstalk and it will deteriorate the BER performance of a
digital path.

Impulse noise is a noncontinuous series of irregular pulses or noise "spikes" of short

duration, broad spectral density and of relatively high amplitude. In the language of the
trade, these spikes are often called "hits." Impulse noisedegrades telephony only
marginally, if at all. However, it may seriously corrupt error performance of a data circuit.

A transmission engineer in telecommunications is often called a noise fighter.

1. Continuous Noise

Continuous noise is what it says on the tin. Its noise that is produced continuously by
machinery that keeps running without interruption. This could come from factory
equipment, heating or ventilation systems.

You can measure continuous noise for just a few minutes with a sound level meter to
get a sufficient representation of the noise level. If you want to analyse the noise further,
you need to look for a sound level meter with Octave Band analysis. This breaks down
the noise into its separate frequencies and tells you exactly what frequency is causing
the noise. You might even want to break down the noise into 1:3 octave bands which
can give even more detail about the frequency content of the noise.

2. Intermittent Noise

Intermittent noise is a noise level that increases and decreases rapidly. This might be a
freight train passing by, factory equipment that operates in cycles or aircraft overhead.

You measure intermittent noise in a similar way to continuous noise with a sound level
meter. However, you also need to note the duration of each occurrence and the time
between each one. To gain a more reliable estimate of the noise level, you should
measure over multiple occurrences to calculate an average. If youre using
an Integrating-Averaging sound level meter, this will make the calculation for you and
present this in terms of an LAeq.

3. Impulsive Noise

Impulsive noise is most commonly associated with the construction and demolition
industry. This sudden burst of noise can startle you by its fast and surprising nature.
Impulsive noises are commonly created by explosions or construction equipment such
as pile drivers.

To measure impulsive noise, you will need a sound level meter or a personal noise
dosimeter that can calculate Peak values.

Dont forget that even in an environment that is generally quiet, a single very loud noise
can cause hearing damage and this is why its important to measure Peak levels
alongside the average or Leq value. In most applications, Peak will be measured using
C-weighting so you should make sure that your sound level meter provides this.

4. Low Frequency Noise

Low frequency noise makes up part of the fabric of our daily soundscape. Whether its
the low background humming from power plants or the roaring of large diesel engines,
were exposed to low frequency noise constantly. This is also the hardest type of noise
to reduce at source, so it can easily spread for miles around.

For low frequency noise, you should be using a sound level meter with Third Octave
Band analysis so you can analyse the low frequencies that make up the noise. You
may also need to look at the C-Weighted measurements and compare this to the A-
weighted measurements as this can show how much low frequency noise is
present. Find out more about the different frequency weightings.