Binaural beats?

[Austin Osman Spare]

Has anyone any experience to share or thoughts on the use of sound to induce altered states of conciousness? I myself have used hemi-sync I the past , even attended a monroe institute meditation school for a while. I believe it to be of value, and I now incorporate binaural-beat theory into my own musical projects. Theres also this Holosync stuff which i'd garner is pretty similar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemi-Sync sets up a bit of a debate over the validity of some of the monroe institutes claims. They produce a lot of scripted medition cd's as well, some of which I find the scripts quite effective. Anyone else have any experience with hemi-sync or binaural beats?

[m1thr0s]

I have no personal experience with this stuff at the level of electronics but want to thank you for pulling out that link anyway for a slightly unrelated reason...it introduced me to a term I was unaware of but have been steeped in for many years, ie, "protoscience"... Funny how these things work. Protoscience...why of course...that's what all this Abrahadabra stuff actually is...or so I will go on record as "predicting" as you sometimes say. Another very useful term.

Anyway...fascinating stuff to be sure. I have only dabbled in this stuff a very little at the level of audio technology, but at the level of scrying, weaving, light mechanics as I know it, I run into something very related all the time. You see this a lot whenever you are consciously working within the framework of a balancing of opposites...which I do a lot...and yes, there are most certainly synergistic "third parts" that would seem to appear from nowhere in this process. Mantra-Yantra applications of course are all about Light-Sound "mixing", so I feel as though I do know a lot about all of this on a purely experiencial level, and via a different language system...

m1thr0s

[MythMath]

AOS,

I've been doing quite a bit of sonic experimentation
over the past few months (not to mention, decades)...

And just a couple of weeks ago I was making
some lab-brewed, DIY binaural beats
(with pink noise) test recordings...

I had not heard any official hemi-sync
(or any other type of binaural beat) recording...

So I was just experimenting with different balance levels...

I'd truly appreciate you sharing some of your
experience and knowledge regarding this topic...

In what ways are you incorporating b-beats in your music...?

Thanks,

MM

Making Waves (movie trailer) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbLlv5LMTHQ)

[Austin Osman Spare]

Well, in general I believe that the actuall binaural-beat phenomena is quite abit more common than some would believe, A "beating " effect will occur with any two tones that differ slightly in frequency. To some extent , a simple slow stereo chorus effect will produce a similar phenomena.

I started out altering actuall hemi-sync samples, speeding them up, slowing them down exponentially, with somewhat dramatic effects. I've yet to really crack the specifics of where it takes you, ie: faster beating/higher?vibrational? level? But I Infer that a number of factors is involved, such as the actual tones and which energy centres they relate to, the octave, the audibility. If music is involved then that brings an undeniable variable of aesthetic as well. My current experiments involve making my bb's from scratch, w/ pro-tools. I would like to do some NLP/meditation scripts myself, as having yourself as your own hypnotist can be quite powerfulL....
Eventually, I will incorporate this all into more musical stuff, I intend to have "other things happening" under the surface of some of my projects.
What are you using to generate your bb's"
I have had great fun with a dual-channel synth in stereo, just set the pitch slightly off each side and hear the vup vup vup....

[MythMath]

Generating sinewaves, etc. (and noise) in Wavelab...

Building the structures in the "montage" section
[essentially a multitrack-like assembly area]...

I also employ a stand-alone 24track digital recorder for
more adventurous processesing and multitracking...

I've got a fair amount of 'outboard' gear, as well...

In recent (non-bb) sessions I've been putting
my Moog ring modulator though its paces...

MM

[imagenerator]

I started experimenting with a recording I generated from this software Gnaural (http://gnaural.sourceforge.net/), which allows you to create your own BB patterns. It occurred to me that it could be used in conjunction with self-hypnosis to achieve the deep relaxation state required for making hypnotic impressions. The first time I used it, was before bed, and I found myself slip into a semi-lucid dream. The next time I used it while cleaning, and followed it with some yoga. I didn't find it made my yoga practice or cleaning particularly focused, so my impression is that I should give the sound full focus when employing BB. I hope to hear some BB-infused music some day, as well as others' experiences with BB.

[MythMath]

I dl'd gnaural and it's a good interface to quickly build these things...

Not exactly a user-friendly editing
or 'build from scratch' environment, though, is it...?

Have you tried to transfer a file from the program onto CD...?

Do you have a DIY file that you'd like to share that I could check out...?

[imagenerator]

I dl'd gnaural and it's a good interface to quickly build these things...

Not exactly a user-friendly editing
or 'build from scratch' environment, though, is it...?

Have you tried to transfer a file from the program onto CD...?

Do you have a DIY file that you'd like to share that I could check out...?

There are some extra timelines on the web page here (http://gnaural.sourceforge.net/help/index.html#Presets) .

I have successfully transfered the track to an mp3 in Linux. It says you need to install LAME for this to work.

As for "conducting one's own brainwaves", that's a science I haven't dipped into yet. A good start would be to experiment with taking my brainwaves to different frequencies. Then I might have an idea how I might make use of the program's programability.

[MythMath]

Thanks for the links, imagenerator...

I've been working on a so-called 'schedule' with Gnaural tonight,
and found that the program actually has a decent editing interface...

As a trial, I made a 20 minute long binaural beat thang that
was designed 'to induce' and is tuned to my little didgeridoo...

I'm in the process of burning it to CD, I'll add some
looped didg and other goodies this weekend...

[Austin Osman Spare]

I came across a basic but concise rundown of the BB effect here:

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

I will be checking out the gnaural shortly

[Apopheros]

geeeees...I wish I had a monkey pet to try all this psychotronic mess on him
:msmile::mshocked: