Mixing Music with Sessions

[Andy]

(Continuing from MWP's questions at the end of this post: http://www.mindplacesupport.com/foru...41&postcount=4)

1, With the AS encoded cuts, do they include both light and pulse information, or just lights? (BTW, you shipped my AS CDs today, so am looking forward to getting them)

There are no pulses as they sound direct from sessions within the console, but there are rhythmic beats to the music which are supposed to work similarly to the session tones. The question is whether or not the music distracts or enhances the brain entrainment function?

2. Is there any way that you can mix one of your session cuts with music and then be able to save back into an mp3 cut

You could record the session sounds and use some multitrack audio recoriding software to mix the sound of the session with an mp3. The session sounds are generated by the synthesiser circuitry within the Procyon/Proteus/Sirius so they would have to be recorded. There's no .WAV or .mp3 of those sessions existing inside the consoles.

3. What is the take on the level of the pulses? I read somewhere they can even be slightly below the audible range and the brain still receives the message. As long as it is audible, even if the music overrides it, it is still information received by the brain, right?

Sounds right to me. I'll have to get someone more knowledgeable about such things to answer!

-Andy.

[MWP]

As long as you are getting "expert" responses, add one more question to the mix. What element is more important in the entrainment - audio or visual?

(I have read conflicting articles, but it seems to me most are leaning to the video just enhancing or adding entertainment to the audio pulses.)

[Andy]

While waiting for that reply, there's some EXCELLENT information about the technology that Marisa has compiled.

I'm sure the answers you are looking for are all contained therein and you would likely find some of the articles very interesting!

http://www.mindplacesupport.com/foru...splay.php?f=15

-Andy.

[MWP]

Thanks for the link. I had seen it, but not followed other links. In my search for an AVS machine, I read several articles, but did not book mark them. Two quotes though, from this web site article seem to indicate that sound is the key and embedding beats still accomplishes the purpose. Please refer to the full article, because the writer deserves the credit and these quotes should be put in context of the whole article...

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

"Various Uses Of Audio With Embedded Binaural Beats

Uses of audio with embedded binaural beats that are mixed with music or various pink or background sound are diverse. They range from relaxation, meditation, stress reduction, pain management, improved sleep quality, decrease in sleep requirements, super learning, enhanced creativity and intuition, remote viewing, telepathy, and out-of-body experience and lucid dreaming. Audio embedded with binaural beats is often combined with various meditation techniques, as well as positive affirmations and visualization."


"audio with embedded binaural beats alters the electrochemical environment of the brain. This allows mind-consciousness to have different experiences.

[CraigT]

If you've got an awful lot of time to kill, the essence of a couple of years intensive AVS, ummm, research is to be found in my blog. Cruelly, however, it is often scattered amongst vast amounts of my drivel de jour.

Photic stimulation generally trumps auditory. There's many different types of photic and auditory stimuli with varying compulsion. I like "compulsion" as a term to describe raw effectiveness of a signal. It gives us descriptions like "highly compelling". That is what may or may not be aimed for in a session. A highly compelling session gives a strong indication of affecting thought patterns in an EEG recording in accordance with the session structure.

On another point, it's been pretty adequately established that binaural beats don't entrain - it would seem, however, that they are effective for a lot of users, where "effective" means delivering the result the user hoped for.

Funnily enough, the most compelling component in many commercial CDs is the white noise, or natural forms thereof (rain, wind, waves, etc.). Noise seems to be ideal for, shall we say, disentraining, or making the mind more plastic. CDs or MP3s of plain, lo-tech nature ambience played alongside Procyon sessions would rate "highly compelling".

Music nearly always diminishes raw compulsion, but it can operate by other mechanisms - music can set mood and induce self-generation of desired frequencies.

Sorry for rambling - I've been amusing myself while I've waited for a monster file to crawl across my wireless LAN.

Cheers,
Craig

[Marisa]

As long as you are getting "expert" responses, add one more question to the mix. What element is more important in the entrainment - audio or visual?

(I have read conflicting articles, but it seems to me most are leaning to the video just enhancing or adding entertainment to the audio pulses.)

