Pink noise & test tones
Generate pink noise, white noise, a sine tone or a stepped sweep in the browser, at a level referenced to −18 dBFS.
Start with the level low. Sustained noise at monitoring level is a genuine hearing risk — it carries no transients to warn you how loud it is. Bring the fader up from silence, never down from where music was playing.
Pre-rendered files
For calibration you want a file, not a browser tab — something you can drop on a track and loop while you walk to the listening position. All three are mono, so route them to one speaker at a time.
How to read this
Pink noise carries equal energy per octave. White noise carries equal energy per hertz, which means each octave up holds twice the energy of the one below and it sounds brutally bright. Pink is the useful one because it approximates how a balanced mix distributes its energy — which is what makes it both a calibration signal and the reference the PINK half of this suite is named for.
Calibrating monitors
- Play pink noise at your reference level — the −18 dBFS RMS setting above, or the pre-rendered file at unity.
- Put an SPL meter at the listening position, at ear height, set to C-weighting, slow.
- Play one speaker at a time and set the monitor controller so each reads the same. Matching the two matters more than the absolute number.
- Note the position and leave it. The point of a reference level is that it does not move between sessions.
On the target number. The film-dubbing standard is 85 dB SPL per channel, and it is the one most often quoted — but it assumes a large room and a calibrated stage. In a small studio it is uncomfortably loud and will cost you your ears over a career. Rooms of that size commonly work 6–11 dB below it, in the 74–79 dB range. Pick a level that lets you work for hours without fatigue, and treat consistency as the goal rather than any particular figure.
Two assumptions worth stating: the generator's level readout is RMS referenced to full scale, so what reaches the room also depends on your interface's output trim; and an SPL meter app on a phone is approximate — useful for matching two speakers, not for certifying an absolute level.