Features
Layer four sounds into one you can actually fall asleep to
Sixty-three sounds is a lot until you realise most sound apps give you the same rain twice. What matters here is that almost none of it is a file on a loop.
In short
Tock has 63 fall-asleep sounds. You can play four at a time, save the blend as a mix, and 42 of them carry a Far, Near or Close distance control. 22 are bundled recordings and the rest are generated on the phone as you listen, so they never loop.
- Fall-asleep sounds
- 63Fall-asleep sounds
- You can layer at once
- 4You can layer at onceSaved as a mix
- Carry the Far, Near and Close control
- 42Carry the Far, Near and Close control
How it actually works
Why most of the library has no file behind it
Of the 63 fall-asleep sounds, 22 are real recordings bundled with the app. The other 41 are not files at all. Tock generates them on the phone, sample by sample, while you listen. Nothing downloads, and nothing loops. A looping rain track has a seam where the tape restarts, and once you have heard that seam you cannot stop hearing it. Generated rain has no seam because there is no tape to run out.
You can run four at once, each at its own level: rain under a fan under a low room tone under a distant piano. Save the blend and it comes back tomorrow as a mix. 42 of the sounds also carry a distance control with three positions, Far, Near and Close, which changes where the sound sits in the room rather than just how loud it is. For the morning there are 18 wake tones, or you can point Tock at your own audio.
- 63 fall-asleep sounds, 22 bundled recordings and the rest generated live on the phone
- Four layers at a time, saved as a mix you can call back
- Far, Near and Close on 42 of them
- 18 wake tones for the alarm, or bring your own file
Nothing to download means the library is the same size on a plane as it is at home.
Building a mix that does not go stale
The mixes that survive a month tend to have the same shape: one broad sound to cover the room, one texture with movement in it, and one quiet thing far away. Four slots is deliberately not many, because five is where a mix stops being restful and starts being a soundscape you notice.
- Start with a broad layer, noise or rain, sitting low
- Add one moving texture so the mix is not flat
- Put anything melodic on Far, where it becomes atmosphere rather than a tune
- Leave the fourth slot empty until you actually miss something
What Far, Near and Close actually change
Distance is not a volume knob with a nicer name. Close puts a sound in the room with you, bright and present. Far pushes it through a wall and down a corridor, so the detail drops away and what is left is the shape of it. Near sits between the two.
A piano on Close is something you listen to. The same piano on Far is something you sleep through, and that difference is the whole point of the control.
Sounds for a partner, a wall or a street
Most people reach for sleep sounds because of something else in the room rather than because they like rain. What you are doing is raising the floor so the spike does not stand out.
- Traffic and neighbours: a broad noise layer sitting just above the street
- A partner who snores: something with texture rather than something loud
- A room that is too quiet: a low room tone on Far, almost below notice
The tone you wake up to is a separate decision
Fall-asleep sounds and wake tones do different jobs and should be chosen separately. There are 18 tones, and a gentle one pairs well with a demanding wake-up mission: the sound does not startle you, the mission still gets you upright.
Where it stops
Every feature has an edge. Better you read it here than find it at six in the morning.
- Sound raises the floor in a noisy room. It does not cancel anything, and a slammed door still gets through.
- Generating audio all night means the phone is working all night, so keep it on a charger.
- The 22 bundled recordings are files like any other, so those do repeat. The generated ones are the ones that never loop.
- A mix that works in a hotel may be wrong at home, because most of the job is masking a specific room.
Questions people ask
Do the sounds need a download or a connection?
No. 22 are bundled with the app and the rest are generated on the phone as you listen, so the whole library works in Airplane Mode.
How many sounds can play at once?
Four, each with its own level, and you can save the result as a mix to bring back tomorrow.
What does the distance control do?
It moves the sound in space rather than in volume. Close is in the room, Far is through a wall. 42 of the 63 sounds have it.
Can I use my own audio for the alarm?
Yes. There are 18 wake tones in the app, and you can point Tock at your own file instead.
The rest of the app
The parts that sit closest to this one.
- Wind-downWind-down is a short guided routine you run before sleep. It has 6 steps you can reorder or drop, three lengths, and a 30 second drift at the end that hands you over to the good-night screen.
- Snore recordingTock keeps short audio clips of the things it hears in the night and pins each one to the minute it happened. Snoring, coughing and sleep talking are labelled by name, and every clip has a play button in the morning.
- Wake-up missionsA wake-up mission is a small task that has to be completed before the alarm will stop. Tock ships 9 of them in 3 families: mind, body and place. The alarm keeps ringing the whole time the task is on screen.
- Sleep trackingSleep tracking in Tock runs on the phone alone. The microphone and the accelerometer stay awake all night, Apple SoundAnalysis labels sounds like snoring, coughing and sleep talking on device, and the clips are saved so you can play them back in the morning.
Elsewhere on the site
A different corner of the same problem.
- Sleep soundsLate cafeA cafe bed works because a room with people in it reads as safe, and it only keeps working while none of the voices are intelligible. The moment you can pick out a word you start following it, and following language is the opposite of falling asleep, which is why Tock generates the murmur instead of recording a real room.
- Tock for youTravellers with jet lagYou landed, you are on local time on paper, and your body is running four or eight hours behind. Wide awake at 3am, unusable at 3pm, and it lasts roughly a day per time zone.
- AlternativesTock vs Apple Health SleepIf you wear an Apple Watch and you only want to see how long you slept, Apple Health already does it for free and does it better than any phone estimate. Tock adds the room: sound, snoring, a score, an alarm that can move earlier, and a coach that can explain what it found.
- RoundupsThe best free alarm apps for iPhoneThe best free alarm app for iPhone is the Clock app that came with it. It is free forever, it rings through silent mode and a Focus, and it has never failed. Alarmy is the best free option if you need an alarm that is hard to turn off. Tock is not free and is listed last for that reason.
- Wake timesWaking up at 4:30amBedtimes by sleep cycle for a 4:30am alarm.
- BedtimesGoing to bed at 8:00pmWhere to put the alarm after a 8:00pm lights-out.
Layer four sounds into one you can actually fall asleep to
Tock has 63 fall-asleep sounds. You can play four at a time, save the blend as a mix, and 42 of them carry a Far, Near or Close distance control. 22 are bundled recordings and the rest are generated on the phone as you listen, so they never loop.