Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Create Isochronic Tones Using Sine Waves

If you followed the first project, isochronic tones with square waves, you may not like the sound it produces but it's very effective in entraining the brain to produce alpha waves.

For our next project we'll create another tone using sine waves which are a little bit friendly to the ears. The pitch or carrier frequency  and the isochronic beat will be the same as the previous project.

  • pitch or carrier frequency: 194.18hz
  • isochronic beat: 10hz

The image below will be our target isochronic waveform.


isochronic sine waveform

If you haven't already done so, open the audacity audio editor.

1. Click Generate/Tone..

2. Enter the data you see in the image below:

generate sine wave isochronic tone3. Click Generate Tone. You'll see the following waveform:

half wave isochronic tone sine wave

The waveform is quite different from the previous project. You can adjust the display to your needs by zooming in our out. Here are the menu and keyboard equivalents:

FUNCTION MENU KEYBOARD SHORTCUT
zoom in View/Zoom In Ctrl+1
zoom out View/Zoom Out Ctrl+3
normal View/Zoom Normal Ctrl+2

Although this waveform is more pleasant than the square wave, we can make it more pleasant by fading it in and out. Here's how to do it:

  • Press Ctrl+a to select the whole track.
  • Click Effect / Cross Fade In
  • Click Effect / Cross Fade Out
  • Click Effect / Normalize...leave the check marks on the two checkboxes from the dialogue box. Click Ok

You'll get the following waveform:

half cycle isochronic sine wave fadeinout

Notice the abnormal waveform somewhere at the end of the track. We'll clean that up after we generate the silence part.

4. Generating silence

The silence or no sound portion should be the same length as the tone. Go to the end of the track by clicking Edit/Move Cursor../to Track End. The keyboard shortcut is the End key.

Now that we have the cursor at the track end, it's now to insert silence of the same duration (0.05 sec.). Click Generate/Silence... and a dialogue box would prompt you for the length of silence in seconds. Enter ".05" without the quotes then click Generate Silence. Zoom out the track and you'll see the waveform like the image below.

isochronic tone-one-cycle-raw

Let's clean up that abnormal waveform in the center. What we'll do is to silence that part so that the tone will sound good, leaving that alone will produce an annoying click sound. Here are the steps:

  • Highlight the area by clicking somewhere on the left of the abnormal waveform and dragging the mouse to the right of it.
  • Zoom in so that the abnormal waveform will be magnified. Now you will know what area to silence.
  • Highlight the abnormal area to select it.
  • Click Effect / Amplify...
  • At the dialogue box, drag the slider all the way to the left then click OK.

Zoom out the view and the waveform should now look like this:

isochronic tone one cycle sine clean

That's it, you can now replicate that waveform till you reach your required length of iso tones.

5. Replicating the full wave - same as the previous project.

Select all of the items in the track by clicking Edit/Select All. The keyboard equivalent is Ctrl+a. Now that the whole cycle is selected, copy it to the clipboard by clicking Edit/Copy - keyboard equivalent is Ctrl+c.

Bring the cursor to the track end by pressing the end key then paste the contents of the keyboard by clicking Edit/Paste or pressing Ctrl+v. Do this sequence 9 times to create a 1 second tone.

Copy all of the 1 second tone to the clipboard and paste it 9 times to get a 10 second tone.

Copy the the 10 second tone to the clipboard and paste it 5 times to get a 1 minute tone and so on....

The tone should be a lot better to listen that the square wave version.

6. How long should the tone be?

Studies have should that you can entrain your brainwaves to a specific frequency within 6 minutes depending on where you brainwave was pulsating before you started listening to the isochronic tone. If you are already relaxed when you start listening, your brainwave can be entrained earlier compared to being in an active state before the start. 15 minutes is a good length of time for relaxing purposes.

After you have created your desired length of isochronic tones, you can now export it as a .wav file. Click File/Export as Wav.. A dialogue box will prompt you for a filename and the location for the file.

On meditation

Meditation can give a lot of benefit for your mind, body and soul. To get into a meditative state requires a lot of practice and it could take months to experience the benefits of meditation. The idea of meditation is to reach the alpha or theta state and stay there for a length of time. It's the state of being between waking and sleeping. The alpha brainwave state is nearer the waking state while the theta brainwave state is nearer the sleeping state. We normally pass those states when we go to sleep spending just a little time in those states before falling asleep. In meditation, you extend that length of time in those states thereby reaping the benefits of being in that state.

