Binaurial Beats - you just gotta read this

[lightandmind]

Binaurial eats are when you have 2 tones that are almost identical, but not quite, and are so close that they seem to bounce off of each other- like tuning a guitar at the 5th/(4th) fret. This bouncing, like all perceived sound, does not accually occur in the physical world, but rather, your own mind, (the differance is so small that the brain cannot distiguish the differance between the two). Robert Monroe began an institute in NY that used binary beats to "sync" the 2 hemispheres of the brain togather using two tones, slightly off from one another, panned HARD L/R. The listener would wear headphones- and at first, the tones would bounce very noticeably- but after a little while, (30 secs or so), they would sync togather and become one tone. This change accually takes place in the brain, and Mr. Monroe would feed these tones to psychic solders who would try to locate the coordinates of enemy subs in WWII! Buddists in meditation were also used to test these tones, and both psychics and buddists agreed that the tones had allowed them to access specific areas in their minds at a fraction of the time that it would normally take.

I would like to incorperate binary beats into music creation, (mostly for headphone listeners), but am uncertain what tones/frequency range might emphasize binary beats the most. I know that the human ear disects detail in the freq range of the human voice the most, but I'm still very much in the dark about any specifics. If anyone has any info, experiances, or accidents they wish to share, please do so.
Thanks guys !

[Kitana_One]

I believe the term you're looking for is "Binaural" beats, not Binary Beats.


Binary would just be one's and zeros.

Binaural meaning Stereo.



I'd almost describe Binaural Beats as Harmonic Modulation imo. It's practically micro-harmoic modulation.


There's too much to really re-interpret everything about it... so here's a link to a really really good resource that I've referenced over time:

http://www.web-us.com/thescience.htm




Hope that helps.

-- Kitana_One

[thethingwiththestuff]

i dont know which is the correct term. binaural sounds right (woops, edit- doesnt sound right!) to me and binary could certainly be used to mean anything that's a set of two. binary code is that. binary anything doesnt have to mean 1s and 0s.

my friend's band tweeter is all about harmonics and difference tones and beats like this. i think they're on myspace.

[ubertar]

Binaural beats is the correct term. It's headphone stuff-- you have one tone in the left ear, and another in the right ear, and you perceive the beating between the two as a third frequency. I've done some stuff with this. It's used for brain wave entrainment-- I don't know of any studies that show it works though, and the theory behind it is pretty shaky, if you ask me. The idea is that perceiving these beat frequencies "entrains" or synchronizes your brain waves to that frequency. Usually, the difference will be set to between 7 and 11 hz. It shouldn't matter what the right and left frequencies are, so long as they're audible-- it's the difference that counts. It's easy enough to experiment with this, if you have a computer with a sine wave generator in your audio software. Try a 100 hz tone panned extreme left and a 107 hz tone panned extreme right, then listen in headphones. You'll hear a pulse that you don't hear when it's through speakers. Decide for yourself whether it puts you in a trance any more than any other drony sound.

[ubertar]

Here, I did it for you: http://www.ubertar.com/creot/binauralbeats.MP3

100hz on the left, 107 on the right. If you switch to mono, you can hear the pulse very clearly. In stereo, it's there, but it's subtle.

[JWL]

Entrainment is a very interesting phenomenon, I mean its broader, more general meaning than just brain wave entrainment (which I know very little about).

From Wikipedia:

Entrainment is the process whereby two connected oscillating systems, having similar periods, fall into synchrony.

The system with the greater frequency slows down, and the other accelerates. Christian Huygens, a notable physicist, coined the term entrainment after he noticed, in 1666, that two pendulum clocks had moved into the same swinging rhythm, and subsequent experiments duplicated this process. The accepted explanation for this is that small amounts of energy are transferred between the two systems when they are out of phase in such a way as to produce negative feedback. As they become more in phase, the amounts of energy gradually reduce to zero. In the realm of physics, entrainment appears to be related to resonance.

