Mathemagical

Music
Production
Second Edition
By Derrick Scott van Heerden
Content copyright © 2016 Derrick Scott van Heerden. All rights reserved.
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Contents
Introduction
How sound works
What does Hz mean?
Harmonics
The octave
Brainwave entrainment
Brainwave theory
Binaural beats
Monaural beats
Isochronic tones
Traditional African entrainment methods
Harmonic bpm
The Pythagorean scale
Stack of fifths
The Pythagorean error
Ratios and vibration
Ptolemy's 7 tone just intonation scale
Light spectrum
Chakra work
The 7 modes
Ptolemy's 12 tone just intonation scale
Astrological music
Harmonic scales
Harmonic scales 1 to 15
Harmonic number patterns
Solfeggio tones, 440 Hz and the eleventh harmonic
Harmonic geometry
Fibonacci series
Pythagorean Theorem
Tetractys
Regular polygons
Platonic solids
Cymatics
Music of the spheres
How to tune synthesizers and instruments
How to use Scala
How to load tuning files in software synths
Albino 3®
Cronox 2® / CrX4®
Serum®
Omnisphere 2®
Alchemy®
Zebra 2®
Kontakt 5®
Native synthesizers in Logic®
Native synthesizers in Cubase®
How to load tuning files in hardware synths
Tuning acoustic instruments
Brainwave entrainment techniques
Binaural beats
Isochronic tones
Embedding brainwaves into pre-made music
Subliminal audio
Links
 Introduction
This book is the result of more than 10 years of research and practical
experimentation that I have done into the world of sound, its connection to
the universe and its effects on people. To do this this properly I moved out
of the city and into the countryside, leaving my band and DJ career so that I
could work undisturbed and uninfluenced by social matters. I spent weeks,
months and eventually years either out in nature thinking or isolated in my
workroom, reading a lot, trying many sonic experiments and drawing many
charts full of frequencies and ratios.
Using this time well, I designed a system where all aspects of my music
were in harmony with each other, the bpm of my track, the frequencies of
all the notes in my scale, the effects, the types of melodies used, and all
other aspects of my sound. I also learned how to embed various brainwave
entrainment frequencies such as binaural beats, isochronic tones and even
subliminal sounds, into this music in ways that were harmonious and in
time / tune with the music itself, without disturbing the sound at all, instead
using it as a resonator to make them even more powerful. The human brain
mirrors any sounds that enter the ears, so having all of the beats and sounds
in mathematical / musical harmony with each other is the best way to get
powerful effects from your music.
While learning to do all of this I had to do quite a bit of mathematical
calculation, dividing and multiplying of frequencies. After doing this for
some time I noticed that certain numbers would appear over and over again
because they were more useful and easy to work with than others. These
numbers could be divided or multiplied in many ways while still staying
nice and whole, not spawning too many decimals and confusion. Soon I had
a collection of these useful numbers that were the best for all kinds of
mathematical calculations. I called them "magic numbers". When I looked
closer at them I found that they mirrored many interesting things like the
orbits and sizes of the Sun, Earth, Moon, the golden ratio, sacred geometry,
the platonic solids, the light spectrum, and most importantly each other.
In this book you will find lots of information about these matters, but most
importantly you will find tutorials that teach you how to do everything that
I have learned in your own studio. So, if you really want to apply the
hermetic “as above – so below” maxim to your music, then this is the book
for you!
 How sound works
Sound is a vibration that travels away from its source in all directions as air
pressure waves, almost like bubbles or "spheres" that are inside each other.
When we look at sound waves on a computer they don't look like bubbles,
though. They look like two dimensional waves showing you how many are
being produced over a certain amount of time. The two images below are of
a sine wave which is the only sound wave that has this perfectly smooth
curve.
Sine waves

The high-pitched sound above has a higher vibration and many small
waves, while the lower bass sound below it has a lower vibration and makes
less waves over the same amount of time. Your speakers also vibrate
according to this wave. When the wave is at the top, your speaker is pushed
forward. When the wave is at the bottom, your speaker is sucked in. And
when it’s in the middle, so is the speaker. The same thing is true for a drum
skin or tuning fork, as it is the vibration of the object producing the sound
that makes the air vibrate in waves that then move away in all directions
and make other objects like your ear drums and body vibrate.
What does Hz mean?
To measure the frequency of sound waves we need to use numbers. The
standard way to measure sound waves is in cycles per second. The term
used for this is Hertz or Hz. This means that if you hit a 512 Hz tuned
tuning fork or play a 512 Hz tone on a speaker, they will vibrate exactly 512
times in one second and will also make 512 air pressure waves per second.
 Harmonics
If you look at the sound waves of different musical instruments on a
computer you will see that each one has a waveform that looks different.
Middle C on trumpet will have the same amount of waves over the same
amount of time as middle C on a piano, but the waves themselves will be a
slightly different shape.
Trumpet and Piano

So, what is it that makes these sound waves have different shapes? The very
simple and amazing fact that all musical sounds are actually made from
various combinations of pure sine waves; more specifically they are made
from one single "fundamental" sine wave and then many smaller/higher
sine waves called harmonics or overtones, all mixed together to make a new
sound wave. Whenever two or more sine waves are played at the same time,
their sound waves interact with each other to produce a different and more
complex sound wave. This only works with sine waves because they are the
only type of sound that has no harmonics of its own. Although all musical
sounds are made from sine waves in various combinations, they almost
never occur as single waves in nature or musical instruments.
There is another way to view sounds on a computer, and that is by using a
spectrum analyzer. You can download the same spectrum analyzer used in
the following images (Voxengo Span®) for free at this
link [Link] With a spectrum analyzer you
can see all the harmonics in a sound instead of just the waveform. In the
next image you can see the spectrum analyzer view of a pure sine wave
from a synthesizer playing middle C:
Pure sine wave (middle C)

Now let's look again at the sounds of the piano and the trumpet also playing
middle C, but this time through the spectrum analyzer:
Piano

Trumpet

As you can see, the trumpet and the piano both have that same fundamental
C sine wave on the left, while to the right of it you can see the rest of
harmonics. In both sounds they have the same-sized intervals or gaps
between them, only their volumes are different. It is these variations in the
volumes of the harmonics that make a piano sound like a piano and a
trumpet like a trumpet.
The same applies to almost all pleasing musical sounds, digital and
acoustic.
Digital saw tooth wave

Acoustic flute

Digital string

Human voice

You can actually tell what a sound will sound like by looking at its
harmonics. If the fundamental and lower harmonics up to the sixth are the
loudest, then the sound will be rich and warm. If, however, the seventh and
harmonics above it are louder, the tone will be more harsh and metallic.
These days we can just pass a sound through a low pass filter or EQ to
reduce the higher harmonics, whereas before all instruments had to be built
taking this into account.
There are instances, such as with over-stressed strings, where the harmonic
series gets “stretched” slightly, or with certain metallic instruments where
the overtones behave in a completely different way. Such instruments often
have their own traditional scales that mirror these strange harmonics, a
good example being traditional Indonesian music.
Indonesian gamelan

Metal xylophone from Java

Church bell

For most of the sounds used in modern day music, however, the harmonics
will follow the same pattern as sounds like piano, flute or the human voice
do. If you want to hear the harmonics in any sound as a melody, just play it
through a bell EQ and sweep the frequency up and down.
These natural intervals are known as the harmonic series. Another way to
look at the harmonic series is by dividing a piece of string into the even
parts seen in the following image. It only shows the first 7 harmonics but
the pattern repeats infinitely, or until the acoustic limitations of the
instrument playing it are met. These are the same intervals as seen in the
spectrum analyzer pictures of sounds like the piano, flute or human voice,
getting closer and closer together as you go higher up the spectrum.
Harmonic strings