There are many techniques of getting into a meditative state: thinking of only one thing, counting backwards, tensing and relaxing your muscles...and so on. After you have successfully reached that state, the problem now is maintaining or staying in that state. We will either fall asleep or get back into beta or waking state.

The beauty of isochronic tones can bring us to the meditative state in a much shorter period of time and staying in that state longer. Say you're entraining for an alpha frequency of 10hz: if you'll get sleepy, the tones will pull you back to the alpha brainwave since your brain is already entrained to that state and is the dominant brainwave frequency. Likewise if you snap back to beta because of a disturbance such as a loud noise, the tones will also pull you back to the alpha state.

I'll talk about the influence of the conscious and subconscious minds during meditation later. Meanwhile enjoy your newly created isochronic tones.


45 comments:

  1. Thanks for this wonderful post ... you made it very simple for me ... I been searching a lot for creating isochronic tones and this is exactly what I was looking for ... thanks again.

    A small problem, after I generating the tone using your steps in audacity (1.2.6 Portable Version), I found a extra noise of tick appearing at every step apart from the beutiful sine wave isochronic tone.

    Here is what extra happening in one of my steps, when I am applying the effect/cross fade out, I get a Nyquist alert stating "[ gc: total 18640, 3665 free; samples 12KB, 8KB free ]"
    when I sam OK to it, it goes ahead.

    Can you help me how can I get read of this extra noise?

    Thanks

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  2. Hi again,

    I managed to get rid of the nyquist related message but the ticking sound is still coming from my tones. I am using senheiser mx300 ear phone to listen to the tone. Can you help me get rid of that ticking sound?

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  3. I'm glad you found this project useful.
    The tick comes at the junction between the tone and the silence. Please refer to step 4. You can zoom in on the waveform and remove any spike or abnormality in the waveform by selecting the range and apply an amplify effect and setting the slider all the way to the left.
    If you still have the problem, let me know the carrier frequency and isochronic tone you are using. thanks.

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  4. Thank you for this very informative article because I have been wondering how to make my own free isochronic tones.

    I do have a few questions.

    The first question is that I am having a little trouble with figuring out the math to do a 4.5hz tone so could you post a simple formula that I can use to produce this or another example?

    The second question, can you make isochronic tones with the older and free program Brainwave generator? If not, is there other freeware software out there to help one do this other than Audacity.

    The last question, what is the simplest way to create an isochronic tone that will start at 10hz and go to 4.5hz in 30-45 minutes?

    Also, to those using the new Audacity 1.3 Beta, to input the seconds you have to select "hh:mm:ss + milliseconds" to enter in the .05 time. After the minutes (m) you enter the .05 after the decimal.

    I was also wondering if the fade in and out on the Audacity 1.3 Beta was the same as cross fade in and out on the older versions under the effect-->utility pulldown menu on the 1.3 Beta version?

    Thank you for your time and it is appreciated. :-)

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  5. You are welcome anonymous but I'll appreciate it if you'd provide your name so I can address you appropriately.

    As I have mentioned in the square waves project, you need the half cycle for the tone and half cycle for the silence. You can use the following formula for the 4.5hz beat:

    1 / (4.5 * 2)

    The beat is multiplied by 2 because you need 4.5 half cycles with a tone and 4.5 cycles for silence. Divide 1 second for that figure and you get the duration for a half cycle.

    For your second question: I think brainwave generator only uses binaural beats. I've tried other free audio editors which you can google but I found audacity is best suited for this purpose.

    I encountered similar drawbacks from the beta version of audacity that's why I'm using the older version. The cross fade in, etc. has different waveforms than the fade in... the older version still is better on that matter.


    For your last question: The idea it simple but implementing it would require a little patience and time. I'll post about ramping later on.

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  6. Re;(admin said...
    You are welcome anonymous but I'll appreciate it if you'd provide your name so I can address you appropriately.)
    "THANKS ALOT ADMIN OR WHO EVER POSTS HELP THINGS LIKE THESE, SURE HELPS OUT ALOT,,,AND I'LL APPRECIATE IT "ADMIN" IF YOU WOULD POST "YOUR" NAME SO I COULD ADDRESS YOU IN A MORE FORMAL MATTER AS WELL.

