I suffer from mild tinnitus in my right ear. I’m always looking for solutions for when it bothers me. The current solutions cost a lot of money and tend to be monthly subscriptions, so I created my own tinnitus-combating machine.
Modern approaches to tinnitus therapy combine sound-based treatments, such as notched sound therapy, with auditory bilateral stimulation – adapted from EMDR where sound pans gently from left to right – these therapies aim to calm the nervous system and help the brain shift its focus away from the persistent ringing, reducing hyperactivity in the auditory cortex. Remarkably, it does seem to work.
The tinnitus machine itself has five potential audio sources with a mixer, filter, reverb to taste and graphic equaliser to notch either side of the core tone. Once the core tone has been set in the sequencer, there are two sliders ‘semi and fine’ where you can adjust the pitch further. There’s also an additional LFO, which when turned on, will gently change pitch subtly. In my patch this is switched off as is the reverb.
The included bilateral panner allows you to control the speed and by how much the sound pans from left to right. This can be done with the LFO rate and amount knobs. You can also sync these if that’s important to you.
The project file contains sounds and the core tone that works for me. You can simply change the sounds and core tone for your needs.
If you’re currently living with tinnitus, please do post a comment, let me know I’m not alone. How does tinnitus usually show up for you, what type of sound have you got, did you easily identify the pitch and what are your current go-to methods for tackling it?
Hope it helps somebody or many, and please don’t forget, if it does help you, hit the ‘❤️’, post a comment and drop me some $$$ at https://ko-fi.com/jokulgil
I really thought hard about the workflow so I thought I should share that here too.
The best way to use the project file is to start with a single note in the sequencer. In the Instrument Rack, zero all the sound sources: oscillators, noise and the mixer and just start with a simple single oscillator. Then use the two sliders and the main pitch control module to tune your initial tone. This sets the base from which all the other tones will start too and can be adjusted again later to change the pitch of the whole patch. From there you can add further oscillators and noise and separate those tones using Tune, Fine, Timbre, Harmonics, Color, Noise Filter and of course the Mixer. From there you notch the main frequency leaving only the frequencies either side of it – the approach known as tailor-made notched sound therapy. The first LFO and Morph modules can then be used to introduce some subtle pitch variations, if you want that, and you can change the filter and reverb to suit. In the Processor Rack you can adjust the speed and depth of the movement from the left to right ear – the approach known as auditory bilateral stimulation – using the Rate and Depth knobs in the left and right LFO’s. If you follow that process I promise you, you’ll get something interesting that your brain hasn’t heard before. Also works best with headphones.
Hell, failing that set Voices to 1 and you’ll have a weird playable synth 😉