Any sound can actually be modeled by playing many different synthesized

sine waves arranged in the same way as the original sound. This is how
many digital synths work, recreating piano and other sounds using only sine
waves. This type of synthesis is actually quite simple, since you only need
to adjust the volume of each harmonic to recreate just about any musical
sound. Despite the fact that the synthesized piano will sound like a piano, it
will obviously never sound as authentic as a real piano. There definitely is
some magic in real harmonics that is not present in synthesized ones. You
can prove this by taking any digital or VST synthesizer and pushing the
resonance on your main filter to full. If you now do a filter sweep through
the resonance-enhanced harmonics of your sound, it will not make a nice
sound. It is more likely to be a less than pleasing sound which may even
hurt your ears. But try the same thing with a 100% analogue Korg ms-20 or
Moog, and you will get lovely smooth tones similar to whale sounds.
This must be because the analogue synth actually generates harmonics
naturally, while the digital synth tries to model those using numbers. This
must also be the reason why real tube amplifiers sound so pleasing, and
why “cutting” frequencies sounds better than boosting with digital
equipment, while with analogue equipment you can boost frequencies all
you want.
The harmonic series is also what you hear in overtone chanting, where the
singer learns to use their mouth as an EQ to boost each overtone
individually and play a melody with them. The sound of a monochord,
Bushman bow, jaw harp and the bugle also use these same harmonic
intervals as melodies. If you hear these intervals as a melody they sound
very familiar and comforting. The bugle is in fact an amazing instrument. It
is like a brass trumpet but it has no valves or keys, so you can only change
notes by blowing harder or softer into the mouth piece. The result of this is
that the bugle can only play the notes of the harmonic series in their natural
order and no other notes. So, if your bugle is tuned to C then the notes it
will play will be C, C1, G1, C2, E2, and G2 (harmonic series), although
most bugles are made so that they can’t play the first C, and can’t play
higher than the sixth harmonic (G2).
Intervals in relation to the fundamental with bugle tones in green:

Intervals between each harmonic with bugle tones in green:

With the exception of the octave, which is perfect in most instruments, the
sizes of these intervals are slightly different to those of the same names on a
piano or most other modern day instruments. The modern day intervals are
based on, and are close estimates of, these original harmonic intervals,
though. The reason why the bugle only goes up to the sixth harmonic is
because the septimal minor third between harmonics 6 and 7 is basically a
very flat minor third and sounds quite dissonant, which is also why there is
no interval based on it in the modern day equal temperament scale.
If you go higher up the series, you will find a major whole tone that is very
similar to the major whole tone in the standard equal temperament scale
between harmonics 8 and 9. Above that the intervals get even smaller, with
a nice semi-tone to be found between harmonics 15 and 16. Above that the
intervals get smaller than anything found in our modern day scale.
Eventually they get so small that you can no longer hear the difference
between consecutive harmonics, and playing through them just sounds like
a sweeping tone.
Anything that oscillates or vibrates has a fundamental frequency and
therefore harmonics, too. Sound, light, certain tiny particles, planetary
orbits, alternating electric currents and rotating machines are all in a state of
vibration. This is why you find these same harmonics intervals playing
important roles in many seemingly unrelated fields such as sound healing,
subatomic particle science, astronomy and industrial energy grid
optimization. The harmonic series is even the basis of Zip's law, but that is
another story…
As a number sequence the harmonic series is very simple. If you start with
1 it will be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 etc. Here is how you
calculate the harmonic series of any number; I will use 9 Hz for an
example. Octaves of 9 Hz are usually associated with the note D because
they are very close to D in 440 Hz based equal temperament, so this chart
starts with 9 Hz as D. (some of the note names above the sixth harmonic are
not very accurate when compared to equal temperament, and are just there
are a guide).

Another way to calculate the harmonic series is to add the first number to
itself, and then to keep adding it to your answer over and over again. So, for
9 it would simply be 9+9=18, 18+9=27, 27+9=36…
When you use certain numbers (like 9) to start the harmonic series, some
amazing anomalies occur. If, for example, you look at the “frequency”
column in the above image, you will see that the first number of each
successive Hz frequency is 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 going downwards, and
that the second number in each does the same thing going upwards. You can
also add the two digits in any of them together and they will always add up
to 9 (0+9=9, 1+8=9, 2+7=9 etc.) Although this particular anomaly only
happens when the harmonic series is started with 9, using other numbers
will still produce interesting patterns.
In any series of numbers, each number can also be referred to by its
sequence number. This number is the point in the sequence where that
number occurs. If, for example, you have the sequence 9 - 18 - 27 - 36 - 45,
then 9 has a sequence number of 1; 18 has a sequence number of 2; 27 has 3
and so on. It does not matter what number you start the harmonic series
with. The first harmonic (fundamental) will always have a sequence number
of 1, the second harmonic will always have a sequence number of 2, and the
third harmonic will have 3 and so on. Because the sequence numbers for the
harmonic series are exactly the same as its frequencies when it is started
with 1 Hz, you can learn a lot about the connections between vibration and
numbers by studying them. What you learn can then be applied to the
harmonic series when it is started with any number or frequency, as the
intervals will always be the same.
 The octave
The word octave is derived from the word “octa-” which means “having 8”.
This came from the early observation that the octave seems to like being
divided into 7 unequal parts, with the eighth being the octave of the first.
The 7 tone major scale and the 7 colors in the rainbow are good examples
of this. All of the scales in this book repeat over octaves, which is why the
charts showing them only ever cover one octave.
The octave is the second harmonic in the harmonic series. If you make a
guitar string exactly half its length it will play the same note but one octave
higher, and if you play middle C on a piano then its octave will be the next
C on the piano. This is actually the only perfect harmonic interval in the
normal equal temperament scale; all of the other intervals are just close
estimates. If you are working with rhythms then an octave higher will be
the same beat, but exactly twice the speed. The octave is the most common
rhythm in all music, and musically it is the most harmonious interval. You
can find it in the opening interval of the songs “singing in the rain” and
“somewhere over the rainbow”.

An octave in mathematics is any number doubled or halved (multiplied or

divided by 2). You can go upward or downward forever with octaves, there
is always another number twice as big or half the size of the number you
have.
In the harmonic series, each harmonic actually repeats over octaves as you
go up it. In the following image of the first 31 harmonics, I have color-
coded repeating octaves and arranged them side by side making this easy to
see.