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  7. Hm... I copied the instructions word by word but the click was still there. Even after the amolification. Then I tried replacing the newly amplified tone were the minute spike was with a segment of scilence. This seemed to work and the click is gone completely, but dose this screw up the effect of the binural beat? I think that the size of the overall beat is the same.

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  8. It's great you found a solution Athanasios. I don't think the small deviation can affect the isochronic beat.

    Regards,
    Jess

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  9. Hi, let me just say that this is outstanding, thank you.

    Now, i am trying to use the Solfeggio scale for healing and transformation. If I were to create an isochronic tone for teh 528 Hz note how would I make it most effectice, use teh 528 Hz tone with a 10 Hz frequency or somehow work it out to make teh frequency at 528 Hz, which I presume would mean 528 cycles per second.

    If I did use 528 cycles per second at a tone of 528Hz would that create some interference or would I be creating harmonics of 528Hz upon itself.

    I am very new to all this and only know what I have read on sites such as this.

    Many thanks, Simon

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  10. The 64th harmonic of 8.25hz is 528. You can try this combination. Create an isochronic beat of 8.25hz with a carrier frequency of 528hz.

    However, you can also try using an isochronic beat of 10hz with 528hz carrier frequency and try to see which works better.

    You can share your experience with us. Thanks.

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  11. Hi,

    thanks for the quick reply. i compared a carrier tone of 528Hz at 10Hz frequency and at 8.25Hz (64th harmonic of 528) and found a huge difference.

    The 8.25Hz was a bit slower but faaaar more pleasurable to listen to. Compared to that the 10Hz tone was a little distressing.

    I think I will try to always use harmonics in future, since that is apparently how existence is created from sound it would imply the need for some kind of harmony for things to be functioning at their best. Discordant harmonics would create some kind of imbalance i would imagine, however this is really not my field.

    Can you tell me how to work out the harmonics for any tone, that would be most helpful.

    Many thanks for the great work you are doing here.

    Simon

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  12. Hello Simon,

    Thanks for the feedback. That's very helpful to the readers.

    Harmonic frequencies are basically multiples of a fundamental frequency. e.g 8.25x2, 8.25x3...and so on. You can read more about harmonics at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic.

    Hope this will help you in your venture for self development.

    Jess

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  13. hello sir, could you plz tell us on making RAMP in isochonic tones...i would like to make an isochhronic to descend from 18 Hz to 1 Hz

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  14. hello sir,i have experimented with sine and square waves for isochronic tones with the help of your presentation....but, i have doubts like 1)what should the amplitude be in the tone generator when using the AUDACITY software...in your presentation it is '1' for SINE WAVE and '0.8' for SQUARE WAVE...why is there a difference in their amplitudes & 2)why do we fade the edges of the sine waves when using them for iso tones.....eagerly waiting.

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  15. 1)Square waves consists of 50% high amplitude tones and as such the output may clip causing distortion. Minimizing the amplitude will avoid distortion.

    Sine waves have lesser instances of high amplitude and hence the output may not cause distortion.

    2) Fade ins and fade outs of the sine waves mainly makes the tones a bit more pleasant to hear. Compare the tones produced with and without fading and you'll notice the difference.

    Have fun and enjoy the benefits of isochronic tones! Peace to you.

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  16. thankyou sir for your feedback
    1)what exactly do you mean sir by high amplitude waves MAY CLIP CAUSING DISTORTION....DOES IT MEAN THEY DONT SOUND PLEASANT OR SOMETHING ELSE.....plz simplify it sir so that it is easy to understand.

    2)like you said sir SQUARE WAVES ARE MORE EFFECTIVE than sine waves when it comes to isochronic tones, am i correct sir?
    -eagerly waiting

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  17. which waves are better at entrainin the brain waves square waves or the sine waves ?

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  18. 1)Have you heard a sound source say for example an MP3 player and you bring the volume up to the highest level? Do you notice the sound quality? Most amplifiers clip the output when the strength or amplitude is more than what it can handle. The waveform of the output will become distorted or not the same as what it is intended to be.

