I looked for a way to add binaural beats to my music, and I found it in the most unusual place – Valhalla’s FreqEcho. It is so easy, it is unreal. Oh, and it’s free.
Valhalla wrote it themselves in a blog post here: https://valhalladsp.com/2010/05/28/valhallafreqecho-binaural-beats-and-the-strange-mechanism/
But, I can tell you how I used it to make music that you can relax or even fall asleep to. Binaural beats can entrain the brain into a slower frequency of brainwaves. If you pick a frequency that is at one of the brain frequencies of interest (like Delta for sleep, for example), you can induce that state.
- Download the free FreqEcho plugin from Valhalla DSP. Put it on a mix bus like one that has a bunch of pianos or synths.
- Make these settings:
- Delay at the lowest.
- Feedback zero.
- Low cut lowest.
- High cut highest.
- Output mode should be Stereo.
- Set the shift to a value that is half the frequency you want.
- Delta waves (sleep) are at 1-4 Hertz, so set the shift to a range of 0.5-2.
- Theta waves (relaxation) are at 4-8 Hertz, so set shift to a range of 2-4.
- Alpha waves (stress reduction) are at 9-11 Hertz, so set shift to 4.5-5.5.
- Beta waves (engagement) are 12.5-30 Hertz, so set shift to 6.25-15.
- The mix knob is where it gets interesting. I like to automate it to start from 0 (no beats) and ramp it upwards to as high as 50% (half mixed beats with the music). Even lower ranges such as 30% seem to cause an induction of the desired wave function. For example, I can sleep when I mix in about 30% of a Delta wave frequency, but will often mix it in slowly or sporadically throughout a song to give the listener time to acclimate to it. Towards the end of a song, I will ramp it to near 50% for full effect.
