Mindspace Professional
Getting the sound to your client
How the sound reaches the room decides what you can use in it. Headphones and a speaker are not two ways of doing the same thing, and the difference is settled before anyone sits down.
A binaural beat needs headphones. There is no way around it.
A binaural beat is not a sound being played. Each ear is given its own tone, and the beat is what the listener perceives between them. Through a speaker both ears hear both tones, so there is nothing left to perceive. It is not quieter. It is gone.
If the session has to run through a speaker, use an isochronic tone instead. It pulses rather than depending on two ears, and it survives a speaker intact. That toggle is in section 4 of the Session Mixer and in the journey player.
Headphones
Binaural and isochronic both work. The client hears the room less, which is worth as much as anything you add.
Ask before the session whether they find headphones uncomfortable lying down. Over-ear on a reclined head is a real problem for some people, and it is better discovered now.
A speaker in the room
Isochronic only. Everything else works normally: the music, the nature recordings and the coloured noise are unaffected.
Coloured noise earns its place here. It lifts the floor slightly, which softens what arrives from the street and the corridor.
Check Spatial Audio before you start
A client's own earbuds are usually fine, with one thing to check. Spatial Audio mixes what each ear hears in order to place sound in a room, which is exactly the separation a binaural beat depends on. It also turns itself on after some updates, so a pair that worked last month may not today.
On iPhone and iPad, hold the volume slider in Control Centre while the headphones are connected and set Spatial Audio to Off. Turning off head tracking alone is not enough.
Wireless is fine in principle. If you use a particular pair often, listen to a beat on them yourself once, at the frequency you actually work at, and trust what you hear over any general claim about wireless audio.
Set the volume without them in the room
There are two volumes, and only one of them is obvious. The device has its own, and so does the player. A device at a quarter with the player at full sounds like a fault in the player.
- Set it while you are sitting where they will be. What is right at your desk is rarely right in the chair.
- Leave headroom. A level you would call slightly too quiet at the start is usually right once the room is still.
- Then do not touch it. A hand moving to a volume control is a thing in the room. Decide before, not during.
Where it sits, and what it might do
- Out of sight, not out of reach. A screen facing the client is a light source and something to look at.
- Silence notifications. Do Not Disturb, and check that alarms are covered by it.
- Not a private or incognito window. On iPhone that stops the sound the moment the screen locks.
- Turn repeat on. Ten tracks is about fifty minutes. A seventy-five minute session will fall silent without it.
- Download first if the connection is poor. Mindspace Offline runs a whole session with no connection at all, but the downloading is done in advance, not on the day.
In summary: headphones if there is a binaural beat, isochronic if it has to be a speaker, Spatial Audio off on anything the client brings, volume set from the chair before they arrive, repeat on. The primary focus remains your own voice, with everything else underneath it.