    You can observe it in Audacity if it is clipping the signal. Notice the playback monitor at the toolbar. When you see a red mark when you click the play button, it means that the signal is being clipped causing distortion. Minimizing the amplitude or strength of your tone can correct this problem.

    2)Square waves has a uniform signal strength when the tone is present making the tones very pronounced compared to sine waves. Because of this, it is easier for our brains to entrain to the isochronic beat.

    If you observe the wave patterns, you will notice that the peak or high values(amplitudes) of square waves have longer periods compared to sine waves.

    However, square waves are not so pleasing to ears so most people prefer the sine waves.

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  19. Dear Sir, does higher amplitude of waves affect entrainment.....i mean does higher amplitude means better and faster entrainment of brainwaves

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  20. When you refer to amplitude as the volume level during playback, it would be better to set it at the highest volume which is comfortable to you so as to 'muffle' external noises. That way, you can focus more on the tones.

    If you are referring to amplitude when creating the tones, see to it that the waveform does not exceed the limits above or below the tracks.

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  21. Respected sir, i have an important question to ask there is a website which claims that ISOCHRONIC TONES & MONAURAL BEATS CANNOT ENTRAIN THE BRAINWAVES LOWER THAN 4Hz.....the link to that webpage is http://biologicaladvantage.com/what-are-isochronic-tones It also says that ONLY BINAURAL BEATS CAN TAKE YOU LOWER THAN 4Hz although isochronic & monaural are better in entraining............desperately awaiting your comments.

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  22. Well, I've read that from other sites as well so if you're planning for a brainwave entrainment of less than 4hz, it may be better to use binaural beats. It's easy to construct binaural beats using audacity.

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  23. Exelent work!!
    I do the 10hz, 4.5hz, 18hz, and more.
    But, I can no understand what is a sound like a noise of a TV whit no antenna, when you download a isochronic tone from internet.
    Thanks!!

    JIS.

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  24. JIS,

    The noise you hear may be an intentional 'white' noise embedded in the tones. They say entrainment is better because it's supposed to calm your mind like the effects you hear when it's raining.

    Please share your experience with isochronic tones with and without noise.

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  25. Thank you for this really useful information. I've done the square wave and the sine wave.

    To eliminate the "abnormal waveform" I highlighted it and did the Silence command from the Edit menu. Following the comments above' I produced a sine wave with a 320 Hz carrier and a 10 Hz beat -- quite pleasant.

    Best regards,

    Keith

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  26. Great job Keith! Thank you so much for sharing. The silence command is indeed more efficient than manipulating the amplitude.

    320hz carrier frequency is good for stimulating the third chakra. You can also try the 341hz for the heart chakra and think of loving and positive thoughts while meditating on it - works great for our whole being.

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  27. hi,
    i was just finding this info for too long.

    few links may be helpful :

    http://www.lunarsight.com/freq.htm

    http://musicmefree.com/1moreinfo/chakras.html

    really thanks for giving such valuable info, it will actually save us all much money and who knows some may already be making some money.
    i actually before knowing about bought iso tones from some website, now i will make my own and no need to buy.
    again thanks all, specially the one who posted all this info

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  28. hi admin,

    i would like ask that i have read on various sites that binaural-isochronic combination can be made and it is more effective than any one type seperately.
    i would like to ask what u would like to say about it and how to make it.
    does the carrier frequencies need to be of chakra, i mean cant we use harmonic tones etc.
    and i m a bit confused whether carrier frequency can stimulate chakra,
    for example i want to make 7 hz iso tone and i use carrier frequency of 448 that is 6th chakra,
    this carrier freq will beep 7 times a second, but entrainment freq for 6th chakra is 13 hz so will this entrain my brain on 2 frequencies at same time, is it possible, the tone dont have 448 cycles per second, the tone is beeped 7 times a second, so how.
    please explain

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  29. Hi,
    Thank you for this great article.

    I'd like to share a simple tip to use instead of step 5 :

    Just after generating one cycle (1 tone + 1 silence) :
    [CTRL] + [A]
    Effect / Repeat

    Then, you just have to adjust the value to get the desired lenght of your track.

    Hope that helps.

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  30. @zeeshan - 448hz is a harmonic of 7hz and is a good combination. 13hz is associated with the 6th chakra and is also a good combination. You can try each combination but don't try to use it all in one tone.

