Mike's Sonic Alchemy Logbook Archive

This is the "Sonic Alchemy Logbook Archive" - I was running out of space on the main Sonic Alchemy Logbook page.

Same disclaimer applies that is on the Frequency Listing page. Use all information and presets and other stuff at your own risk.

12/31/2001

Okay, so it's New Years Eve [bah, humbug!] - I wasted the night websurfing - found a cool site called Universal Dances 432 - it has some interesting stuff about how music should be based on a 432 HZ A note, and not a 440 HZ A note - it's kind of new-agey, but makes for an interesting read if you can get past all the 2012 stuff.

(2012 is the next big date that people are pointing to where big world-changing things are supposed to happen - and if nothing happens in 2012, I'm sure they will come up with another date. The 'end of the world' folk always need a new doomsday to fall back on. But I digress.)

Also, I created a new Brainwave Generator preset - it uses a flangered 1.45 HZ noise background that I cooked up in CoolEdit 96 - the binaural starts at 7 HZ [a not so awake state] and gradually works its way up to 14 HZ [a rather wide awake state] - there's also a panning of the volume from one side to the other at a rate of 1.45 cycles a second. (That 1.45 HZ number is said to have an impact on the hypothalamus - a part of the brain that helps regulate moods.)

The end result of listening to this preset - I find it tends to create an "in the moment" sort of feeling - a certain pleasant alertness. You can download it from the preset section of the BwGen website. It's the preset called "In The Moment", BTW.

12/27/2001

I got a nice office chair for Christmas, which is good, since I've been using a kitchen-style chair when at the computer, and it's not terribly comfortable - I find office chairs tend to be nice for listening to binaural beats and the like, since you can get into a relaxed mindset more easily - at work on my coffee break I'll sometimes fire up BrainWave Generator or CoolEdit, and meditate/vegitate in the [very comfortable] office chair I have there. Now I have that opportunity at home as well.

Right now, I'm listening to something I cooked up in Buzz - it's pink noise that has been ring modulated, phase modulated and volume modulated to a frequency in the A [note] range, which I read somewhere might be good for sinus congestion. (My sinuses are driving me nuts right now - given the crappy cold weather we're getting up here in New England.)

I'm also using Vivisimo [search engine] to see if I can hunt down some additional information on using sound to clear sinus congestion. (That's kind of my holy grail right now.) Here's the search I used, if you want to kill some time.

P.S. - Would anybody be interested if I made available the Buzz music files that I talk about in these entries? I haven't been so far, since I don't feel that medium would be very useful to most people that read this, but if there are enough Buzz folk here, I suppose I could upload some of them.

12/23/2001

Okay, here is an updated copy of that preset file that has all my Cool Edit 96 scripts in it. The noise I was tinkering with yesterday for my vision is called "1552 HZ waved noise" or something like that. Just copy it into your CoolEdit main directory, letting it overwrite the MORE.SCP file, if you have downloaded this file from here previously.

Also, I have Brainwave Generator preset here I call Sinus Music - I took all the Rife frequencies that are said to help sinus congestion, and constructed a musical scale out of them - the preset kind of fiddles around with the various harmonic relationships all these frequencies have - I included a text file where I list all the frequencies, and the harmonic relationships they have relative to each other. (I also cheat and use some higher and lower octaves of the frequencies.) It makes for some very interesting ear candy - I was listening to this mess last night without headphones, letting the sounds pump into my room, and I had some interesting images pop into my head - not sure if it's a remote viewing sort of thing or just my mind's eye being stimulated, but it was interesting, to say the least.

12/22/2001

I'm currently listening to a static file I rigged up in CoolEdit 96 -- it's pink noise, phase-modulated to 1552 HZ - a fellow named Kinnaman theorized this could help with eye degeneration as an EM field - I'll upload it as a CoolEdit preset file later - along with some other new CoolEdit presets I've cooked up. Also, I'll let you know if it has any dramatic effects on my [damn near-sighted] vision. I doubt it, but you never know.

[Later that day] - the 1552 HZ phase-modulated pink noise didn't work - my vision still sucks - now I'm trying to use a 400 HZ tone to decongest my sinuses - Kinnaman also believed a 400 HZ EM field would do this. As far as if sound would work or not, I'm not sure.

12/16/2001

I was using CoolEdit 96's included preset called Delta Tones, and it put me into a very restful sleep for most of the night. Later on in the early morning, I switched over to another sound file, which I looped while I slept - it contains ocean wave-like noise with phase modulation of about 5 HZ [right on the border between the delta and theta range]. I also found this to put me into a very restful sleep, with plenty of dreams.

About the sound file above - open it in an application that can loop it - I find it plays well in WinAmp. It's an MP3 file, BTW - and very small - you can download it in no time at all.

