How can I make a Pink Noise generator?

c# .net audio noise
Erik Forbes picture Erik Forbes · Mar 5, 2009 · Viewed 21.6k times · Source

((Answer selected - see Edit 5 below.))

I need to write a simple pink-noise generator in C#. The problem is, I've never done any audio work before, so I don't know how to interact with the sound card, etc. I do know that I want to stay away from using DirectX, mostly because I don't want to download a massive SDK just for this tiny project.

So I have two problems:

  1. How do I generate Pink Noise?
  2. How do I stream it to the sound card?

Edit: I really want to make a pink noise generator... I'm aware there are other ways to solve the root problem. =)

Edit 2: Our firewall blocks streaming audio and video - otherwise I'd just go to www.simplynoise.com as suggested in the comments. :(

Edit 3: I've got the generation of white-noise down, as well as sending output to the sound card - now all I need to know is how to turn the white-noise into pink noise. Oh - and I don't want to loop a wav file because every application I've tried to use for looping ends up with a tiny little break in between loops, which is jarring enough to have prompted me in this direction in the first place...

Edit 4: ... I'm surprised so many people have jumped in to very explicitly not answer a question. I probably would have gotten a better response if I lied about why I need pink noise... This question is more about how to generate and stream data to the sound card than it is about what sort of headphones I should be using. To that end I've edited out the background details - you can read about it in the edits...

Edit 5: I've selected Paul's answer below because the link he provided gave me the formula to convert white noise (which is easily generated via the random number generator) into pink noise. In addition to this, I used Ianier Munoz's CodeProject entry "Programming Audio Effects in C#" to learn how to generate, modify, and output sound data to the sound card. Thank you guys for your help. =)

Answer

Paul picture Paul · Mar 5, 2009

Maybe you can convert the C/C++ code here to C#:

http://www.firstpr.com.au/dsp/pink-noise/

The easiest way to get sound to the sound card is to generate a wav (spit out some hardcoded headers and then sample data). Then you can play the .wav file.

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