    Target 1 entrainment frequency at a time so as not to lead your brain into confusion.

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  31. @ Greg - You seem to have an interesting point but can you please elaborate further? Thank you so much for you input.

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  32. Hi,

    Sorry for my bad english, my explainations may be not very clear.

    Instead of copy/paste 9 times, then 9 times agin, then 5 times etc ... :

    Select the whole cycle (in your example, the duration is 0.1 second), with "Edit", then "Select all", or [CTRL] + [A]
    Then do "Effect", "Repeat"
    A pop up appears.
    You have to enter a number, and you can see the duration of the total track.
    For instance, with the 10Hz example, if you directly enter 600, the duration will be 1 minute.

    That would be done very quickly.

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  33. @ Greg
    Thank you so much Greg. This process saves us a lot of time!

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  34. (
    Hi, thank to Steve Daulton exist a plugin for Audacity that make it everything included ramps

    http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=39487

    Thanks for your comments thanking to Steve, he did it without any cost
    )

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  35. There's an easier way to do this now, and it even supports ramping. Just grab the isochronic modulator plugin from here:

    http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=39487&p=104905#p104905

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  36. Hi
    Thank you for this great article.
    Do you or anyone know the isocronic half time for 38hz?

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  37. 38 hz is audible so you don't need an isochronic tone for that. Anyway if you would like to create one just follow the guidelines you will find on the post about creating square waves.

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  38. Hey guys, I'm sorry, but math has never been my strong subject. I'm afraid I don't understand the formula for getting the tone. I understand that in an isochronic tone, there must be an equal amount of silence as there is of the tone.

    But I don't completely understand isochronics... I do understand binaural beats, but with isos: why is there only one tone? Not a different balance in the left and right ear. And how does just one tone produce the effect faster than binaurals? Also, what is a carrier frequency? I'm sorry for sounding dumb, but I'm really new to isochronics.

    Binaural beats are so much easier to make, because it's just 2 continuous frequencies in different ears, so if you wanted to get your brainwaves to mid-alpha stage, you would play 100Hz into the left ear, and about 110Hz into the right. (I think... im horribly confused after reading all this today).

    OH, and i noticed you said 38Hz is audible? So you're saying that we could play 40+Hz isochronics and achieve gamma waves?


    Ok. So here's what I'd like to know... HOW exactly do you come up with the frequency needed for an isochronic tone? Let's say, the frequency is NOT 10Hz this time. Just pretend like I have no idea what isochronic tones are, and give me an intro to what they are/how they work and all that.

    Thanks! Sorry for asking so many questions!

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  39. Thanks for that bro. I was wondering if you can give the frequency for beta, theta and gamma. I didn't get how to calculate it by myself.

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  40. I have been making some of my own isochronic tones with the information that I was able to find online about the carrrier frequencies, but now thanks to some personal reasons I have been wondering if there is a mathmatical formula for calculating the carrier frequencies I'd like to make.

    So far I have found nothing for the sort.

    I also find it noticable that most sites that have information that tells me what the carrier frequencies and their uses less than helpful if I am seeking to use a beta frequency, and gammas not that simple to find either.

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  41. Please correct me if I'm wrong but aren't isochronic beats just the number of beats/sec. and the carrier frequency is the tone those beats make?

    So if you want to entrain alpha you use beats/sec. withing the alpha range and a solfeggo frequency for example for the carrier frequency.

    If this is wrong please let me know as I'm trying to learn how to do this properly.

    OkieLinda

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  42. I can't get audacity to make a tone anything shorter than 1 second long. Any ideas?

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  43. Easier than all this spacing create it yourself. For example for. 9 frequency create two 220 tones and two 219.1 tones. Make each one a left and right. Mix the left Chanels together and then the right. Split steroids to mono and designate them to left and other. To right. The waveform is isochronic. Purfectly fading in and out. Very effective sound.

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  44. Sounds interesting... can you elaborate on that? Seems like the waveform is monaural.

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  45. I don't think ramping is very difficult in essence. smooth ramping may be a challenge. But if you wanted to ramp in half measurements (10,9.5,9,8.5 etc.) to your target frequency, you would simply have to create a tone and play that tone for 1 minute, more or less depending on how fast you think your brain will entrain to that tone. More like entraining your brain to go down the rungs of a ladder v. a slide.

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