Deaf in one ear

[krystal69]

Being deaf in one ear (from about 4 years old) makes it somewhat impossible to benefit from binaural sounds. Would it help to mix both left and right channels into the left channel? (It doesn't sound like it helps.) Can I put up my hand to request isochronic sounds always rather than binaurals?

[Endo]

I've used Isos. They're good. If you can get a plain jane version of the file, then it's very easy to obtain an Iso track and paste it in using Audacity. You can also generate Isos through Audacity pretty easily, but I've not tried that yet.

[zapnosis]

In theory, if you mix binaural tracks into one track you should still hear the beats. The beats are the result of an interference pattern caused by two slightly different tones played together. Some people can even tune stringed instruments this way, i.e. by listening to the beat when the same note is played on 2 different strings. All that happens with binaurals is the brain mixes the tones together and the beat emerges.

In reality it may not be so simple, depending on how the file was created I guess, there might be some distortion or something. Either way binaurals are definitely overrated, Audacity's "tremolo" effect is much, much better for making sounds pulse. I have used that effect on my files, but I still use stereo effects because I just didn't think of it. So thank you for bringing this to our attention. :D I think some progress will come of it!

Z

[xavious]

Admittedly, I don't know a lot about how binaural's work, but maybe it might be worth mixing files into mono so you hear the all the same sound even out of one speaker?

[ParanoidLord]

It might be worth mixing files into mono, but your music player might be able to downmix in real time if you set up the options correctly, too. Keep in mind I'm speaking from a desktop/laptop PC perspective; you might be able to get a working setup if you listen on a smartphone or something, but I'm not familiar with the software those things have. Winamp, for instance, has a "Force Mono" option; it's not perfect, but it does sound better than music with a channel missing.