Can I create binaural beats as a sleeping aid in Nuendo, Cubase or Spectralayers?

Nuendo
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My wife has a really bad sleep disorder. Her main problem is being able to fall asleep, but also waking up after sleeping for an hour or two. She went to different sleeping specialists and they prescribed her everything there is in the market, at least in the US. Her situation hasn’t changed at all.

One day recently I was searching online for suggestions on sleeping aids outside the box, and I came across some articles that were talking about binaural beats, something that sounds like a VSTi or expansion pack for Maschine, but it’s about waves in specific frequencies that help with stress, sleep, mood and so on. Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know, but having so much software at my disposal to create all types of sounds, including Nuendo 13, Cubase Pro 13 and Spectralayers 10, I figured there has to be something in them to be able to create these sounds.

Does anyone have any experience with that here? Obviously I can just create a sine wave not just in Cubase/Nuendo but in several synths, like CS-80, Diva, and the ones in HALion Sonic 7 I think, at least some of them. But it would be like shooting in the dark, and I would like a few tips if possible.

After all, if a few thousand kids can play a specific note at the same time to make every single person in the world to crap their pants, it should be possible to create some specific sound to make one person fall asleep.

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Hey Sebastian, sorry to hear about your wife’s sleeping issues. I applaud you for picking up on this for your partner. It will mean a lot to hear seeing you care that much. That will already help her.
First point: I am not a physicist and not buddha, but from what I’ve read: binaural beats are a tool that helps people meditate. It is a tool/method to help focus, there is a lengthy debate about FBI and CIA research into the benefits of this method (mindreading… amongst them). This should give you a healthy warning not to be too expectant for miracles.
However you can certainly experiment with it, I think n13 has a great new featureset with their new testgenerator plugin. TestGenerator
You can use it to render two ‘beating’ frequencies. It’s not terribly difficult.
https://www.344audio.com/post/article-how-to-make-binaural-beats

Second: I don’t know how ‘serious’ her issues are, it could well be a medical issue I don’t know. What I will say, as a person who has had sleeping issues, is that ‘fighting’ sleeping issues did not help me. Embracing the fact that I had no contro did help… That said I ‘only’ had it for half a year and got out by simply accepting that it was not up to me to feel asleep. I handed it over to a fictional entity (seriously I invented my own sleeping god and it worked). I still have trouble falling a sleep ever so often but I accept that’s just part of life.

I’ve read about sleeping issues and one doctor was quoted saying something like this: ‘the first thing I tell people is: you don’t have a problem. Stop focussing on it and it will be easier to fall asleep, but it takes time.’ He also does serious research with brain scans etc…

Good luck!

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Thanks for your kind reply. Last night I did a test that she will try tonight. In Spectralayers, I created four mono files, the first two with a length of two hours each, and the other two at 10,000 seconds, because apparently that’s the longest file Spectralayers can create.

In the first file, I generated a 40 Hz sinewave, in the second one, a 46 Hz one. For the other two I did the same but at 30 and 33 Hz. The idea was to create an 8 hour long audio file that would have the 40 and 46 Hz files for two hours, and the other two for 6 hours. I got the idea behind this from this article, of which I’m going to paste a small section here:

As mentioned earlier, for a binaural beat to work, the two tones have to have frequencies of less than 1000 HzTrusted Source, and the difference between the two tones can’t be more than 30 Hz.

You can also decide which brain wave fits your desired state. In general:

Binaural beats in the delta (1 to 4 Hz) range have been associatedTrusted Source with deep sleep and relaxation.
Binaural beats in the theta (4 to 8 Hz) range are linkedTrusted Source to REM sleep, reduced anxiety, relaxation, as well as meditative and creative states.
Binaural beats in the alpha frequencies (8 to 13 Hz) are thoughtTrusted Source to encourage relaxation, promote positivity, and decrease anxiety.
Binaural beats in the lower beta frequencies (14 to 30 Hz) have been linkedTrusted Source to increased concentration and alertness, problem-solving, and improved memory.
Binaural beats of 40 Hz were found to be helpful in enhancing training and learning, according to a 2020 studyTrusted Source.

So it seemed to me that I had to generate two sets of binaural beats, the first in the theta range, the second one in the delta one. And, it had to be below 1 Khz.

Then I imported those files into Cubase (Nuendo had a heavy project loaded that I didn’t want to unload), and I set them up as you see in this screenshot.

Screenshot 2024-05-22 at 15.43.04
Screenshot 2024-05-22 at 15.43.043272×1108 258 KB

And these are mono files, so I panned the first track all the way to the left, and the other one to the right. I read somewhere that’s the best way to do it, rather than generate a sinewave in a stereo track.

So in theory this should create a 6 Hz tone for two hours, and a 3 Hz tone for the remaining 6 hours. She’s going to test this tonight, so we’ll see if it works at all. That is, if I did it right.

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Ok! Just one last tip: doublecheck the waveform and spectrogram for glitches and loud noises. You don’t want to peacefully fall asleep only to wake up to noise generated by an error created during export. Good luck

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Why did you decide to use such low frequencies?

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I figured that falling asleep with higher frequencies might be harder. This is like a rumble.

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Another thing you could try is to just generate Brownian noise, since it sounds like a waterfall and is pretty pleasant, and then modulate it between the two channels with an LFO at the frequency you want. Not quite the same effect, but same idea and it would give a broad-spectrum sound which might be more pleasing.

No idea if either would be helpful for sleep, but if you want something that give some low frequency waves, that’s another way you could try.

1 Like
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Thanks, I will consider it. However, she didn’t like at all trying to fall asleep with earbuds in her ears. So it seems like it’s not a solution she can embrace, unless it’s a noise so perfect that puts her to sleep instantly, which I doubt it exists.

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If that perfect noise existed, I’d be all over it :stuck_out_tongue:

I suppose something you could try is two speakers, one on each wall. That isn’t going to give the full on binaural effect, of course, but it still could give the effect of beats/interference. Dunno that it’ll help any though.

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You, and the whole world. I bet many of the huge problems in this world are caused by people being in a bad mood for not sleeping well. If you came up with a sound that puts people to sleep in less than five minutes, then the world would be a much better place.

Then you can come up with a sound that does the same for bad mood, crime, you name it.