So entrainment really applies to music, which is sound waves and the psychoacoustics of perception of these sound waves. A slammin band will have a high degree of entrainment.

In a way, you could say that what we do as music recorders is try to capture entrainment.

[Chrisbrownsound]

100hz on the left, 107 on the right. If you switch to mono, you can hear the pulse very clearly. In stereo, it's there, but it's subtle.

Hang on... Isn't 7Hz the resonant frequency of the bowel???

[ubertar]

100hz on the left, 107 on the right. If you switch to mono, you can hear the pulse very clearly. In stereo, it's there, but it's subtle.

Hang on... Isn't 7Hz the resonant frequency of the bowel???

Yeah... listen to that clip and you'll crap your pants.

Actually, it doesn't matter if it is-- the 7hz frequency is psycho-acoustic. It's not physically there if you're listening in stereo. In mono, it's more like a tempo of the beats than a sound wave itself, and there's just not enough power from headphones to resonate your bowels even if that would work.

[ubertar]

Entrainment is an interesting phenomenon. But I haven't seen any evidence (and it seems totally counter-intuitive to me) that it could work across media-- sound waves entraining brain waves. You would need some kind of transducer-- maybe it would work if the sound was converted into an electrical pulse and then transmitted to your brain through some kind of helmet, but that would defeat the whole purpose. It's junk science-- new-agey horsetwaddle. It would be cool if it worked though. I suppose you could do some experiments fairly easily with radio waves and sound waves where the frequencies overlap, and see if you could entrain radio waves with sound waves and vice versa. I'd be very surprised if it worked.

[ubertar]

100hz on the left, 107 on the right. If you switch to mono, you can hear the pulse very clearly. In stereo, it's there, but it's subtle.

Hang on... Isn't 7Hz the resonant frequency of the bowel???

Is that why you're called Chrisbrownsound?

[lightandmind]

I have changed the topic to the correct spelling, sorry guys, too much info in my kranium lately.
I've heard some of the tapes that the psychic soliders heard, w/phones,
and after 30 seconds or so- the very noticable "beating" completely dissapeared, and, as strange as it sounds, a kind of euphoric feeling came over me. I want to use binaurial beats in 3 ways:

1) Low in a mix as ambeince
2) Stronger in the mix of a tranquil/dreamy track
3) I wish to use this, and other ideas, to create a track that emphasizes certain sounds on differient enviorments, like becoming accustomed to hearing it on one source, only to hear the more subtle tracks more emphasized when the listener changes enviornments.

We can be as technically gifted as much as our brains will allow, but what is it worth if there is no love or passion to drive that knowledge? My driving love is to move the listener emotionally- so it only makes sense to take full advantage of the many tools available to us.
Moving someone's emotions AND the physical state of mind seems pretty powerful to me.

Thanks for your replies and help guys, really helpful, and I really appreciate it. -

[douglas baldwin]

I'm a little surprised no one has mentioned EMDR therapy in this thread. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a theraputic approach that integrates a rhythmic, repetitive left-right focus with the (re)processing of negative/disturbing memories. It began with a left-right focus of the eyes, but now includes audio as well. I won't go into the whole process, but basically you call up a problem or negative experience and at the same time focus on a positive image. Then you watch (or listen to) something that has a steady left-right-left-right aspect to it for about 30 seconds or so. By focusing on what comes to your mind during this brief period, you can "unfreeze" the negative/disturbing memories and lead a happier, healthier life.

I suspect this is similar to what lightandmind has experienced.

I've used similar techniques (although far less explicitly psychological) in my approach to guitar instruction. My own take on it is that it causes the two sides of the brain to talk a little more with each other - the two sides have to somehow "shake hands and be friendly" while dealing with something that was previously "unfriendly." In the case of our 100 Hz and 107Hz tones, it's the disconnect between the "reality" of two seperate sounds and the "illusion" of the beating that the brain reconciles. The logical left side of the brain, hearing two distinct sounds, has to be friendly with the intuitive right side of the brain that feels the beating of the combined sounds. Or it might be that one side of the brain lights up to the vibrations of 100Hz while the other lights up to the vibrations of the 107Hz. The "illusion" of the beating disappears when the two sides of the brain are happy with what they each process.