There is a law called the "law of octaves" used in various other scientific
and esoteric fields. It states that when a vibration is doubled of halved in
frequency, the new frequency will have very similar properties to the first
frequency. This is why C on a piano has very similar sonic properties to the
next C and all other C’s on the piano, while it has less similar properties to
the rest of the notes in-between. The fact that all C’s are called C and don’t
have different names makes it easy to understand just how similar the
properties of octaves are to each other.
This explains how, while working with sound frequencies and music, you
can freely multiply or divide a frequency by 2 any number of times,
doubling or halving it in octaves to get higher or lower frequencies that will
always have very similar properties and be in perfect harmony with the
original frequency (something that is done a lot in this book and frequency
work in general). It is important to remember that octaves are not exactly
the same, only very similar. It is also true in mathematics; while the
numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 etc. are obviously not the same number, they do also
have similar properties when used in mathematical calculations.
The octave is the basis for many important things. For example, when
human life starts it starts as a single cell which then divides into 2, then 4,
then 8, 16, 32 and 64 (after 64 skin, hair and other cells start to form). It is
also used for many things in the digital realm, 32 / 64 bit processors, 512 /
1024 / 2048 MB RAM or flash memory. Minecraft blocks and many other
digital things rely on the number sequence: 1-2-4-8-16-32-64-128-256-512-
1024-2048-4096...
 Brainwave entrainment
Entrainment is the name used when a sound affects an object, be it a human
brain, a bit of fluff stuck to a speaker, an opera singer breaking a glass with
sound, a scientist using acoustic levitation to levitate a drop of water, or
even shrimps creating light from sound using sonoluminescense.
Sound does not only have an effect your mind, it also affects your body. If
you turn your speakers up loud enough you will feel it for yourself. It is a
fact that listening to fast music will make you exited, while listening to
slow music will have a relaxing effect. This works on all levels affecting
your brainwaves, heart rate and blood pressure. It is actually a lot more
specific than just feeling relaxed or excited, though. Listening to a drum
beat at 135 bpm, for example, will eventually entrain your brainwaves to
exactly 135 bpm, which will put you into a nice trance. Because all sounds
are vibrations it is really true that all sounds, both rhythms and tones, will
have entraining effects. Beats on a drum and a smooth audio tone are
actually very similar, depending on how close you zoom into the waveform.
So, even a high-pitched tone like 288 Hz will still create some form of
entrainment even at this high frequency.
Brainwave theory
If you want to learn more about how sound affects the mind, brainwave
theory is a good scientific place to start. This is because scientists have
mapped out our brainwaves using EEG machines, and they have tested
audio frequencies on people while they are connected to these machines. In
doing this they have proven that our brainwaves adjust themselves to the
same frequencies as sounds played into our ears, and that our brainwaves
are divided into different states.
Brainwave theory has been known to shaman for thousands of years. All
around the world they tend to beat their drums or rattles at about 4 beats per
second (4 Hz) to induce shamanic trance states. EEG Tests have been done
on people while they were under the influence of various hallucinogens
such as Peyote, Ayahuasca and Mushrooms in shamanic situations and also
while lucid dreaming. In most cases spikes in the theta range were
observed, proving that the theta range (4Hz-8Hz) is indeed the correct
frequency for shamanic or psychedelic work.
There are many charts online that differ on the exact range of each state and
the amount of states, but in most of them each state covers approximately
one octave. So, I have designed my own chart based on all of the charts that
I have seen, but in my chart each state covers exactly one octave, giving me
7 different states that are pretty much the same as 90% of the brainwave
charts I have seen. Some charts have the eighth state (high gamma) and
some don't. This is because high gamma is above the normal rhythmic
brainwave frequency range and starts around the point where rhythms come
into the range of low bass audio (64 Hz = typical didgeridoo range).
Obviously the exact point of crossover from rhythmic to tonal sound varies
slightly from person to person, but it is always near the start of the “high
gamma” octave. It is interesting to note that the same thing happens with
light, which is why old 60 Hz refresh rate PC monitors and 60 Hz
fluorescent lights caused headaches while 75 Hz did not.

It is important to remember that your brain does not just produce one state
at a time; it produces more than one at the same time but in different
amounts. So, in deep meditation you may have a spike in the theta or delta
range, but you may still have a low level of alpha or beta waves present,
keeping you awake and conscious at the same time. This is why it is good
to use octaves like 2 Hz, 4 Hz and 8 Hz when you generate more than one
brainwave frequency at the same time, because then each one will fall into a
different brainwave state but will still be in harmony with the others.
If you look at the brainwave chart above, you can see that as you move
upward through the rhythmic brainwave states they get faster, making you
more alert, awake and even a bit stressed when you get to the fast drum roll
type rhythms of beta and gamma. When you get to high gamma they
become a smooth bass tone, which has a similar effect on your brainwaves
as the very slow epsilon rhythms. This is quite interesting as the properties
of the brainwave states seem to have done a full circle after 8 octaves,
although it is more like a spiral because epsilon and high gamma may have
more similar properties to each other than to the states in-between. But they
are definitely not exactly the same.
In the following chart the red-colored horizontal rows are separated by 8
octaves. This first red row starts with 0 Hz, the point where rhythms start.
The second one is where rhythm changes over to smooth bass audio. The
top one ends near to the end of the average person’s hearing range (super
humans can hear up to 20000 Hz). So, it would seem like interesting things
tend to happen every 8 octaves.

Keep this in mind when you read later chapters in which the octave is
divided into 7 parts to make a major scale, with the eighth part (octave)
having very similar properties to the first.
The three most commonly used methods for inducing brainwave
entrainment using sound today are binaural beats, monaural beats and
isochronic tones.
Binaural beats
The way binaural beats work is simple. Using headphones or carefully
placed speakers, you play an audio tone into one of your ears while, at the
same time, playing the same audio tone but at a slightly lower or higher
frequency into your other ear. Listening to this audio will entrain your
brainwaves to the frequency that is the difference between the frequencies
of the two slightly different tones. So, if you play 100 Hz tone into one ear
and a 108 Hz tone into the other, the resulting tone will entrain your
brainwaves to 8 Hz (alpha brainwaves). If you actually listen to this you
will hear a tone panning left and right 8 times a second. If, however, you
listen to just one of the tones on its own by switching off one of your
speakers or removing one side of your headphones, you will hear just a
smooth 100 Hz tone on one side and a 108 Hz tone on the other. For some
reason listening to them together creates a tone that pans from left to right,
but has a fairly stable sounding pitch that averages the two frequencies. So,
in the end 100 Hz with 108 Hz will sound like a 104 Hz tone that wobbles 8
in times a second. Obviously if the tones are very far apart it will become a
chord, which is why most brainwave charts don’t go much higher than 40
Hz.
It is important to remember that the de-tune wobble speed and the averaged
tone are both going to have entraining effects. This is why it will be best if
the tone is in harmony with the main brainwave frequency or de-tune
wobble speed. The law of octaves is obviously a good thing to use here. So,
if you want an audio tone that is in tune / harmony with 8 Hz, just double or
multiply 8 Hz by 2 a few times to get higher octaves that are within hearing
range, and so can be used as audio tones. In this case 64 Hz, 128 Hz and
256 Hz will be good frequencies to use for tones as they are perfect octaves
of 8 Hz. To split them for 8 Hz binaural beats, just calculate what
frequencies are 4 Hz above and below your frequency. So, for 128 Hz you
will play a 124 Hz and a 132 Hz tone together, then you will hear a 128 Hz
tone with an 8 Hz wobble speed. You can also use other harmonic intervals
instead of octaves for this, but octaves are the best place to start.
Apart from entraining your brainwaves to a specific frequency, binaural
beats also have the effect of synchronizing your left - right brain
hemispheres so that they fire in a left - right sequence, and so are in better
harmony with each other. I am sure this could increase the efficiency of
your brain by interleaving your thought processes more evenly; a bit like
dual channel RAM. It is worth noting that you can get a very similar and
equally powerful effect by simply panning a tone single left and right using
auto pan. I actually prefer this method because there is no de-tuning
involved.
Monaural beats
Monaural beats are just binaural beats that are played in mono instead of
stereo, and so can be played on any speaker arrangement. When you listen
to them you will hear a tone with its volume rising and falling at your de-
tune frequency. They do entrain your brainwaves just like any modulated or
rhythmic sound does, which is why you can mimic there effects very well
by using a timed tremolo effect (amplitude modulation) on a single sine
wave.
Binaural and monaural beats are most accurate when you use pure sine
waves as audio tones. This is because a sine wave is the only sound that has
no harmonics or overtones of its own (overtones will stimulate other
brainwave frequencies), and so it is the best sound to use for accurate work
where you only want to stimulate one frequency at a time. It is true,
however, that any carrier frequency will still have a strong entraining effect.
Musical sounds may even be better than pure tones, because the human
brain is not used to only generating one fixed non-modulating frequency at
a time. Using sounds which are rich in overtones, especially natural sounds
with their slight modulations, may be better for you as your brain is used to
processing this more natural type of sound. It is a fact that binaural beats
have been used safely for centuries in this way; for example, Tibetans using
2 or more de-tuned Tibetan bowls or Aborigines using de-tuned
didgeridoos.
 Isochronic tones
Isochronic tones are often sold as some new technology, even though they
too have been used for thousands of years. All an isochronic tone actually
consists of is just a repeating pulse of sound, like a machine going “beep
beep beep” at a specific amount of beeps per second (Hz).

