What is brown noise?
Brown noise is
noise that falls off at -6
dB per
octave, that is, noise whose amplitude at a given frequency is inversely proportional to the frequency. Amplitude is the square of power, and the power of brown noise at any given frequency is inversely proportional to the
square of the frequency. Thus, brown noise is to
pink noise as pink noise is to
white noise.
But why is it called "brown" noise?
Brown noise is named after Dr.
Robert Brown (no relation to
Bobby Brown), who first described
Brownian motion. The displacement of a particle undergoing Brownian motion is a source of brown noise.
How can I generate brown noise?
If you have white noise, possibly from a thermal noise source, integrate the white noise with respect to time. The integral operator is an IIR filter, whose impulse response is the Heaviside function, that introduces the desired -6 dB/octave rolloff. You'll want to saturate (clip) the output so that extremely low frequencies don't cause annoying wrap-around distortion.
Once I have brown noise, what can I do with it?
To get white noise from brown noise, take the
derivative (an
FIR filter).