Notched Music Therapy (DIY, AudioNotch, etc.)

That's a bit of a strange thing to say because you go on quoting the specification of the filtering protocol right after that statement...

I have a feeling that you are having trouble because you may be lacking expertise in signal processing to understand the specification (I don't question your smartness or aptitude - nobody is expected to know everything about everything).
For example, your question:

...shows some confusion about what an order is. You can look it up here. One way to think about the order is the "steepness" of the filter.

Lastly, I'm not sure it matters so much whether you attenuate some frequency band by 100 dB or 150 dB: at those high attenuation numbers, your signal becomes drowned by the rest of the noise around you ("noise" in the statistical sense, I don't mean that there is a lawn mower making noise next to you: right now if you go to a quiet place and hear nothing, that's the baseline noise I'm talking about).

 

Well @Samir - I see you've read up on it now... it should help you understand the spec better.
Here's a site I like to play with - you may have fun with it (it's a Biquad instead of Butterworth though).

 

That's my guess yes.

Certainly, but that page describes a Biquad. Biquads are nice because they are generic ways of implementing multiple types of filters. For your purpose you can use the notch type, and yes, I know that you don't get to specify gain for that type (but you do for other types).

 

I haven't tried this but I was theorising. If music is better because it summons emotions then shouldn't also music be used that you absolutely hate? And music that makes you sad?

Because those are the emotions people probably have with T.

Maybe a mix of relaxing, sad, annoying and party pumping songs be used. From childhood memory to also songs you have adjusted before you listen to it the first time in your life?

Or am I ramling nonsense?

 

https://tinnitusnotch.com/
would someone recommend this site?

 

Hey, i've tried experimenting a bit with notched songs and white noises.
Personally i find that it eases the tinnitus after a while to a pleasant level but the whole process feels quite heavy to me (ie : converting everything takes time ).

So i was wondering if there is a way to use a Band stop filter to attenuate frequencies directly on windows or osx directly ? because when i look into it most of the things i hear come from my computer and it would be truly great to just attenuate those all the time.

 

Another study on notched music therapy :
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28558452

Zhonghua Er Bi Yan Hou Tou Jing Wai Ke Za Zhi. 2017 May 7;52(5):343-348. doi: 10.3760/cma.j.issn.1673-0860.2017.05.005.
[Preliminary analysis of the effects of tailor-made notched music therapy on chronic idiopathic tinnitus].
[Article in Chinese; Abstract available in Chinese from the publisher]
Tian RR1, Diao MF2, Tian FJ2, Sun JJ3, Lin X4.
Author information

Abstract
in English, Chinese
Objective: Tailor-made notched music was applied to alleviate the symptoms of chronic idiopathic tinnitus and compared its effectiveness with other existing sound treatment of tinnitus. Methods: Subjects (n=43; ears=75 )were recruited during June 2015 to October 2016 from the out-patients of our hospital. These patients had chronic (longer than 6months) and idiopathic tinnitus, with or without significant sensorineural hearing loss. In the prospective design, the patients were randomly divided into group A (treated with tailor-made notched music) and group B (treated with analogous sound masking), and received the treatment for 3 months. The tinnitus scale, tinnitus questionnaire and audiological findings were evaluated before treatment, and at one month and three months after treatment started. Results: After onemonth of treatment, the effective rate between the two groups was 40.9% and 42.9%, there was no significant difference between the two groups (χ(2)= 0.017, P=0.897). The average VAS for patients in group A showed more decrease in group A than in group B(VAS: 1.8 vs. 0.8, the percentage : 29.5% vs. 13.6%), but there was no significant difference between the two groups (t=-1.450, P=0.155). After 3 months of treatment, the effective rates were 68.2% and 23.8%, respectively. There was significant difference between the two groups (χ(2)= 8.503, P=0.004). The difference of the VAS scores between the two groups was statistically significant (t=-3.263, P=0.002), and the VAS score of group A was less.After 3 months of treatment, there was significant decreaseinthe average tinnitus loudness for patients in group A(t=5.569, P<0.01), and there was no significant changein group B(t=-0.953, P=0.374). There was also significant decreasein the scores of tinnitus handicap inventory (THI) (F=7.334, P<0.05), loudness visual analog scale (VAS) (F=20.48, P<0.001), and the proportion of patients with moderate to severe tinnitus(χ(2)=11.289, P<0.05) in the group A, and there was no significant change in group B(F=2.198, F=0.989, χ(2)=1.651; P=0.120, P=0.378, P=0.438>0.05). Conclusions: Our resultssuggest that long-term normalized listening to tailor-made notched music, can significantly reduce the perceived tinnitus loudness in varying degrees and improve the quality of life of patients. The effects and possible mechanism of this method were discussedin this paper.

KEYWORDS:
Individuation; Music therapy; Prospective study; Sound treatment; Tinnitus

PMID: 28558452

 

Notched White Noise is really beneficial for me.

My frequency turns out to be around 7300 Hz. Once this is embedded into the White Noise track, it becomes very soothing.

Thanks to the forum for sharing this info. It really works!

regards

 

It has been several days since I have been listening to "notched white noise". My tinnitus has substantially gone down, most of the time, not all the time. I am still very pleased!

My diet has to be restricted to more fruits and vegetables and portion control. If I don't, my tinnitus get worse.

I have to cut down on coffee. If I don't, my tinnitus gets worse.

I have a beer or cider but that makes my tinnitus really loud. It is up to me to cut out alcohol all together, but it is so difficult.

To get notched white noise as a free Android App, download "Tinnitus Notch" from the Play Store. Plug in your frequency and away you go. This is what I use.