All in all, a beautiful exploration of consciousness through sound.

dB

[effector]

the nazis are supposed to have developed a device called a 'feraliminal lycanthropizer' that used tape loops and binaural beats to induce a kind of primal rage and loss of all sexual inhibition in their subjects....or anyway, that's the word on the street! then again, the nazis are also supposed to have built a secret underground military facility on the moon!

here's a page listing the supposed effects of certain frequencies on the human brain. i have never experimented to find out if any of them actually work or not. good luck!

http://lunarsight.com/freq.htm

[Professor]

The biggest thing I can say is, for heaven's sake, be careful.

There are lots of tales of frequencies having an effect on the human body, and I firmly believe that all objects have resonant frequencies, our bodies and everything around us in the world works on rhythms, cycles, and frequency. When quantum physicists break down subatomic particles far enough, they eventually stop getting smaller particles and eventually arrive at nothing more than energy - which is just frequency.
I've even worked with some folks who apply this kind of therapy. A practice called the "Tomatis Technique" (I think) is where parts of the brain are stimulated through sound and vibration while concepts are associated or disconnected with that region. The fascinating thing to me was that they can reprogram the brains of children who are bad at math to get better at it. In lots of cases, apparently, those kids who are terrified of math tend to be that way because they learned to see math problems and attack them with their language center or some other portion of the brain, rather than the 'math center'. By stimulating the math center of the brain while the child does basic games, puzzles and eventually more involved math problems and puzzles, the brain is reprogrammed to access the right area and the kids just plain get better at math and drop the fear. It's both fascinating and terrifying on various levels, and either way I'm intrigued and hope it is really true.

The trouble is that simply vibrating something in us doesn't necessarily mean that it will be improved or stimulated. Vibrations can also damage, dislodge or destroy.
What seems innocent enough in theory, or even benevolent, might have dire consequences for someone else.
For example, a popular military application that has been tested to varying degrees I'm sure, is to find the resonant frequency of the human eye-ball. When the vitreous fluid inside begins resonating, the light waves don't make it to the retina properly and our brains try "fill in the gaps" from memory and/or imagination. The result is wild hallucinations similar to drug trips, but without any other sense being dulled. The military application would be to have all the enemy soldiers on a battlefield unable to fight because they are unable to see what is in front of them.
Another curious anecdote I've read about has to do with the 'healing power' of the Schumann Resonance. Apparently, while that 7.83Hz frequency is an average for the planet, it is not consistant around the globe. In some places it's higher and in others it's lower. The general finding is that where the frequency is at 7.83 or slightly lower, people generally have the best health. But in some places the frequency climbs as high as 11-12Hz and people have the worst health and there is constant plague, famine, etc.
Of course, whether the frequency is the cause or the product or completely unrelated is hard to say.
Either way, I think it's safe to say that not all people are built the same. Eyeballs are not standard as far as I know. I'm sure some are smaller, some are larger, some have more viscous fluid and some have thicker corneas, or whatever. The point is that if that's the case, then logically not all eyeballs will vibrate at the same frequency. Likewise not all brains will vibrate at the same frequency. So what you might include as a cool subliminal, meditative trance frequency when you listen might end up seriously screwing with brains or body parts for your listeners.
What's more is that when you're dealing with the sound in the transaural environment (through the air as with speakers) then the effects of beat frequencies can be felt over the whole body. When you're dealing with binaural listening (directly to the ears as with headphones) then you're effecting the brain, brain activity and apparently even brain chemistry. Either way you slice it, that's going to present some dangers to your listeners if you're not 100% right about what will happen to 100% of the folks who might listen. Consider taking a scientific approach to what effects this might have first, before laying it on your listeners.

-Jeremy

[effector]

very provocative!