12/13/2001

I was tinkering around with a new scale today (well, new to me, at least). I calculated it by using all the basic ratios that are one number apart from each other - like 4/3 and 5/4 and 6/5, for example. Since the ratios get smaller as you get into larger numbers, it's a descending sort of scale, starting with the highest step first.

Here it is, using 220 HZ as the base frequency :

*They typically call a Major Second a Wholetone, and a Minor Second a Semitone. A Minor Wholetone isn't a Semitone - it's just slightly flatter than the Major Wholetone, but still a Wholetone. A Septimal Wholetone is slightly sharper than a Major Wholetone. Just to complicate things more, a 4/5th-tone would be 4/5ths of a Wholetone - which would be flatter than a Wholetone, but still would be considerably more than a Semitone [i.e. half of a wholetone].

This is just a sample - you could keep going on forever - the next frequency in the sequence being 12/11. As you can see, though - as you get into ratios with bigger numbers, the difference between one frequency and the frequency for the next ratio gets smaller and smaller - I tried playing it out using CoolEdit, and you can distinguish between tones for ratios up to about 13/12 or so, but after that, the tones are so close to each other, that they're practically indistinguishable - so for a scale, you probably only need up to about 13/12 as the smallest ratio - anything smaller than that seems kind of pointless. Since there really isn't much melody to two tones that sound practically the same.

One major fault of this scale, of course - is the fact you have big gaps between the major fifth and the octave. You can probably fill these in using the inverse of these ratios - in other words, instead of multiplying 220 HZ by the ratios, divide the next octave up by them instead.

I don't feel like doing that right now, though - maybe tomorrow.

12/10/2001

Sorry for the interval since my last entry - it's been rather busy here lately. A lot of what I have been tinkering around with in the last week or so has been in an application called Buzz, which is a MOD-style musical synthesizer - I'm still trying to figure out an easy way to load the Buzz format stuff for other people to download - the Buzz files themselves are kind of useless unless you also have Buzz, and even then, the file likely won't load unless you have all the machines - which can be a headache for people not used to the "find modules" game that accompanies this sort of music application.

I might try converting some of them into MP3s.. Inevitably..

11/28/2001

Eep - I tried generating that musical scale I was talking about yesterday using CoolEdit, and the results weren't that good - you can listen for yourself if you have Cooledit - download this Cooledit 96 script file, unzip it, and place it in your CoolEdit directory -- (if you already have downloaded this script file, let it overwrite - it's the same script file as before, with some extra stuff added.)

Go into Fun Scripts, load this file [it's called MORE.SCP] - and go down to the Groth scale script, and run it. Select the entire wave, and you can hear exactly what the scale I was talking about on 11/27/2001 would sound like - it's a little sour, to say the least.

I might try tinkering with it some more - some musical scales are like lemons - you really have to force the harmony out of them.

11/27/2001

I've discovered a site* about a fellow named Arne Groth. Groth feels there is mathematical harmony in many different natural phenomena - he finds that natural frequencies have a base of 1.00034 HZ with steps of 1.095238. So, the second step would be 1.00034 HZ X 1.095238, for example, and the third step would be gotten by taking that result and multiplying it by 1.095238 again.

He composed a frequency table of all the different steps and all the natural phenomena associated with it - it's kind of new-agey, with a lot of mention of auras, spirit lines, etc, etc ---- but it's also excellent material for me to construct a musical scale out of. Since it practically behaves like a musical scale by itself. (That and the fact that 1.095238 is the ratio of 23 to 21, and music loves the hell out of nice ratios like that.)

1.095238 times a base number, musically, would be a neutral second. (If you compare it to "DO", it would be a little bit less than "RE" relative.) And, if you multiply it again by 1.095238 to get to the second step, that would be 1.095238X1.095238, or 1.199546 - that number times a base number would be minor third, roughly.

And you can keep multiplying the result times 1.095238 to yield even more harmonic intervals that can be used in a musical scale. Let me do it out in a table, using 220 HZ [an A note] as the base frequency.

As you can see, it's not perfect - you don't get a really good perfect fifth, and the octave is a little off, but other than that - it looks like it might have potential - I'll tinker around with it some more tomorrow - maybe I can make up a Cooledit or BrainGen preset of what it might sound like in theory.

*MPT 6/27/04 - Groth's site has disappeared, although there are still some articles he penned available here and here. I'd take everything he says with a grain of salt, of course. (Actually, I'd take an entire shaker of salt, just to play it safe.)

11/23/2001

Not much happening right now of interest. I'm currently listening to a Brainwave Generator preset I cooked up that uses the various Rife frequencies that are suppose to help with the eyes as a musical scale of sorts - it's not one of my best presets, since I'm still developing it, but if you want to give it a listen, here it is - Eye Scale - also you need this wave for the background - put it in your BWGEN directory.

(P.S. - the wave isn't that big - it's actually a reduced version of the actual soundfile I use on my own computer that I uploaded to BWGen for one of my other presets.)