To make an isochronic tone 100% accurate, meaning that a 4 Hz pulse (4

beeps per second) will entrain your brainwaves to exactly 4 Hz, the gaps
between the tones need to be exactly the same length as the tones
themselves. It is also best to use pure sine waves for accurate Hz work
although any sound, even drums, will still work very well.
If you are using tuned tones, it is best if the tone is set to a frequency that is
in harmony with the speed at which it is pulsing on and off. Then both will
work together instead of against each other. This is easy to do using the law
of octaves as I have illustrated before. For example, if you want a frequency
for an audio tone that is in harmony with a 4 Hz pulse or beat, you just
multiply it by 2 a few times (octaves) until you get a frequency in the range
that you want. When you do this, the amount of peaks in the waveform of
each tone will always be an octave of the original frequency, as in the above
image of a 4 Hz pulse which has 8 peaks in each pulse.
It takes up to 20 minutes for any brainwave entrainment to take full effect.
So, because your brain is in a beta or alpha state most of the time, it makes
sense to start your program around there and then slowly sweep the pitch to
the frequency that you want to end up in. This gives your brainwaves time
to adjust to the new frequencies. With binaural beats a very interesting
program is to start in beta or alpha, then to sweep down to theta and hold
the frequency there for some meditation time. From there you could go
deeper down to delta for even deeper meditation, maybe even mix in some
soft alpha waves or even some bird sounds at this point to stop you from
falling asleep. If you are brave you can approach the no brain waves
frequency of 0 Hz right at the bottom of the epsilon state. Then your 2
audio tones will no longer be de-tuned and will play the same note. I call
this the "flat line" and have had out of body experiences at this point (only
after the full 20 minute journey).
I find all of this very interesting; as you slowly lower your brainwave
frequencies you go from a normal awake state to deeper levels of your
mind. But then, as you go to the deepest levels where your brainwaves
almost stop altogether, you can find yourself outside your body and fully
"awake". Now you are in a state more similar to high gamma than the deep
dreamless sleep associated with epsilon, only you are in another dimension.
In fact, if you had set your carrier tone to a nice bass drone of 64 Hz like I
did, then you should now be in the high gamma state and not epsilon at all.
Suddenly this full circle of properties makes sense, how the highest and
lowest brainwave states can be so similar even though they "should" be so
different. As I mentioned before, it is more like a spiral as the properties of
high gamma and epsilon are similar but not exactly the same.
Binaural beats, monoaural beats and isochronic tones are easy to make on a
computer, alone or embedded into music. But I will explain that in a later
chapter on practical applications of brainwave theory.
 Traditional African entrainment methods
Although this all sounds very cutting edge, it has actually all been done
before and is really ancient knowledge that we are just starting to re-learn
now. I know from first-hand meetings with African healers that many
African tribes have been using brainwave entrainment for centuries,
inducing trance states with specific goals like healing disease or traveling to
other worlds. When I asked them where they learned this science they
mostly said that beings came from the sky in strange machines, and these
beings then showed them how to make instruments like marimbas and
mbiras, and also showed them how to play all their traditional, ritual and
entrainment music. It sounds crazy but this is what they say, even tribes far
away from each other that have never met.
The Dogon are a good example of this. They say that their alien friends
came from Sirius, which incidentally was also a very important
constellation to the ancient Egyptians. This is believable because they knew
about Sirius B long before Westerners ever even knew it was there (it is not
visible to the naked eye.) The Dogon clearly state that these beings taught
them how to play music and also taught them agriculture and everything
else that defines their culture. I know this is not only the case with Africans;
it is also true with Native Americans and probably many other people
around the world. But I live in Africa and prefer to learn from real
experience, so I know more about Africans than other tribes.
There is one method used by many tribes here that I find to be very
interesting:
They sit one person down on a mat and then have 2 mbira (thumb piano)
players who sit each side of this person holding a mbira near each ear. They
then play a special interlocking harmonic melody between the two players,
in which each successive note enters the left then right ears, creating intense
brainwave entrainment. This is easy to replicate with music software using
two channels panned left and right, or a single one with tempo-synced auto
pan.
Some tribes also work with very specific tempos. I have heard of shaman
who spent years teaching a pupil to play one simple beat at a very specific
speed. They say it can take a lifetime before the teacher says the beat is
correct, and that some die of old age without ever getting it right. It is
amazing because this beat sounds like the most basic bongo beat when
listened to by somebody who is not familiar with this training.
Another thing that is done all over Africa is to play music using
polyrhythms. These are identical to the harmonic series but expressed as
rhythms. The first part / loop has 1 beat per loop. The next has 2 (in the
same space of time); the next has 3, then 4 and so on. Obviously they play
more complex rhythms based on these numbers and not just the single
beats.
I have seen Bushmen do this in their trance dance. The women were singing
and playing 4/4 rhythms on shakers and with hand claps, then the shaman
joined in with rattles on his ankles, dancing / playing 3 or 6 beats over the
women's 4 creating triplets. Sometimes he went deeper into trance and
changed to other ratios / polyrhythms from the harmonic series like 5/4. The
Bushmen also play other instruments like the single string Bushman bow.
This instrument only plays the harmonics of the overtone series just like a
monochord, but uses your mouth as a variable pitch resonator. The
Bushmen are very tuned-in people. Their shaman are reputed to be the most
powerful in all of Africa, and can basically see disease with "x-ray" vision
and can fix it with their hands. It has been said by some that the Bushmen
are the oldest race on Earth, so they really may be the wisest, too.
Another very common theme throughout Africa is to sing a repeating
melody and then to raise the frequency a bit higher at the start of each loop.
This could have the effect of raising your vibration to a higher level. It
certainly does make me feel amazing.
Some tribes higher up in Africa also eat the powerful hallucinogen
"IBOGA" before a trance quest. To join their cult you have to take a
massive dose of this plant in order to "open the head" and meet with the
spirit, "Bwiti", before gaining acceptance. They say that once you have
accomplished this you automatically become a shaman. A friend of mine
traveled very deep into this land and said he found whole villages occupied
entirely by people who were such shaman. It is not only African shaman
who do these types of things, there are shaman all over the world who use
sound and plants for entering a trance. Good examples are the Native
American peyote churches and the San Pedro, Ayahuasca, and mushroom
shaman of South America.
Every culture on Earth actually has shaman. They are a type of person that
can get born or reincarnated anywhere from the jungle to the city and back
again. Such people usually work with two things: sound and plants. If you
want to learn more about the plants / alchemy side of this, I highly
recommend reading “Swim’s Psychedelic Cook Book” (find it on Amazon).
 Harmonic bpm
To apply brainwave theory to full music production, the next logical step
would be to adjust the tempo of your music so that it is in harmony with
your bass-line / reference pitch. If you do this then everything that uses
your quantize, including tempo synched effects, will be in harmony with
this frequency. This is a very good way to make music that has powerful
effects, as your brainwaves will mirror this vibrational unity. It can also
expand your production skills, because now the “tones” produced by
modulating or slicing audio with high quantize settings like 1/64 will be
perfectly in-tune with your bass-line.
The only problem is that your music workstation measures tempo in bpm
(beats per minute), and audio frequency in Hz (beats / cycles per second). It
is easy, however, to match Hz frequencies with bpm frequencies. I call this
“harmonic bpm” and I have a very easy way of explaining how it works.
The best example to start with is 1 Hz. A clock ticks once every second, so
a clock could also be said to tick at 1 Hz.
We already know how to get the harmonic 256 Hz middle C that fits with 1
Hz using octaves, so now what we need is a bpm that is in harmony with 1
Hz and its octaves. This is very easy to work out because there are exactly
60 seconds in a minute. So, all you have to do is multiply 1 Hz by 60 and
then we get our answer: 60 bpm. So, 1 Hz and 60 bpm are exactly the same
frequency, as are 2 Hz and 120 bpm (2 x 60 = 120), 4 Hz and 240 bpm (4 x
60 = 240) and so on.
This simple sum (Hz x 60 = bpm) can be used to calculate the harmonic
bpm for any Hz frequency. Remember that if the resulting bpm is too high,
you can just divide it by 2 a few times to get lower octaves that will still be
in perfect harmony. You can actually use any octave of 60 (7.5, 15, 30) and
it will still work, you will just get a lower octave of the same bpm.
Converting Hz to bpm
What is amazing about this is that if you play a drumbeat at 15360 bpm it
will not sound like a beat. It will play an exact 256 Hz audio tone with its
timbre defined by the type of drum sound that you used. Now you can see
that all frequencies on both sides of the chart above are really octaves of
each other, and are all actually playing the same note.
You can also start with a bpm and then work out the harmonic Hz
frequencies by reversing the sum (120 bpm divided by 60 equals 2 Hz).
Then just raise 2 Hz by a few octaves to get a nice frequency for the
bassline / root pitch of your song. You can also use other octaves of 60 for
this calculation to get a higher octave (for example 120 bpm / 15 = 8 Hz).
Converting bpm to Hz

