New to binaural beats

[Philzy85]

Hiya everyone, I am new here and fairly new to binauraul beats too. I have looked into hemi sync and other websites in the past but life got a bit screwed up back then and it got forgotten about. Anyway, the reason I got back into researching binaurul beats is because I suffer from depression and quite bad anxiety too, aswell as trouble sleeping. So I was hoping this would be able to relax and calm me down.

I've looked on youtube, and downloaded a few 'samples' from hits off a google search but I'm a little cautious when it comes to using other peoples sound files, firstly because I dont know what they have put into the file and secondly because I dont know if the sound itself is doing or could do what the person has suggested it can. I like to do things from scratch if I can, so that I can be confident that it 'does exactly what it says on the tin' and also so that I can fine tune it to my needs.

I've tried sbagen but I'm useless with code and dos! I like to use something with a gui that I can see and interact with visually lol

So I went on google again and searched for "binaural beat generators" and came across one called "BrainWave Generator" its got a few built in presets which are all labelled up nicely saying what each does but again I dont entirely trust it because it's someone elses sound file / generator.

So back on google again but search for "tone generator" instead, because I work in a factory which makes speakers and have seen the tech's playing about with a gui based tone generator when testing the speakers for quality, etc. I came across a progam called "NCH Tone Generator" which does just that, produces a tone in any frequency. It does sine, square, triangular and a bunch of other things too. It also does stereo (default being mono).

I'd already been on wiki's page for binaural beats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_beats) and took a few pointers from the heading "Overview" and the table under "Brain Waves". So in the tone generator I set a stereo sine tone of 300Hz to both the left and right channels :



I knew that I would just hear 300Hz in both ears, no beat. Confirmed when I listened through a pair of stereo headphones. Looking at wiki's page I followed their example :

"if a 315 Hz sine wave is played into the right ear and a 325 Hz one into the left ear, the brain is entrained towards the beat frequency 10 Hz, in the alpha range"



Sure enough, I could hear the 'beat' loud and clear. It sounded exactly like the ones I had been downloading and listening to earlier this evening. So looking at the table on the wiki page, under the heading "brain waves", as there is a 10Hz difference between 325Hz and 315Hz am I correct in assuming I was producing an alpha wave (7–13 Hz)?

I decided to experiment a bit, lowering the difference between the channels to see what happens. So I will leave the right channel on 315Hz and decrease the frequency on the left channel :

Left - Right - Difference - Experience
325 - 315 - 10 - Fast beat (Alpha wave?)
322 - 315 - 7 - Slower beat (borderline Theta wave?)
320 - 315 - 5 - Even slower beat (Theta wave?)
318 - 315 - 3 - Long beat, like a fire alarm sound. (Delta wave?)
317 - 315 - 2 - Even longer beat, almost a quick pulsating sound.
316 - 315 - 1 - Very long slow beat, quick pulsating.
315.5 - 315 - 0.5 - Almost like a crossfader rather than a beat.
315.25 - 315 - 0.25 - Exactly like a slow crossfader.

So have I produced my very own binaural beats? Can anyone comment on my experience and experiment?

I dont want to pretend like I know anything about the human body, sound acoustics or computer because I honestly dont, I just love to experiment and play about with things. I'm very much a trial error kind of guy

Look forward to your responses, ps sorry for the super long first post hehe!

[mgpai]

You have got the basics right. To get the most out of BB you will have to build sequences which cycle through various frequencies. I have not used NCH myself, but from the images you have posted, it seems to have only basic functionality. I would suggest you look at other softwares like BWGEN, Gnaural, SBaGen etc.

I personally use SBaGen. It is in my opinion better than most of the commercial software out there. Sure, the lack of GUI makes it less appealing, but you can get most of the things done by using notepad, thus not having to use the dos prompt at all. It is really worth trying.

I would recommend you use carrier frequencies in the range of 150-200 Hz for your sequences. There is a post, elsewhere in the forum, on Oster's Curve, which contains a table of optimal carrier frequencies.

Ideally, build two 30 min. sequences one in Alpha range (to overcome depression/anxiety) and the another in Delta range (to improve sleep pattern) and listen to it daily.

Good Luck!

[Philzy85]

I've researched a bit into 'carrier frequencies' but dont really understand it. Can you explain a bit further about them for me?

[mgpai]

Dr. Gerald Oster, plotted a curve to find the optimum carrier frequencies for any given beat frequency. This post viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4 has the table which lists the optimum carrier frequencies for different binaural beats. He was of the opinion that when using these frequencies the beats are perceived more clearly than while using a random frequency.

For e.g.,according to the table, if you want to entrain to a binaural beat frequency of 10.604 Hz, the carrier frequency which would help you perceive the beat clearly is 240 Hz, i.e. 240 on one channel and 250.604 on the other. Likewise, 230 Hz for 9.551, 220 Hz for 8.599 and so on.

It is however not necessary to strictly adhere to the table while building sequences. You can experiment with different frequencies and find the ones which sound most comfortable and seem to have the best effect for you.