Online Tone Generator

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You can damage your hearing or your speakers if you play tones at extreme volumes. People can’t hear sounds < 20 Hz and > 10,000 Hz very well. If you turn up the volume on your device to compensate, you could expose yourself to harmful sound levels and your speakers to harmful currents. To be safe, note the volume level that allows you to listen to a 1,000 Hz tone without discomfort and do not stray too far above this level, even if you can’t hear much – especially in the high range, where your hearing is the most fragile.

Instructions

To play a constant tone, click Play or press Space.

To change the frequency, drag the slider or press (arrow keys). To adjust the frequency by 1 Hz, use the buttons or press Shift + ← and Shift + →. To adjust the frequency by 0.01 Hz, press Ctrl + ← and Ctrl + →; to adjust it by 0.001 Hz, press Ctrl + Shift + ← and Ctrl + Shift+ → To halve/double the frequency (go down/up one octave), click ×½ and ×2.

To change the wave type from a sine wave (pure tone) to a square/triangle/sawtooth wave, click the button.

You can mix tones by opening the Online Tone Generator in several browser tabs.

What can I use this tone generator for?

Tuning instruments, science experiments (what’s the resonant frequency of this wineglass?), testing audio equipment (how low does my subwoofer go?), testing your hearing (what’s the highest frequency you can hear? are there frequencies you can hear in only one ear?).

Tinnitus frequency matching. If you have pure-tone tinnitus, this online frequency generator can help you determine its frequency. Knowing your tinnitus frequency can enable you to better target masking sounds and frequency discrimination training. When you find a frequency that seems to match your tinnitus, make sure you check frequencies one octave higher (frequency × 2) and one octave lower (frequency × ½), as it is easy to confuse tones that are one octave apart.

Alzheimer’s disease. Some scientists from MIT are seriously investigating the possibility that 40 Hz tones may reverse some of the molecular changes in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Initial studies on transgenic mice showed promising results, but (as is often the case) early-stage human trials paint a much murkier picture. Further studies are underway. Here’s a summary of the research so far and a report from a user who tried 40 Hz therapy on his wife. (Note that this tone generator is not a medical device – I don’t guarantee anything!)

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Support this site

If you use the Online Tone Generator and find it helpful, please support it with a little bit of money. Here’s the deal: My goal is to keep maintaining this site to make sure it stays compatible with current browser versions. Unfortunately, this takes a non-trivial amount of time (for example, figuring out an obscure browser bug can take many hours of work), which is a problem because I have to make a living. Donations from awesome, good-looking users like you buy me time to keep things running.

So if you think this tone generator is worth it, please support it with some money to help keep it online. The amount is entirely up to you – I only ask for what you consider fair price for the value you’re getting. Thanks!