no, why would they?

the point of noise-cancelling headphones is just to keep external noise out

As far as I know, noise cancelling headphones play the anti-phase of the external noise over the top of what is being played through the headphones. Therefore this might interfere with the specific stereo frequencies of the beats. But I don't know if this is true, so I was hoping someone might have a definite answer.

When I was purchasing my mind machine, the company recommended to not use noise canceling headphones. In the grand scheme of things, I personally don't think it would make a noticeable difference in terms of effect cause you're still getting that beat difference and the length of the wave (alpha wave for example) is actually a small range of frequencies, so you should be put in that range, despite the canceled frequencies. If it's really so much of a concern, then you might wanna borrow a friend's headphones for your sessions if you don't have another pair.

Hey has anybody here tried or heard of binaural beats? I have heard many people say they are just a placebo, but I have had the weirdest experiences with them. What do you all think about them?

isochronic tones are supposed to be more effective

It's all a placebo. They are just some sine waves or other sound waves out of phase with each other.

(Producer here.)

My friend told me about a few experiences that got quite distorted. Like he was listening to this "LSD" one in his classroom and he stood up to walk somewhere and everything was pulsating and there was like incomprehensable wha wha wha speech coming from everyone. I remember he had tried alot of these and quite a few different outcomes came upon him.
Just cause it is only a simple sound wave does not mean it is not a complex device to trigger the exact possibilities and keys of the mind and its rhythms and neurochemistry, on the contrary, combinations of minute changes can bring about and through, and so to speak align perceptions and momentums. Everything is a frequency, including mind altering substances.
Just because it is a placebo doesn't mean it isn't real, so to speak. It still happened. Definition and conception of this event called placebo needs surface scratching in my opinion. But besides that I do think there could be something in listening to these shapes while under the influence of a psychedelic.

so are beliefs.



iDoser.

I experimented with both binaural and isochronic tones. Binaural didn't do anything to me on the other hand isochronic tones can get me into a deep relaxing state within minutes. Placebo or not for me it works and that's what counts . There are a lot of apps for the iphone/ipod with iso and binaurals.

I made a thread about this in the main forum a couple years ago
Gnaural is an old fav of mine, open-source, multi-platform
Neuro-programmer is one of the more advanced progs, has both binaural and isochronic.

iDoser even prompted media to report about it, dubbing it potentially dangerous "digital drugs".
whether it's placebo or not, you don't know for sure; for all we know, melatonin supplements are placebo.

it's theorized that the brain mimics the rhythm, which seems very plausible

so are beliefs.

Binaural beats and iso beats COULD work, but it requires a lot of your openness and willingless to being convinced that it works. Minds works in mysterious ways. Unfortunately, most binaural beats don't have a musical rhythm to them and so they don't attract me very much. Maybe I should try making binaural with a beat?

it's probably a matter of allowing the mind to rest, like meditation, rather than convincing yourself that it works.
for the most part, people are inundated with mental chatter; too busy asking themselves "is it working?"
the other thing I think is the problem, is that people focus on the panning; I liken it to a stereogram... if you concentrate on examining the pattern, you won't see the underlying image.

Cool Edit (now Adobe Audition) used to have a binaural beat plug-in

You could probably have a weird experience with a placebo, one doesn't exclude the other. What experience did you have?

Personally I'm very skeptical of these things as anything other than meditation aid. If you have to wonder if it "works" even while trying it yourself, it sounds like a pretty useless experience. Might as well listen to music, no?

This is no placebo. It works just like meditation. You can measure it's effects via brainscans etc.

You can also measure the effects of music via brain scans, or the effects of meditation. How do you differentiate?

do you know how the scientific method works?

control group, and experimental group. you monitor EEG patterns.

Right, I guess what I'm asking is whether any study has conclusively shown the effects of these sounds to be different than those of drifting off into good music and/or meditating, as the proponents of this seem to suggest.

I have used them several times to amazing results- rapid thoughts, crazy ideas, increased intelligence(or concentration, not sure.), lucid dreams, calm from angry, motivated from calm.

However I have also used them with hardly any results.

I have the Procyon Light & Sound Mind Machine (available on Amazon). It uses a combination of binaural beats and modulated light to affect your mood.

Brain waves tend to be between a few and up to 20 or so cycles per second. Lower frequencies occur during relaxation, and higher frequencies during concentration. These frequencies are too low for our ears to hear. However, they can be produced by beating two frequencies together (one in each ear). For example, if you wanted your brain waves to favor a low frequency such as 10 cycles per second, you could feed a 200Hz tone into one ear and a 210Hz tone into the other. Over a period of time (minutes), the frequency of brain waves tends to gradually synchronise with the frequency is is fed. Adding modulated light (in this example, also at 10Hz) intensifies the effect.

The Procyon has various "programs" to aid in such things as relaxation, concentration, sleep, etc. There are also "mind art" programs that aim to produce visual imagery.

I do find (subjectively) that this device can in fact produce changes in mental state. I can even get some (admittedly pretty low-level) visuals using it. While consciousness is altered, the effects are minor compared to psychedelic drugs. I have used it before when I ended up with too low of a dose of psychedelics before and wanted to intensify the effects.

elphologist

Maybe with a lot of drugs, hahaha. No, i think it's a placebo.