Review: Ambiscience for iPhone: Alter Your Brainwaves Through Sound

In my recent article on binaural beats and brainwave entrainment, I shared some background information on the subject and showed you how to make a binaural beat of your own in Pro Tools. For those of you who want to have more of this powerful tool for altering your brainwave states at your fingerstips (and ears for that matter), the Ambiscience App for iPhone is for you. There are 12 different versions of this App by Tesla Software including one for sleep or meditation specifically. But, you want to take advantage of all the binaural beats they have created, get the Ambiscience 300 ($2.99) which includes a bit of everything. Let's get into the main features of this easy-to-use and effective App.

Choose Your Soundtrack

Pic 1 – Choose Your Ambient Music or Sound Effects Section

After launching the App, choose the music or sound effect ambience that you like. An extensive list is provided of ambient music tracks, nature sounds, drones with different instruments and various noise including white, pink and brown. You can also adjust the volume of music on this page. Next, hit the 'e' button about the '300' to choose your Entrainment effect.

Choose Your Entrainment Effect

Pic 2 – Choose Your Entrainment Effect

Choose from binaural beat programs like Power Nap, Deep Sleep, Attention and Focus, Memory Improve and even DNA Repair. 'HP' means the binaural beat is more effective using headphones and 'SPK' means that listening through speakers will also bring about the desired effect. Set the level of the binaural beat using the slider. 

Let's Make a Preset

To get there, hit the Home button at the bottom of the entrainment page and go back to the music selection page. Select the preset button at the top right.

Mixing Sounds and Making Presets 

Pic 3 – Mixing the Sound Levels and Making Presets

Make a few presets of your favorite music/nature tracks and entrainments effects so you can quickly load them up for a session. Ambiscience developers suggest a 4 or 5 to 1 ratio between music and entrainment for best results but you are welcome to experiment yourself. It's not necessary to hear the binaural beat at a loud volume in order for it to work. Don't forget to save your preset!

Adding additional loops 

If you like, add a couple additional noise, nature or ambient loops under the two other tracks. The sonic field can get busy really fast so be careful not to combine too many sounds that will distract your meditation or sleep. Next, choose the 'add intervals' button to add intermittent sounds.

Adding Intervals in your Presets

Pic 4 – Adding Interval Sounds to Your Presets

This is a new feature unique to the Ambiscience 300 edition. Choose from different catagories of sounds like weather for example to have a thunder clap come in every 30 seconds and wind come and in out every 100 seconds. This will give the preset even more sonic variety. Adjust the volume to taste.

Get into the Details

Pic 5 – Ambiscience Information Page

Be sure to check out the detailed information page that you can access through the Entrainment effects page where it says 'tap here for detailed instructions.' Binaural and Isochronic tones are explained as well as the frequencies used in the various programs provided.

I'd love to hear some of your experiences with this App in the comments section. So, if Ambiscience 300 sounds like a tool that would help your sleep, meditation and focus process give it whirl and let me know how it goes!