A question of "beats"

[Marisa]

Thanks for the quick information Tom/Marisa! Your responses have engendered further questions. Didn't your mother teach you to not talk to strangers?

But what if you are stranger than the stranger ... does that cancel out the rule?

1) Tom you comment, as Craig did on the other forum,
"you should be ok as long as you avoid binaural beats." Question, is there a reason for one with a broken ear to avoid them, other than the fact that they won't work?

Sorry to butt in ... I don't agree that you should avoid binaural beats as no harm can come from programs that have them. Essentially it won't work sound-wise because of the deaf in one ear thing but there is still chance that it may work via the visual. It would be interesting to try and see if you notice a difference.

2) Ahh, Tom, ye give me too much credit when you speak of "advanced session programing tools". I had trouble with 2 tin cans and a string during childhood.
Which is the EASIEST to program?

More apologies for butting in ... If you want, you can download both editors and take a look at them and get an idea for yourself which one looks easier to work with.

The easiest way to create new programs with either machine is to take one of the existing programs that is similar to what you want and modify it instead of start from scratch.

The Proteus, I found, to be a bit more complicated than the Procyon only because there are more options to choose from and I don't know if it's really necessary to have all of those options unless you are going to experiment with them.

3) Marisa, what if any are the differences between the Proteus and Procyon in terms of programming ease, light quality, etc? As I recall w/o doing a search right now, the Procyon has greater color range, extends Hz up to 75, uses surface mounted LEDs
and more LED colors?

I don't have the technical background that Tom, Craig or Andy has so all I can give is my opinion on the quality from an end-users point of view. Those guys may be able to give you a better answer than me on this.

Moving past my disclaimer, my opinion is - I don't notice a difference in the quality of the lights. The Procyon is capable of generating more shades because of the third color so there are more creative options there. In using the preset programs, I like both machines but have noticed more intense visual effects with the Proteus but that may be due to the nature of the programs instead of the machine.

I like the sounds on the Procyon better than the Proteus. I'm pretty sound sensitive so on the Proteus, I've created my own programs which I use all the time and have chosen a lower frequency of sound to work with. So on the Procyon, I tend to use the preset programs and on the Proteus I use my own programs.

For you, I think the Procyon may be the best choice because it has more options that you may find enjoyable (more shades of color, ganzfeld).

I gather that you are not in Canada so any purchase choice you make does not affect my profit margin ... just so you know that there is no financial advantage or disadvantage for me regarding my recommendations.

Both machines will do what you want. It's just a matter of what options are important to you.

4) Marisa, you made a response about about "beats" in another thread as follows,"if you play, say 400 HS and 410 Hz in the same ear; you can hear the beat frequency in one ear." I be confused!!!! Is this useful for entrainment? If so do your machines do it?

That sounds like something to do with dual BBs and I would have to say that it's not going to make a big enough difference concerning entrainment. The Proteus is the machine that is capable of dual BBs. There isn't really any strong science that supports the dual bbs having any significant effects on the mind.

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I use the machines on myself for therapeutic purposes. I have Fibromyalgia and around 7 years ago, I developed some of the cognitive problems that coincide with FM. In particular, my challenges have been in the area of concentration, speech and memory. The term that is commonly used is called, "Fibro Fog".

The concentration problem is similar to ADD and I have noticed good results with the Beta/SMR frequencies. While I was visiting Robert (owner of Mindplace) we had a chance to play around with EEG and we found that my brain was generating too much Theta (which supports the ADD effects) and there was a lack of activity across the entire EEG as compared to Anji's (Robert's wife) EEG. After using the AVS -lights only - on an Alpha program, my EEG changed and showed activation across the brain. So it definitely fired up the cylinders.

Back, before the cognitive crap happened and I was working as a Hypnotherapist, I used the Proteus in my practice and it really was effective in helping induce trance. Many Hypnotherapist use the machines in their practice and have good results.

.... and I'm digressing from the subject .... sorry. LOL I'm curious as to whether there is something specific that you want to work on with the machine or do you plan to use them in your practice?

M.

[TomC]

Gust,

It really sounds to me (no pun intended) like you want something very simple and straightforward to use. Again, I suggest that the low cost Sirius machine will fit that bill very nicely. You do not have to hook it into a PC to update anything. Maybe not as fancy as it's bigger brothers (Proteus and Procyon) but it just works.

It has 23 built-in sessions and I'm sure that you would find a few of these very useful. You cannot reprogram/modify these like you can with the Proteus and Procyon units, but so what, you don't really need to and it does not sound like it's something that you would want to undertake anyway.

The Sirius, like the Proteus, has a manual mode (the Procyon does not have this feature) that lets you set any entrainment frequency you'd like, and the good news for you is, it's monaurial. It also has a light-organ feature (neither the Proteus or Procyon have this) that lets you listen to music (or hypno tracks) and the lights flash along with this (very entertaining, esp when listening to some good old Moody Blues tracks!).

I would not get too hung up on colour right now. I have just about every coloured glasses that you can buy and I cannot really say that I notice much difference with any of them (entrainment-wise). The mono-colored white ones that come with the Sirius unit are as good as any in my opinion, esp. for the purpose of simple, straightforward entrainment. You can buy any colour mono-coloured or bi-coloured MP glasses and try them out later. They all work fine with the Sirius. I know, I've got them all. All the MP mono and bi-coloured glasses also work well with the Proteus, which comes with a nice pair of red/green bi-coloured glasses.

I also have all the MP machines; Sirius, Proteus, Procyon, and Thoughtstream. I probably use the Sirius ~75% of the time (Proteus ~20%, Procyon ~5%, and I have not used the thoughtstream for over 2 years).

Anyway, I would recommend starting off with the Sirius. If you don't want the light-organ feature, and have an extra ~$60 to spend, the Proteus would also be a very good choice, esp. if you think that you might want to play around with it's session editor (via your PC).

If you want to go further, I'd recommend you look at the Transparent Corp software NP2-pro. It's only ~$60 and lets you use and create many more interesting sessions, if that's what you want to do, and it works well with the Sirius machine (it also works well with the Proteus and Procyon). Just my opinion but I think that NP2 -pro is much easier, and better that anything you can do with the Proteus/Procyon session editors.

I rest my case!

Cheers,
TomC