This obviously works with any number. Just divide any bpm or multiply
any Hz frequency by an octave of 60, and adjust them by octaves to get the
range that you want. When using this method to make your music, you will
find that it will be in very good harmony with itself. Your drumbeats and
tempo synced effects will be in harmony with your audio, and if you use the
lower octaves as Hz based binaural beats, they will be in harmony with all
aspects as well. Also, any tempo synched effects or audio “glitches” with
quantize settings above 1/32 will generate “tones” that are perfectly in tune
with your music. Straight quantize settings will give you octaves of your
base frequency, while triplet settings will give you octaves of its perfect
fifth.
If you take a close look at some audio clips of the lower octaves of C = 256
Hz (in a DAW music project) with your tempo set to the correct harmonic
bpm of 120 bpm, you will see that the number of waves in each note's
waveform now fits exactly into your grid quantize (see following image).
In this image:
Orange = 120 bpm typical trance kick/bass with harmonic audio frequency
of C = 32 Hz on the bass synth.
Yellow = plain 8hz, 16hz and 32 Hz saw tooth waves (octaves of C) for
comparison.
Now you can easily see how they all line up in perfect harmony / geometry.
I used trance as an example because of the clear beats, but this works for all
music.

When working like this you can do some amazing things, like cutting just
one peak of a waveform and repeating it to make a new and still perfectly
tuned one. Then you can adjust the volume of each slice instead of using
normal envelope settings, or go right into it and process the slices
individually making the sound do crazy things. I can’t list everything here
because the possibilities opened by aligning everything like this seem to be
endless.
As you can imagine, this geometry is mirrored inside your head when you
listen to this music, making for some well aligned brain waves. I did some
research and it turns out that I am not the only one who thought of this,
either. In modern times people have discovered that classical music,
especially Baroque music played at around 60 / 120 bpm and based around
the C major scale, will have what they call the "Mozart effect". This is said
to have many benefits such as enhanced creativity, more focused thoughts,
balanced brainwaves etc. The harmonic bpm for C in 440 Hz based equal
temperament is actually 122.636 bpm, but orchestras are not digital and
can’t actually play at exactly 120 bpm, so this is all close enough.
The next chart has all the harmonic Hz octaves for 120 bpm, some typical
sound examples, and the brainwave states they generate. Because each
brainwave state covers one octave the quantize ratios, sound examples, and
brainwave states are correct for any other bpm between 120 and 240.
Obviously with other bpms the Hz will be different and the note will not be
C.

It is worth noting that each brainwave state also has different levels. For
example, with a song at 120 bpm with octave matched 1 Hz low delta, 2 Hz
delta and 4 Hz theta brainwaves will make you quite calm. With the same
song at 180 bpm with its octave matched 1.5 Hz low delta, 3 Hz delta and 6
Hz theta brainwaves will make you feel quite active, even though the waves
all fall into the same states. This means that your choice of bpm is a very
important factor. If you want some ideas about the properties of various
bpms, the later chapter on chakras has some good charts that should help.
Generally, however, what different people consider to be fast or slow varies
a lot, so this is often best left to personal taste.
If you want to use software to generate brainwaves that are in time with
your bpm, you may need to enter both numbers (Hz and bpm) into your
software. For this to work both numbers must have no more than 2 or 3
decimals. This is because all software has a decimal limit, and in most
music software this is no more than 2 or 3 digits (2.62565, for example, has
too many while 2.25 is not so bad, and 2 is very good). Because your
brainwave frequency also needs a higher octave to use as a reference pitch
for your scale, these Hz frequencies need to be rather special numbers. Only
certain bpms will have such numbers as Hz frequencies, and only certain
Hz frequencies will have them as bpms.
The following chart is useful if you need a bpm and a matching low Hz
brainwave frequency with a low decimal count. It covers one octave, so the
Hz frequencies cover one brainwave state which is delta in this case. Just
multiply or divide the numbers by 2 a few times for the other brainwave
states, reference pitches for basslines, or slower bpms. The Hz frequencies
are special and can be multiplied by 2 forever without growing another
decimal. Some of the Hz frequencies can be divided by 2 many times for
lower brainwaves, while some of them will grow decimals quite quickly.
This is just a basic list of fairly useful numbers; there are more refined ones
later in this book.

There is an old numerology trick where you add all of the digits in a
number together until you get a single digit. If you do it to these bpms, a
repeating pattern of 3-9-6-3-9-6-3-9-6 emerges: 1+2+0=3 - 1+2+6=9 and so
on. Nikola Tesla said, “If only you knew the magnificence of 3, 6 and 9,
then you would have the key to the universe.” So, it is interesting to find
this pattern hiding in this collection of mathematically useful numbers.
If you are using standard equal temperament tuning, it is easy to adjust your
bass frequency to match your bpm using master tune and Hz checking /
guitar tuning software or hardware. If your synth has no master tune setting,
you can choose a bpm in the following chart and make your track in the key
on the far left of that row. These bpms are for each note in normal 440 Hz
equal temperament with no master tune adjustments. You can trim the long
bpm’s to suit your DAW, and it will still be quite accurate sonically (just use
122.636 bpm / 129.929 bpm etc.)