11/16/2001

I had an interesting episode listening to one of my CoolEdit brainwave entrainment noises at work on my coffee break - the file was pretty much pink noise, overlapped with Gamma waves, Alpha waves, and Delta waves - if I remember correctly, I put the gamma waves [around 40 HZ] down first, followed by the alpha waves [10 HZ] and then the delta waves [don't remember what frequency - 4.5 HZ, maybe].

I had a very clear visual image in my head of somewhere near by - whether it was a remote viewing sort of schtick or just my mind's eye being stimulated by the noise, I'm not sure.

Unfortunately, I don't have the sound file here - it's on the computer at my job - I'll see if I can't reproduce it with Cooledit here and create Cooledit preset for it.

11/11/2001

I had some strange results with something I was fiddling with in CoolEdit last night - using the tone generator, I was experimenting with odd harmonic intervals. (An interval is two tones sounded at the same time - three or more is a chord.) I was playing with smaller intervals to see if there were any nice harmonies lower than a minor third (the minor third of a frequency would be about 1.18 to 1.2 times the first frequency. So, for 440 HZ, its minor third would be about 519 HZ.)

Oops - I'm getting sidetracked here - anyways, I was tinkering with intervals smaller than a minor third to see if there were any good harmonies. Using 125 HZ as a starting point, I tried using overtones that were 125 times 1.06, 1.07, 1.08, 1.12, 1.14, and 1.16 to see if any of these created harmonic results - some of them were fairly harmonic, but that's really not the point - I found some of the less harmonic ones produced "beats" that were very similar sounding to binaural beats. I suspect these beats caused by playing chords and intervals a little out of tune could also be used to entrain the brain. (The results made me very sleepy, and after falling asleep, I had a neat bout of sleep paralysis.)

I've heard of musicians using "reduction of beats" to tune their instruments - when you get two instrument perfectly in tune relative to each other, there are no beats. The beats most likely are caused by the parts of the two waves where they are out of phase with each other. Out of tune chords are going to have more parts where the two waves are out of phase with each other than in-tune chords. The entrainment here is prolly caused by something similar to the phase modulation effect CoolEdit uses in its Brainwave Synchronizer option.

I'm still not sure how to calculate how many beats a particular out of tune chord creates per second - I bet it's not a consistent number - it prolly fluctuates based on what the two tones of the interval are doing at any given second.

(P.S. I'll whip up a CoolEdit preset so you can hear what I was playing with sounded like.)

11/10/2001

I experimented some more with that 126.22 HZ frequency, playing it using the 3D sound component to my sound card this morning while getting to run some errands - it was nice, but no obvious effects. Although I was listening to it through speakers, and not headphones, and wasn't really paying much attention to it.

I also had some nice results with a Brainwave Generator preset I had cooked up called "Too Much Coffee" - it utilizes Rife frequencies said to help with vision and allergies - it did have a noticeable impact - got some blood moving in my forehead when I listened through headphones.

11/9/2001

I've been playing around some more with CoolEdit 96, trying out more of the frequencies from my own Brainwave/Cymatic Frequency list. I've updated the collection of CoolEdit scripts file with some additional ones from today. (Read the 11/8 entry for what to do with the file to get it to work.)

I'm also tinkering with adding secondary frequencies to the main frequency to create a little harmony - multiply the primary frequency by any of the following intervals to create some very pleasant accompanying tones - 1.2 [a minor third], 1.25 [major third], 1.33 [perfect fourth], 1.5 [perfect fifth], 1.57 [minor sixth], 1.67 [major sixth] Two others you can try are 1.63 [neutral "PHI" sixth] and 1.75 [harmonic seventh] - these two harmonic intervals aren't used that much in western music, so they might not be as pleasant as the others - the 1.75 interval is nice, but it takes some getting used to, since we're just not that familiar with it. You won't hear much of it in pop music.

Finally, I was listening to the 126.22 HZ frequency that the frequency list said had some sort of significance or something - I had it playing on my lunch break (through headphones), and found it worked really well to help me zone out - all sorts of random babbling in the brain, the sort you get when you're on the verge of falling asleep. I included a preset in the CoolEdit collection above for 126.22 - give it a try and let me know if you experience anything weird while listening to it.

11/8/2001

Over the last two days, I've been tinkering with CoolEdit 96, and creating some tones based on the Brainwave/Cymatic Frequency list here and a second list with EM frequencies said to cure various ills. For those of you with CoolEdit, here is a collection of CoolEdit scripts to create all the various tones I've been playing with. Put it in your Cooledit directory, and then go into the Cool Scripts/Batch Process screen (it's under Options). Go to Open File, and load the file MORE.SCP. (Note - I'm not sure if this works with CoolEdit 2000 - I've never used it, so I'm not sure if the Script files for CoolEdit 96 are compatible.)

Try meditating or zoning out to some of the chords through headphones - a few of them are really pleasant-sounding.