Lethe Noise

Lethe Noise is a noise generator and a drone instrument designed for headphone use. The noise is for sleep or focus: brown, pink and white, mixed on three sliders. The drone is for listening: five families of synthesized tone and two pattern instruments, mixed by hand or left to move through a set of scenes. Nothing is recorded; every sound is generated on your iPhone while it plays. Brown is the default noise. Auto Mix raises pink over the brown in slow swells, and turns itself off when you move a noise slider. The sleep timer runs for 15, 30 or 60 minutes, fades out over the last three, and stops. Playback continues when the screen is locked, and the lock screen has play and pause. The drone's five families are a harmonic bed, a beating cluster, an overtone field, singing bowls and gestures. Beside them are two pattern instruments. Pulse Grid is a dry rhythmic piece of clicks, tones, noise and bass. Chord Cloud is a changing chord progression with melodic filigree. The drone is not a sleep aid. Some of it is calm and some of it is strange, and headphones bring out its detail. Five scenes play the families for you: Vigil, Temple, Glass, Transmission and Drift, a twenty-minute tour through three of the others. Each scene changes slowly as it plays, and you can watch it move the sliders. Touch a slider to take it over until the scene next moves on, or hold the whole scene where it is. You can also mix the drone by hand. Every family has its own fader, its own controls one tap away, and a solo button that plays it alone. The app works offline. It has no accounts, advertising or tracking, and it collects no data.