Tone Generator

Generate a pure tone at any frequency, in four waveforms, entirely in your browser.

Start quiet and protect your hearing. Sustained tones are more tiring than they sound, and a loud one through headphones can do real damage. This is not a calibrated hearing test or a speaker measurement instrument — your device, its speakers and the room all change what you hear, and no browser can account for any of them.

Note A4

Frequency (Hz) Waveform Volume

Escape stops. Very low and very high frequencies may be inaudible, and most device speakers cannot reproduce either end of the range at all — a silent result there is the speaker, not the tool.

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Hearing nothing? Check your output with the sound test.

What it is for

Reference pitches for tuning by ear, checking whether a speaker or headphone actually reproduces a frequency, demonstrating what a waveform sounds like, and generating a steady tone to test something against. It plays exactly the frequency you ask for, using the Web Audio API in your own browser.

Start quiet

Sustained tones are more tiring than they sound and a loud one through headphones can do real harm. The default level is deliberately conservative and the volume control starts low. Square and sawtooth waves carry far more energy than a sine at the same nominal setting, so they are attenuated automatically - switching waveform should not make you jump.

What it is not

It is not a calibrated hearing test and not a speaker measurement instrument. Your device, its speakers or headphones, the room and your own hearing all change what reaches you, and no web page can account for any of them. If a frequency sounds quiet or absent, that tells you something about the equipment, not about your ears - and if you are worried about your hearing, see an audiologist rather than a website.

The range

Human hearing runs roughly 20 Hz to 20 kHz, narrowing with age at the top. Most phone and laptop speakers reproduce very little below about 150 Hz and roll off at the top too, so silence at either extreme is usually the speaker. Headphones do better at the bottom.

Waveforms

A sine is a single frequency and nothing else - the purest tone and the right choice for tuning. A square contains only odd harmonics and sounds hollow and buzzy. A sawtooth contains every harmonic and sounds bright and harsh. A triangle sits between a sine and a square, soft with a little edge.

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