Mindspace Professional
Choosing a frequency
There is no correct number. Most practitioners settle somewhere between 8 and 6 Hz, and the decision worth thinking about is not where you end but how long you take to get there.
The range the mixer and the journey player offer. Band boundaries vary slightly between sources; these are the conventional ones.
What the names actually mean
The bands are borrowed from how brain activity is described in research. A 6 Hz beat is called theta because 6 Hz falls inside the theta band. That is all the name means. It is a label for a number, not a description of what happens to anyone listening.
Binaural beats are widely searched and commonly associated in popular wellness culture with calm, focus and deep rest. We are not going to tell you more than that, because more than that is not known. What we can tell you is what practitioners choose, and why, which is the rest of this page.
Fourteen down to four
- 14 to 12 Hz
- Low beta. The fastest on offer here. Rarely chosen for a whole session, often used as a starting point before a descent.
- 12 to 8 Hz
- Alpha. A common place to begin, because it is close to where many people already are when they arrive and settle.
- 8 to 4 Hz
- Theta. Where most practitioners bring a session to, and where the marked zone sits.
The mixer marks 8 to 6 Hz because that is where most practitioners end up, not because anything happens at 8 that does not happen at 8.5. Treat it as a starting suggestion you will adjust.
Hold, or descend
Hold stays at one frequency throughout. Simple, and a reasonable default for a shorter session or a recording a client will replay.
Descend starts higher and comes down across the session. The thinking is straightforward: you meet someone closer to where they are when they walk in, rather than where you would like them to be, and the change happens slowly enough that nothing announces itself.
A common shape is starting around 10 Hz and settling at 7. What matters more than either number is that the journey is slow.
Where the descent finishes
On the descent graph, the handle on the line sets the settle point: the moment the frequency stops moving and holds for the rest of the session. Drag it and the time is shown as you go.
The useful question is when the working part of your session begins. Most practitioners put the settle point a little before that, so the frequency is already steady by the time it matters rather than still moving underneath it.
Roughly a third of the way in is a reasonable first guess. In a ninety minute session that is around thirty minutes of descent and an hour of hold.
The carrier is not the beat
Two numbers sit next to each other and they are not the same thing. The beat is the frequency you have been choosing: 14 down to 4. The carrier is the audible tone it rides on, which is hundreds of times higher.
You never hear the beat directly. You hear the carrier. So the carrier is the one that decides whether the whole thing sits inside the music or sticks out of it, which is what the Match key button is for: it tunes the carrier to the key of the library track you chose.
How to actually decide
- Listen to it yourself first, on the headphones you will use, for longer than feels necessary. Ten seconds tells you nothing.
- Change one thing at a time. A new start frequency and a new settle point together tell you nothing about either.
- If you can hear it, it is too loud. The beat level should sit under the music, not beside it.
- Write down what you used. The licence records the track; nothing records your settings. A note now saves reconstructing a session you liked.
- Trust the room over the number. A frequency that works for you may not suit a particular client, and they are the better evidence.
In summary: most practitioners settle between 8 and 6 Hz, start higher than that if they are descending, and give the descent about a third of the session. The band names describe the numbers rather than the listener, and the only real test is listening on your own kit for long enough to have an opinion.