If you choose your bpm first and find that you don’t like the sound of the
bass that goes with it, using an octave of the fifth of the actual frequency
also works very well because then your triplet quantize settings will be
octaves of your bass frequency. Remember that with equal temperament the
fifth is slightly “out of tune” and is not exactly the same as the perfect
triplets in your quantize settings, which are the same as the perfect fifth in
the harmonic series (and in the Pythagorean and Ptolemy scales in the next
chapters). The equal temperament fifth is not that different to the harmonic
fifth though, so it does still work quite well for this.
 The Pythagorean scale
Up until now we have been working mainly with octaves and some
harmonics. Now we will explore different musical scales. To work with
these scales I use free software called "Scala". With this software you can
make any of the scales in this book into tuning files that can be loaded into
various software and hardware synthesizers. But you will find out exactly
how to make and use these files in the later chapter on tuning instruments.
So, for now, when I talk about setting scales to different reference pitches,
or when I show charts of frequencies from scales, just keep in mind that in a
later chapter I will show you how to make and use these scales with various
synthesizers.
As you know, most pleasant musical sounds are made from sine waves
arranged according to the harmonic series. So, finding a scale that is in tune
with this will help to reduce internal disharmony in your music by aligning
the melodies with the harmonic intervals in the sounds used to play them.
Obviously you could just use the harmonic series as a music scale, but with
our 12 key keyboards this can be tricky. For this reason, it is often better to
use it as a source and extract useful bits from it instead.
The equal temperament scale is not so great for exact Hz work. The default
reference pitch around which the equal temp scale is built is A = 440 Hz.
So, all the A's are octaves of 440 Hz and the rest of the notes are equally
spaced around this frequency (exactly 100 "cents" between each note, to be
precise). When you try to use this scale with brainwaves or harmonic bpm
you will find that all of the other notes, including the fifth, have "irrational
numbers" as Hz frequencies. These never end and go on to infinity e.g.
281.625643676…Hz. These numbers are not much good for finding lower
octaves for use as brainwaves or harmonic bpms, because it is impossible to
type them into any software.
The software (Scala) that I use to work with scales (and used to calculate
this chart) cannot show more than 6 decimals. So, the numbers are longer
than what you see here. Because most music software only allows 2 or 3
decimals, to be sure that a number is usable it is best if it has a zero at the
end like 440.000 does. If not, you must be very sure that there is not another
hidden number at the end that the software won't show you (e.g.
391.995436???).
Equal temperament:

The A = 440 Hz based equal temperament scale only has one “nice”
frequency and that is 440Hz itself. So, you could make music in A at its
harmonic, 103.1250 bpm, but that is very limiting for making many
different songs. It also has irrational intervals between its notes which don’t
mirror the harmonic series exactly, and so are not in perfect vibrational
harmony with each other. The only real harmonic interval in this scale is the
octave which is the same as the octave in the harmonic series, otherwise the
rest are just close estimates.
What you need to look at is the spacing between the notes in your scale. It
would be nice, for example, if the fifths in your scale could be perfect
harmonic fifths, then your triplet quantize settings will match them
perfectly. Fortunately there is a scale that not only contains a perfect fifth,
but is actually constructed entirely out of them and their octaves. It is called
the Pythagorean scale.
This scale is nice because it is not too different from the normal equal
temperament scale. Our modern day equal temperament scale was most
likely based on the Pythagorean or a similar scale, so it is not really that
strange that they sound quite similar. The main musical difference between
them is that an equal temperament scale with its evenly spaced notes will
sound the same in any key, while the Pythagorean scale sounds more
harmonious than equal temperament in some keys but more out of tune in
others. The one thing that is not so good about the Pythagorean scale is its
major thirds. They are quite odd-sounding and could even be called “out of
tune”. I have devised a way of fixing most of these, but I will get to that
after explaining how the original scale works.
It is said that the idea of using perfect fifths and their octaves to make scales
was first thought of by Pythagoras. He was born around 570 BC on the
island of Samos. Because he lived so long ago, however, details of his life
are hard to come by. To make matters worse, he did not write his ideas
down. So, what we do know about him was written hundreds of years after
he died. He is said to have traveled to various places, including Egypt and
Babylon, where he studied in various mystery schools before setting up his
own sect in Croton, Greece. It was these “Pythagoreans” who much later,
after the death of Pythagoras himself, influenced Socrates and his students,
Aristotle and Plato, to follow a similar path. This is important to us because
these people formed the basis for much of western civilization as we know
it today.
Pythagoras had many very interesting ideas. For example, he believed that
higher vibrational beings of extreme intelligence existed on other higher
vibrational planets, with the highest ones being non-physical, almost like
light. He also believed in reincarnation and thought that you should not
become too attached to Earthly things, so that you could break this cycle
and move up to a higher reality in your next life. He also believed that all
the planets emitted sounds as they moved through space, and that these
sounds made a perfect harmonic chord almost like a giant monochord. He
called this sound “the music of the spheres”. One of his most famous
sayings was “All things are number”, which makes a lot of sense if you
study his work.
 Stack of fifths
So how did Pythagoras make this scale using only octaves and perfect
fifths? Well, there is no proof that he ever actually made the full 12 tone
scale. History says that he only really used octaves and fifths to make
tetrachords, which are sets of 4 notes, and that it was actually medieval
musicians who used his theory to develop the first 12 tone scales. To do this
they must have started by repeating a perfect fifth 11 times to make a stack
of fifths.

Such a stack contains all 12 notes in the standard Pythagorean scale (that
Pythagoras never actually made). There is an obvious problem, though; the
gaps between the notes are far too big to be a very good scale for music. In
response, they must have used the law of octaves, bringing each note down
by one or more octaves to make a nice 12 tone scale that fitted into one
octave, and so could be repeated over many octaves, making the full piano
scale.

Although the stack of fifths starts with C, the first 7 notes in it make up a G
major scale which also covers a full octave (when adjusted into one octave).
The first medieval scales did have 7 keys with the others being added later,
so it is quite probable that the first Pythagorean scale actually had 7 keys. I
don’t really know all of the history, though, and am more interested in
dissecting the scale itself.
The next image shows the same thing as the previous image but with Hz
frequencies. The green highlighted blocks show the notes shifted into one
octave as in the previous image.
The horizontal columns show these frequencies over octaves, so when you
move one row downward the frequency gets multiplied by 2, and when you
move one row upward it gets divided by 2.
If you move one block to the right the frequency gets multiplied by 3, and if
you move one block to the left it gets divided by 3 (perfect fifth + 1 octave).
This octave does not matter because you can just move one block upwards
in the chart, lowering it by an octave to find the actual fifth.

A person can use this method to find the perfect fifth of any frequency in
the chart, just move one block to the right and one block upwards. In this
way we can see that the fifth of 256 Hz is 384 Hz, and for 288 Hz it is 432
Hz and so on.
There is a better way to express this, and that is by using ratios. The ratio
for the perfect fifth, for example, is written as 3/2. This means that you can
multiply any frequency by 3 and then divide it by 2 to find its perfect fifth
as a new frequency.

All 12 notes in the Pythagorean scale actually have their own ratios, and
they all work in the same way as the 3/2 ratio described above. Just
multiply your “perfect prime” by the first number in the ratio and divide it
by the second.
Here is a chart showing one octave of the Pythagorean scale and all its
ratios with A as the reference pitch (the ratios tell you the relationship that
each note has to A). These are the standard ratios from the Pythagorean
scale in the “software Scala” (I did not calculate them from the stack of
fifths chart above). For some reason, setting C = 256 Hz as your starting
frequency (unison, perfect prime) using these ratios does not give you all
the same frequencies as in the above stack of fifths chart. Using A = 432
Hz, however, does. I don’t know why this is so, but I do wonder if it has
something to do with A being our reference pitch today and not C.
There is one fact about ratios which I will explain fully later; this is that
ratios with smaller numbers generally sound better than ones with larger
numbers. In this scale, the notes with larger ratios came from the right side
of the stack of fifths, while the ones with smaller ratios came from the left
side. These ratios are telling you each note’s relationship to A, which is near
to the left of the stack of fifths. When you play this scale in A, you will hear
that notes which came from the left of the stack really do sound great
together, while that ones that came from the right, like G#, D#, A# and F,
don’t fit with them so well.
If you look at the Hz frequencies in the full stack of fifth chart earlier in this
chapter, you will see that they also have more decimals as you go higher /
further to the right side of the chart. The same thing happens if you want to
use harmonic bpms. The lowest numbers are good for entering into the bpm
settings in your music software, with their limited decimal capacity. As you
can see, however, the bpms also get messier with more decimals as you go
higher up the stack of fifths. I ended the following chart on B, because the
bpms higher than that only get larger.

