HumHerd

Pick a tone and HumHerd blends it with the tones other people are playing. Sit with the shared sound, or turn your tone into sounds and songs with Pads and the Sequencer. Every sound is generated live on your device, with no samples, uploads, or AI audio generation.

Live participants, plus the occasional ghost tone: a tone a member leaves humming for the collective after they close the app. Nothing you hear is recorded or uploaded, and HumHerd does not offer AI audio generation. HumHerd reads how people interact, such as the timing of taps, to help discourage automated accounts, with no captcha and no sign-in wall. Those signals set some limits, such as listing a room publicly. They do not keep anyone out of the shared sound.

The core experience is free. Pick a tone, hum, join rooms, and play all four instruments with no account needed. Humming practice, Exercises, humming, whistling and beatboxing into the Sequencer, and the piano, guitar, strings, brass, organ, marimba, and 808 voices are free for everyone. A free account adds more voices and four sequencer layers (drums, bass, melody, and chords) and lets you host rooms, save sounds, and build a profile. On the web, Shepherd is $7/mo or $49/yr at the founding price. It adds the full voice library, longer patterns and songs (32 steps, 128 bars, 8 drum rows, and 6 layers), 10-minute recordings, more room sounds, a much larger public sound catalog, sound bath and layered-room hosting, up to 5 saved rooms, and ghost tones, which keep humming for the collective for up to a day after you close the app. Your Shepherd membership follows your HumHerd account.

No. The web app runs in a modern browser with no plugins or MIDI setup. You can use it on iPhone, Android, tablet, or desktop, and adding it to your home screen gives you a full-screen experience.

Only when you start a microphone feature, and your device asks permission first. Hum listens until your note holds steady, then stops; it also stops after 20 seconds without a steady note. Humming practice can follow your pitch for up to two minutes. Exercises listen while you find your range and during each answer, and stop when you finish or leave. In the Sequencer, Hum a pattern and Hum a take listen for the bars you choose, hear whistles too, and keep only the notes: pitch, timing, and how loud each note was. Beatbox the drums listens for one bar and keeps only the drum hits; the sound stays in memory only until the bar is read. Audio is analyzed on your device without being recorded, stored, or uploaded. Moving the app into the background stops the microphone. Group humming and rooms share notes and timing, never your voice.

Solfeggio frequencies are tones used in some meditation and sound-practice traditions. People associate them with themes such as change, connection, or clarity, but those associations are reflective prompts rather than proven medical effects. The frequency ribbon covers 40 to 1,000 Hz, and manual entry supports 20 Hz to 20 kHz.

Binaural beats play a slightly different frequency in each ear, creating the perception of a rhythmic beat at the difference between them. Some people use them as a meditation or focus aid, but responses vary and the evidence for specific outcomes is mixed. Headphones are required for the binaural effect.

Yes. Set a comfortable low tone, choose a slow pulse if you enjoy one, layer in rain or ocean soundscapes, and use the session timer as you settle. Keep the volume low enough for extended listening.

Yes. Pick a comfortable tone, brown noise, or a gentle pulse and use it as uninterrupted background audio while you work. Some people find steady sound helpful for focus, but HumHerd does not promise a particular cognitive effect.

In a HumHerd sound bath, one host plays singing bowls, gongs, and chimes while everyone else listens. The mandala responds to each instrument in real time, giving the group a shared visual focus.

In the app it is called Everyone: the live average of every tone being played across all of HumHerd. It shifts in real time as people join, leave, or change their frequency. The mandala, orb, and audio all respond to it. It never stops as long as someone is humming.

Sign in, tap Rooms in the bottom bar, and pick a session type under "Start a session": Meditation, Sound Bath, Jam, Convergence, Hive, or Loom. Rooms are private unless you choose otherwise: name the room, set a fixed root frequency if you like, and share the invite link. People can join from any device without an account. If a phone reloads the app during a session, it returns to the room.

Every sound in HumHerd is generated live on your device. Nothing is pre-recorded, streamed, or made by AI. Choose a basic waveform or a shaped voice such as bell, pluck, pad, or harp. Since the instrument runs locally, a tap does not wait for streamed audio before making sound.

Hive is a democratic beat-building session. Everyone votes on each step of an 8-step sequencer. When enough people agree on a step (40% threshold), it activates. Everyone in the room builds the beat together, one vote at a time. The result is a collective rhythm that nobody planned alone.

Yes. Brown noise is in the soundscape picker. It plays a steady, deep hush with no movement or reverb. Some people prefer it as background sound while working or reading. HumHerd does not treat ADHD or guarantee improved focus.

HumHerd includes an optional tinnitus listening mode that lets you match a perceived pitch and shape soft pink noise with a notch around it. Some people use shaped sound for temporary listening comfort, but this is not a medical treatment and results vary. Keep the volume low, stop if symptoms worsen, and see an audiologist for persistent tinnitus.

Cymatics is the study of visible patterns formed when sound vibrates matter, such as sand on a plate. HumHerd’s cymatic mandala is a responsive mathematical visualization inspired by standing-wave patterns. It reacts to your frequency, but it is not a physical simulation of a particular plate, room, or material.

A=440 Hz is the common concert-pitch reference in Western music. Some listeners prefer the slightly lower feel of A=432 Hz, though it has no established healing advantage. HumHerd lets you choose either reference. The default Free setting preserves any frequency you choose without snapping it to a tuning grid.

Binaural beats use a slightly different tone in each ear so you perceive a rhythmic difference between them, which requires headphones. Isochronic tones pulse one audible tone and work through speakers. HumHerd offers both as optional listening textures with delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma labels. Those labels describe pulse rates, not guaranteed mental states.

Sign in, open Sounds → Presets, find a Solfeggio frequency card, and tap the ✶ on its right side. That opens its echoes: anonymous notes, 140 characters max, one per hour, left by people who have sat with that frequency. No one else can see who wrote an echo. The frequency becomes a place with stories: "174 after my dad died." "528 on the walk home." Read others, leave your own.

Humming gives a slow exhale a sound and a physical sensation you can follow. Many people find that grounding, especially with a comfortable low tone and an unforced breath pattern. HumHerd supports the practice without claiming that humming activates a particular nerve or treats a health condition.

Yes. Hum a pattern writes one hummed bar onto the grid in your scale. Hum a take keeps your own timing as a clip of 1, 2, or 4 bars on a layer: its pitch can follow the scale from your tone, the scale from your first note, or stay as sung, and slides can stay as pitch bends. Choose any voice for the take, and write it up to two octaves lower, so a bass line can be hummed where your voice is comfortable. In a room, everyone hears a take from their next bar. Only the notes are kept, never your voice.

Humming practice has Exercises: short call-and-response phrases (scale steps, leaps, and sing it back) that stay inside an easy range you find with Find my range. From that range it suggests keys that fit a simple melody, can send a key straight to the Sequencer, and can make a voice card to share. The range is where you hummed comfortably that day and stays on your device. It is a guide for practice, not a measure of your voice.

Yes. On the web, a saved sound in your Library exports as a standard MIDI file. Each instrument gets its own named track that opens on the matching General MIDI sound (Piano on a piano, Strings on strings, the 808 on a synth bass), so other programs play the right instruments. Hummed takes come out on their own channel with slides as pitch bends, each note keeps how loudly you hummed it, tuning between standard notes is kept with pitch bend, and a song whose bars change tempo keeps each bar tempo. The file also carries the credits and license.