Brainwave Harmonizer
Brainwave Harmonizer is a first of a kind VST plugin that runs entirely on 5-smooth mathematics. It locks to the BPM of your DAW and uses 2, 3 and 5 quantize to stay in perfect harmony.
There is also a standalone desktop version with two modes. In generator mode you can create and render very complex sine wave and noise based brainwave patterns. In audio player mode you can load any audio file and add brainwave modulations to a narrow frequency band leaving the rest of the music untouched. It also analyses and locks to the BPM of the audio file, so all brainwave modulations will work with the music and not against it.
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Here are some audio examples of how it sounds:
Mathematics
5-smooth numbers on which the Brainwave Harmonizer runs are numbers that don't have prime factors larger than 5. Here is a list of the first few 5-smooth numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 18, 20, 24, 25, 27, 30, 32, 36, 40, 45, 48, 50, 54, 60, 64, 72, 75, 80, 81, 90, 96, 100, 108, 120, 125, 128, 135, 144, 150, 160, 162, 180, 192, 200, 216, 225, 240, 243, 250, 256, 270, 288, 300, 320, 324, 360.
In mathematics, using 5-smooth numbers helps to keep things whole without too many irrational numbers appearing. They work so well because 5-smooth numbers share a lot of multiples with each other. This is why the Babylonians, the Maya, ancient Hindus and various ancient cultures had a preference for using 5-smooth numbers. Basically 5-smooth numbers have useful mathematical properties that numbers with higher prime factors don't have.
Music
In music, 5-limit music scales have ratios that contain only 5-smooth numbers. Because harmonics and multiples of any number are the exact same numbers, 5-smooth numbers sharing a lot of multiples also means that they share a lot of harmonics. This is why 5-smooth numbers are so very musical. The modern day equal temperament scale is based on and sounds almost exactly the same as a 5-limit scale. To most normal people 5-limit intervals sound smoother and more pleasing to the ear than 7 or higher limit intervals do. Near the bottom of this page you can hear and compare 5 and higher prime limit intervals.
Geometry
In 3 dimensional geometry, the most symmetrical objects are the Platonic and Archimedean solids. These are the basis for many of the strongest and most useful things in our world. They are made by dividing a sphere as evenly as possible using regular polygons. If you count the amounts of sides in the polygons used to make them, and also the amounts of these polygons used, they are always 5-smooth numbers. Prime numbers higher than 5 simply do not work in symmetrical 3 dimensional construction. If you look at the polygons used in the Platonic solids, the triangle,the square and the pentagon, you will see that they mirror the quantize settings in Brainwave Harmonizer.
The Brainwave Harmonizer is an audio representation of all these things, a mirror of perfect order and harmony. The end result is that unlike most brainwave generating software, it can't really make disturbing or dissonant frequency combinations. You can literally just play with the dials until you like how it makes you feel, then read the displays to see what brainwave frequencies are good for you.