This is a very good example the how patterns in numbers can tell you all
about vibrations, without you even needing to hear them as sounds. In this
situation the cause of the problems, which looking at these numbers makes
easy to see and playing the scale makes easy to hear, is actually a known
and much studied thing called the "Pythagorean error".
Before I explain this error and my way of “fixing” it, I must point out that
the Pythagorean scale is not all that bad. The first 4 notes do have fairly
small numbers, so it is good for harmonic bpm / brainwave work if played
in C, G, D or A. Because all of the fifths in this scale are perfect, they will
also match your triplet quantize settings perfectly no matter what key you
play in. So if, for example, your song is in C = 256 Hz at 120 bpm, then the
“tones” that high triplet quantize settings generate will be octaves of G =
384 Hz.
 The Pythagorean error
If you look at a stack 12 fifths and one of 7 octaves on a normal synthesizer,
you will find that a stack of 7 octaves and 12 fifths eventually end up on the
same note again, that high C on the far right of the two images below.

Well this is not the case with perfect fifths and octaves, a stack of 7 octaves
(2/1) and a stack of 12 pure fifths (3/2) never quite meet up at all. This is
because the stack of 12 perfect fifths is actually slightly longer than a stack
of 7 octaves, which makes the twelfth C in a stack of perfect fifths slightly
higher than the seventh octave of the first C in the same stack. In the actual
scale we use an octave of the first C and not this slightly high C, but this
means that the frequencies just below it in the stack are not in good
harmony with it. There are people who use stretched octaves that are
slightly wider than 2/1 to lesson this drift, but I have not had much luck
with that using software.
In the next chart I have extended the Pythagorean stack of fifths +
octaves by one more step after the top F, and lowered it by octaves to reach
the same C as the first one again. Now you can see that while C is 512 Hz
in the bottom left corner, the C in the top right corner is 518.9853 Hz.

This drift creates those large ratios, messy numbers, and disharmony
between notes that are far from each other in the stack. In the final reduced
scale these bad notes are called “wolves”. With the exception of F, the
really bad wolves are all black keys. So, you can use only the white ones
and the black key F# to make a nice 7 tone G major scale. It will sound
okay if you only use these 7 notes because they are the first 7 notes from
the stack of fifths, and so they all have fairly small ratios in relation to A.
This is easy to see in the stack of fifths where A is right in the center with
C-G-D to the left and E-B-F# to the right of it. I have always found that A
minor is a very good key for this scale, now I can see why it works so well.
When using only these 7 notes you will actually be making “modal music”
which is really a secret sauce for making hit songs, but I will get into that
later.
I have found a way to adjust all 12 notes so they fit together much better. I
call this the “Pythagorean Zodiac scale” or simply the “Pythagorean F# =
720 Hz variation”. When I want to make music that changes keys a lot this
is my scale of choice. If you want to try it, look for its tuning files under
“files” in my Facebook group “Life, the Universe and 432 Hz”.
To make this scale I chopped the stack of fifths in half right in the middle
between B and F#. Then I made the fifth between them smaller, dragging
the right half of the stack lower until the top C was as close to 512 Hz as I
could get it without using a “messy” number for my new F#. I found that
lowering F#, which was 729 Hz, to 720 Hz brought the top C down to
524880 Hz, which had 512.578125 as a lower octave and was very close to
512 Hz. Because these two C’s are so close, this adjustment makes the notes
right at the top of the stack like D#, A# and F sound much better with 512
Hz and the rest of the scale than before. Because the fifth between B and F#
is so flat, this scale does not sound so good in B. This does not bother me,
though, as playing B and F# together hurts my hand, so I don’t often do it
anyway.
The new F# = 720 Hz, C# = 2160 Hz and G# = 6480 Hz all have a nice
small 5/4 major third relationship with higher octaves of D = 9 Hz, A = 27
and E = 81 Hz respectively. So, D to F#, A to C# and E to G# in any octave
will have this 5/4 major third. This makes the scale sound much better in
these keys, as the original Pythagorean scale had very large ratios in its
major thirds.
The best way to play this scale is to use one of the white keys: C, D, E, F, G
or A (but not B) as the root key for your song. Then you will have many
good sounding options for major and minor chords that include some of the
black keys.
I have not calculated all of the ratios in this scale, but it is obvious that
improvements have been made. If you look at the Hz frequencies in both
scales when the notes are shifted into one octave, you can see that all of the
numbers now end with a zero. So, adjusting the stack of fifths in this way
has simplified its Hz frequencies.
Some of these numbers actually have an interesting history. F# = 720 Hz
with its lower octaves of 360, 180, 90 and 45, for example, have been used
to divide the circle for thousands of years. C# = 270 Hz is also special as it
has a higher octave of 2160 Hz, which is the amount of years that the Earth
takes to pass through one zodiacal age (hence my naming of this scale).
256, 384, 288 and 432 have been also used to simplify calculations for
thousands of years, so it’s nice to have all of these numbers in one scale.
Here are the harmonic bpms for this scale. C, D, E, F#, G, A and B have
usable bpms. The longer ones can be trimmed but then you will lose some
accuracy. This chart can also be used for the original Pythagorean scale, as
the 4 notes in it that had good numbers (C, G, D and A) are the same in this
version.

Some of these Hz frequencies have nice small whole numbers in their

lowest octaves and are good for brainwave work. They all show up in the
Ptolemy scale in the next chapters, though, so you can see them in the
brainwave charts there.
There is one thing about octaves and fifths that I just had to add at the end
of this chapter: If you multiply any number by 2 to find its higher octaves,
you will find octaves of the first 4 notes in a stack of fifths starting with that
number in the end digits of these higher octaves. The following chart shows
27 octaves of C = 1 Hz with these fifths (G, D and A) highlighted.
1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512 (C = 256)
1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768 (G = 384)
65536, 131072, 262144, 524288, 1048576, 2097152, 4194304, 8388608 (D
= 288)
16777216, 33554432, 67108864 (A = 432)
I find this interesting, as 4 fifths is about as far as you can go with a stack of
fifths before the Pythagorean error takes hold.
 Ratios and vibration
To understand ratios better it helps to see them from a physical / vibratory
perspective. As you may remember from the chapter on brainwave
entrainment, when two sounds are slightly out of tune they create a wobble
known as a beat. Well, the same thing applies to notes in a scale between
which you will always find monoaural beats. You can calculate the beat
between any two frequencies precisely by subtracting the smaller one from
the larger one. When you compare this beat frequency to the frequencies of
the notes themselves, it is easy to see why intervals with small whole
numbered ratios sound so good.
If, for example, you have a starting frequency of 192 Hz, its 5/4 major third
will be 240 Hz. If you subtract 192 from 240 you will have 48 Hz, which is
an octave of 192 Hz. As you can imagine, having a beat frequency that is an
octave of the root frequency gives an interval a very stable vibration and,
therefore, a very sweet sound. This works when you use any Hz frequency
as the root, as long as the ratio between the two tones is 5/4 then the beat
frequency will always be an octave of the root. Here are two more
examples:
320 Hz to 400 Hz = a 5/4 major third and has a beat frequency of 80 Hz (80
x 4 = 320).
257.752 Hz to 322.190 Hz = a 5/4 major third and has a beat frequency of
64.438 Hz (64.438 x 4 = 257.752).
It is the same with the 3/2 perfect fifth; its beat frequency will also always
be an octave of its root no matter what frequency the root is. All intervals
with small whole numbered ratios don’t have beats that are octaves of their
root. They do all have beats that are close harmonics of it, though. In the
6/5 minor third, for example, the beat frequency x 5 = the root frequency,
while for the 4/3 perfect fourth it is an octave of the fourth of the root, and
not the root itself. All of these are very harmonic combinations, though,
which is why these intervals sound so good.
With equal temperament and its infinitely large ratios, the beat frequencies
are never perfect octaves or harmonics of the notes frequencies. This makes
them quite messy as they don’t vibrate so well with the notes. The images
below are both of a C major third played using the same sound on the same
synth. The top one is a harmonic major third with a ratio of 5/4, while the
bottom one is a normal equal temperament major third with infinitely large
numbers in its ratios. The lower one is messier because the mono-aural
beats are not harmonics of the root frequency, so there are more random
beats making the sound more unstable. This instability gets reflected in
your brainwaves, making you feel more wobbly than with harmonic
intervals.
Harmonic tuning vs equal temperament