Youtube also has notched music channels. There is no reason to have to pay for any of this.

regards

 

This is a fantastic site!

 

Do u have experience with this site? can u damage something if u don't know the exact tone of your t?

 

You can't damage anything if you don't know your tone but you can damage yourself with volume set too loud, be careful when starting the tone generator. If you are unable to match your tone the thinking is the therapy won't be effective. I use it but I honestly can't tell the difference between it and plain white noise.

 

You're not supposed to be able to tell the difference between white noise and windowed white noise. As with most notched content, the notch is imperceptible: you have to open a spectrum analyzer to "see it".

 

Agreed but I don't feel any therapeutic difference either.

 

How many days have you been compliant with the treatment? (4-6 hours a day)

 

I've been using it for months and with my capability to stream from iPhone to hearing aids I listen way more than 4 to 6 hours a day. Don't misunderstand I am an advocate for notched but let's face it, it's not a 100% guarantee that it will work and because of that I make extensive use of all types of sound therapy, neuromonics and sound enrichment and have at times slept with sleep phones. I'm listening now as I often do in the evenings while watching TV or browsing the forums.

 

Well, yes. Nobody is claiming there is a cure out there, as far as I know...

 

Hi! Just wanted to chime in real quick. I don't have the time to read all the previous 8 pages of this thread but I wanted to specify a couple things that I have noticed while skimming...

1. Any sort of audio compression will completely invalidate this therapy. mp3, AAC, etc. It needs to be a full-resolution WAV file. If you're listening to sound therapy files off Youtube, they may help you because they take your attention away from your T, but you're not receiving a full bandwidth signal.

2. The term for steepness of a filter in audio would be db/oct. So a 6db/oct filter is gentler than a 48db/oct filter. The steeper the filter, the more the signal is attenuated below it's cut-off point. The trade off is "phase shift", specifically around the cut-off point of the filter. This is probably getting in deeper than is actually useful for the purpose of this thread.

 

"Any sort of audio compression will completely invalidate this therapy."

That being true is evidence that these therapies can not be scientifically validated through double blind testing. All these providers allow for and are based on MP3 files played on iPod like devices.
I do use them and I do feel some benefit of residual habituation and these sound therapies are helpful but that's about as far as it goes for me.

 

You have to understand this statement a bit better. I think what @MidnightOilAudio means is that any lossy compression will invalidate the therapy.
Not all audio formats are lossy though. There are some compressed and uncompressed formats that are not lossy.
Secondly, lossy compression impacts high frequencies much more than low frequencies, and nobody has proved that a high bitrate lossy codec is inappropriate to treat all T frequencies.

If you would look for them (on pubmed for example), you'd find them. At the end of the day it doesn't matter if the audio is (lossy) compressed or not in the study: if the results of the study show an improvement, then it's an improvement with whatever they've used, lossy or not.

The fact that they use an iPod-like device has no bearing on the file format. iPods (and other portable devices) can easily play lossless audio.

It doesn't work for everyone unfortunately. Sorry it doesn't work for you. But the studies do show improvements for a percentage of patients. \
Think twice about ditching a therapy just because you're not in the "lucky set": I had a 50/50 chance of getting rid of my T with surgery, and I wasn't lucky. That doesn't mean I should discourage people from doing it: 50% is an awesome chance at getting rid of T (if you have otosclerosis, like me).

 

Correct, I meant any sort of compression that is lossy in nature, which most of them are. Mp3 compression is VERY lossy (depending on bitrate). 128kbps sounds like garbage. 320kbps has shown to be indistinguishable from a 44.1kHz, 24-bit WAV file. HOWEVER, while it has shown to be indistinguishable with regards to our perception of music, that doesn't mean that it is indistinguishable to our brain at the subconcious level, where all this neuronal re-wiring is obviously taking place.

Also correct that no one has proved a hi bitrate lossy codec is inappropriate to treat all T frequencies, but if I were going to give this a shot, I would want to do it with a full resolution file. Why not? Storage is cheap nowadays. Am I missing something or do you not need an hour long track? Why not a 5 minute track on loop?

 

I'm not ditching any sound therapy, I have and will continue to make extensive use of all sound therapies that I can. You should be aware that all studies published are not truly double blind and are almost always biased with testers having a conflict in their interest in the company being studied.

 

That's just an assumption, while it may be correct it's also most likely not. Yes, they may limit the studies to include people they believe will get the best efficacious result, but that doesn't invalidate the results for appropriate candidates.

That's a good thing. As much as sound therapies receive a beating here, the concencious from the professionals is that it's the go to "treatment" after exhausting other health checks. I certainly have not studied audiology or medicine to become an ENT doctor and neither have 99.999% of people here and their credibility should trump advice received here. People come here for support, are upset and desperate (myself included).

 

Absolutely.

What you say make sense of course. That's what I do when I generate Tinnitus sound therapy files: I generate them in WAV format (uncompressed), and if/when I get an mp3 as input (for notching) I preserve the original bitrate in the resulting file.

 

Can someone make me some notched music? My T freq is pretty high.. 10 to 12khz

 

https://www.audionotch.com/

 

Does anyone know how one would apply this new research regarding 10 Hz amplitude modulation to regular notched sounds?

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnagi.2017.00130/full

 

It's easy to do with a broadband noise, like white noise or rain / water sounds. You modulate the sound and then take a notch out.

The research does say that the sounds were most effective when around the tinnitus tone so if you have a pure tone tinnitus the best sound will not have any energy to be able to take a notch out of.