Tinnitus Frequency Matcher
Use this tinnitus frequency matcher to slowly tune a tone until its pitch matches the ringing, buzzing, or hissing you hear, then read its frequency in hertz and the nearest musical note. Many people find it interesting to put a number to their tinnitus — a process audiologists call tinnitus pitch matching. You can also use the online tone generator to generate and hold any specific frequency once you have identified your rough pitch region here.
⚕ This is a self-exploration aid, not a medical test, measurement, or treatment. Real tinnitus pitch-matching is done by an audiologist with calibrated equipment. This tool can’t diagnose, measure, or treat tinnitus. Keep the volume low, and don’t dwell on the sound — focusing on tinnitus can make it feel worse, so use this briefly. If your tinnitus is new, in one ear only, pulsing in time with your heartbeat, or distressing, please see a doctor or audiologist.
Tune the tone
Keep this low — just loud enough to compare. There’s no need to hear it loudly.
Your match
When the tone sits at the same pitch as your tinnitus, lock it in to see the details. Don’t worry about being exact — tinnitus is hard to match and often sits between a pure tone and a hiss.
Typical tinnitus pitch
Most tinnitus is high-pitched, very often in the 4–8 kHz range, though it can be anywhere and may be a tone, a hiss, a buzz, or several sounds at once — audiologists call noise-like tinnitus narrowband noise rather than a pure tone. Where yours falls says nothing about how serious it is. Research consistently finds that tinnitus pitch tends to fall within or just above the person's region of noise-induced or age-related hearing loss (presbycusis), which is why high-frequency matches are so common.
Using This Tool Safely
Read this first. Tinnitus is the perception of sound — ringing, buzzing, hissing, humming — with no external source. If you experience ringing in your ears, this tool lets you tune a tinnitus tone (a pure sine wave) to compare against what you hear, for your own curiosity. It is not a hearing test, not a diagnosis, not a measurement, and not a treatment. It cannot tell you why you have tinnitus or what to do about it. For that, see a doctor or audiologist — especially if your tinnitus is recent, only in one ear, pulsing with your heartbeat, paired with hearing loss or dizziness, or is upsetting you.
A note on how you use it: paying close attention to tinnitus tends to make it more noticeable and more bothersome. Matching the pitch once out of curiosity is fine; repeatedly hunting for it or playing matching tones for long stretches can backfire. Keep sessions short, keep the volume low, and if it increases your distress, stop and step away.
Why a clinic does it differently
In an audiology clinic, pitch matching is done in a quiet, sound-treated room with calibrated headphones, careful level control, and techniques to avoid common errors (people frequently match an octave away from their true tinnitus pitch). Your browser, your speakers or headphones, your volume, and room noise all affect what you hear here — so treat any number you get as a rough, personal impression rather than a clinical result. Audiologists also typically test for minimum masking level and residual inhibition (the brief quiet after a masking tone switches off) — phenomena that require precisely calibrated equipment and trained interpretation, and that this browser tool cannot replicate. If you are exploring masking sounds, a continuous broadband or swept-frequency tone played at a comfortable level is often more soothing than a pure-tone match.