I would say that it depends on the person however, I've heard that the visual aspect is the strongest.

M.

[MWP]

Photic stimulation generally trumps auditory. There's many different types of photic and auditory stimuli with varying compulsion. I like "compulsion" as a term to describe raw effectiveness of a signal. It gives us descriptions like "highly compelling". That is what may or may not be aimed for in a session. A highly compelling session gives a strong indication of affecting thought patterns in an EEG recording in accordance with the session structure.

That most reliable of all sources, Wikipedia seems to validate both of your statements.

"Audio and visual entrainment (AVE) at 18.5 Hz has also been shown to produce dramatic increases in EEG amplitude at the vertex [11].
When comparing flashing light with evenly spaced auditory tone pulses (isochronic tones), it was found that with:
a) eyes-closed 18.5 Hz. photic entrainment increased 18.5 Hz EEG activity by 49%.
b) eyes-open auditory entrainment produced increased 18.5 Hz. EEG activity by 27%.
c) eyes-closed auditory entrainment produced increased 18.5 Hz EEG activity by 21%.
Auditory entrainment from isochronic tones produces about half of the entrainment effects as compared to flashing light."

Sleep well.. or for Craig "have a nice day."

Mark

[CraigT]

It's really good of you to post verification - "current" information changes so fast and there's so many sources that you never quite know when your best information has become obsolete.

I would add that these results may imply that eyes-open is more effective than eyes-closed - only true above 10Hz. Below 10Hz closed eyes win hands down.

Cheers,
Craig

[Andy]

I think you now have your Expert answers!

-Andy.

[TomC]

Great discussion thread!

Just a few of my thoughts on the subject (no particular order);

I don't like binearal beats except maybe for Delta (0.5-3hz). Otherwise, I prefer isochronic beats. Isochronic beats can sound a bit thumpy bellow 3hz.

I think that closed-eyed light is the most entraining medium so unfortunately, you need to carry around light glasses. Multi-coloured ones are very sexy but imho they do not do any better than mono-coloured white or red lights imho. Depending on the intensity of the light signal, I find that I see most colours with either of these two mono-coloured glasses. Personally, I prefer the red ones since I think I get better/more vivid light patterns with them.

For most entrainment I find that I can listen to just about any music I want to using just the light glasses hooked up to the AVS machine. Within reason of course, that is, relaxing music for relaxing sessions, and high energy music for energising sessions). So, at home you can have your sterio playing in the background, or on the plane you can be listening to in-flight audio.

At home, I prefer soft sit-on-your-ear headphones (with a single sided lead/plug). On Airplanes, I prefer noise-cancelling ear-buds.

All the Mindplace AVS machines (I own all three; Sirius, Proteus, and Procyon) contain very nice internal sessions. Depending where you are, you can use them with just headphones, light glasses, or both.

MWP, I suggest you purchase a Mindplace Sirius machine. It comes with white light glasses, is AS compliant and has a few features that the more expensive Procyon unit does not have, like manual freq. selection and colour light organ. Only $100 and well worth it imho (maybe for an extra $50 also buy the red mono-coloured glasses). It's a simple plug-and-play unit (your wife would probably love it) and does not require a PC interface. It just works!

Another thing worth buying is Transparent Corp's NP2-Pro software ($60). With this you can easily make any session you like, download it to a CD (wave file), or MP3 (you will need to convert it to MP3 from wave until NP3-Pro comes out soon) and play it through your mindplace machine. It uses the AS decoder to run the light glasses. Much easier to use than the internal proteus/procyon session editors imho.

AudioStrobe CD's are great, I have most of them. They also have a Web-Store where you can download MP3 files and try before buying, through your PC soundcard headphone jack hooked up to your Mindplace machine aux jack.

All I think we all really need is a MP3 player that is AS compliant. With this we could play all the AudioStrobe CD's/MP3's and all NP2-pro sessions on one small/simple unit. I don't think that this needs to be an Apple ipod application. Maybe just a unit that plugs into any MP3/CD player headphone jack and has a dual headphone/light glasses output jacks with a small internal AS decoder built-into it. Come on Mindplace (or AudioStrobe) and please come up with this soon!

Cheers,
TomC