If you are a music producer you will know that stable sounds also need less
compression, so it is quite true that harmonic intervals can be played louder
than wobbly ones without needing as much. This applies to your whole
production; if you use the correct harmonic bpm with a small ratio based
scale, then everything will align even better with even less random peaks.
For an interval to sound good and to have harmonic beats, the higher tone
needs to vibrate perfectly over the lower one. In the image of the harmonic
series below, you can see how ratios actually vibrate. This chart only goes
up to the seventh harmonic, and so you can only see ratios with numbers
below 7 in them here. Now you can see how 3 waves over 2 (3/2) = perfect
fifth, 4 waves over 3 (4/3) = a perfect fourth, 5 waves over 4 (5/4) = major
third, 6 waves over 5 (6/5) = minor third, or any other combination of these
harmonics, will fit perfectly into each other. Remember that the top wave
can be any frequency. If it was 100 Hz then 2 would be 200, 3 would be
300, and so on, and they will still fit perfectly into each other.

The following chart shows the names of the intervals between harmonics 1
to 7. The number above and below each interval name combine to make its
ratio.
In the following chart the harmonic series has been arranged with each
octave in a new row. The interval names tell you how each harmonic relates
to the red “octave” at the top of that row, and these red “octave” blocks are
all octaves of the fundamental (root) on the far left. While the intervals
repeat over octaves, making the ratios 3/2, 6/4 and 12/8 all correct for the
perfect fifth, and 5/4 or 12/8 for the major third and so on, people normally
use the one closest to the root with the smallest numbers to express each
interval.

We already know that intervals with small numbered ratios sound better
than ones with large numbers. Now we can see that these small numbered
ratios are found closer to the fundamental in the harmonic series, while the
large numbered ones are found further away from it (obviously!). When
looking at it like this we can see an “order of harmoniousness” for each
interval. First and most harmonious is the octave (2/1), then the perfect fifth
(3/2), then the perfect fourth (4/3), major third (5/4), minor third (6/5) and
so on.
When you go higher than the sixth harmonic you will find that certain
harmonics are dissonant and that the order is so linear. The septimal minor
third found between harmonics 6 and 7, for example, is quite dissonant
when compared to the major whole tone between harmonics 8 and 9, even
though it is found lower in the series (this will be explored in the next
chapter). Generally however, intervals found closer to the fundamental in
the harmonic series do sound better than ones found farther away from it.
If you think about the feelings that these intervals give you when played,
even with equal temperament tuning, it gets quite interesting. Up to the
fourth harmonic (octave / fifth / fourth) is more simple and enlightening
(without emotions and thoughts). Between the fourth and sixth harmonics
you have the happy and sad major and minor thirds. And above that you get
smaller intervals like whole tones and semi-tones that involve more
complex emotions.
This is not new information. Pythagoras and the ancient Greeks often spoke
of the octave, perfect fifth and perfect fourth as the best intervals of all.
This order is also useful for choosing key changes and writing melodies. If
you take the time to see how many epic pieces of music have an octave,
fifth, or fourth as the first key change or the first note after the root in the
melody, you will be quite surprised.
Remember that most musical tones are also made of sine waves arranged
according to the harmonic series, and that sounds with louder harmonics up
to the sixth harmonic sound rich and warm while louder harmonics above it
make a sound harsher. So, it would seem that small ratios definitely are the
key to having more internal harmony in your music.
 Ptolemy's 7 tone just intonation
scale
Just intonation is the proper name given to scales made using small whole
numbered ratios, which you now know sound good for a reason. There are
many different possible just intonation scales. Making one from scratch
using ratios of your own invention, however, is quite hard. It makes more
sense to use what has already been discovered and to build on that. After
much searching I have not found a better sounding just intonation scale than
the one I am about to describe. I first found it amongst the preset scales that
come with the tuning software "Scala" under the name “Ptolemy’s intense
diatonic”. It is named after Claudius Ptolemy who was born in c 90 AD. He
was a music theorist, mathematician, astronomer, geographer and
astrologer, and lived in Alexandria in Egypt where many of his writings
were kept in the great library of Alexandria. His work also influenced our
western civilization to a large degree.
There are a few versions of this scale in the "Scala" presets, but I like this
one in particular (Ptolemy's intense diatonic) because it sounds very nice
when played. It is really just a standard just intonation scale, but I will refer
to it as the "Ptolemy scale" since there are just too many variations of this
that have no actual names. It has only got 7 notes, the 7 notes that make a
major scale. When it is started in C these are all of the white keys on a
piano.
(do - re - mi - fa - sol - la - ti)

There is a 12 tone version of this scale which is exactly the same, only with
5 added notes (all of the black keys when it is in C). For now, however, I
will only work with the 7 tone one, explaining its significance, and will
move to the 12 tone version later.
This scale sounds better than the Pythagorean scale in its reference key, but
not so good in certain other keys. The best keys to change to without too
many of the other notes sounding “off” follows the same order of
harmoniousness mentioned earlier. So, if the reference key is C, then
playing in G (fifth above the root), F (fourth above the root) or E (major
third above the root) will also sound good. If you play in E you will get a
very nice minor scale. This works well because a major chord is actually a
major third with a minor third on top of it (together they add up to a fifth).
Generally, however, you want to set your reference pitch to be the same as
the root key of your song.
The reason for this is that the notes in this scale are not equally spaced as
they are in equal temperament. So, if you use the 7 notes that you get from
one reference pitch as 7 new reference pitches, some of the notes will drift a
bit to maintain perfect harmony and will not be the same in every key. This
does not happen to all of the notes, only a few of them do this.
When choirs sing they naturally use intervals with small ratios and can
change to any key without any problems. This is because they hear the
harmonics in the notes they are singing, and automatically use those tones
for other notes in the song. So, when they change keys they just shift
everything in the same way that you do when you use that note as a
reference pitch for the scale. There is an adaptive tuning system / algorithm
called hermode tuning that tries to replicate this. I have not used it much but
it may be worth trying if you have the right software (more on this in a later
chapter). I prefer using tuning files however, because I like having exact Hz
values for each note for my harmonic bpm / brainwave work. I also like to
make music in one key or with harmonic key changes like perfect fourths,
fifths, and major thirds that work well with this scale anyway.
In the following chart you can see that the numbers in its ratios are all
below 16, with only 2 intervals having numbers above 6 in theirs. Because
these intervals are found so close to the fundamental of the series, it has a
very sweet sound.
If you take the two numbers in any of the above ratios and find them in the
following chart, you can see exactly where each interval is found in the
harmonic series.

If you look at the intervals in harmonics 8 to 16, you will see that they are
quite similar to those in the Ptolemy scale, but harmonics 11 and 13 have
been replaced with similar but better sounding intervals found closer to the
fundamental in the series, and the seventh / fourteenth harmonic has been
removed.
Harmonics 8 to 16

Intervals with 7, 11 and 13 in their ratios have been known to sound odd
since they were first discovered, so it is not strange that they have been
avoided in this scale. The reason why they sound out of place is because as
single tones octaves of 7, 11 and 13 don’t share any harmonics with octaves
of the other whole numbers from 1 to 15, while 1 to 15 (not including 7, 11
and 13) all share harmonics with each other.
To illustrate this I have made a chart using octaves of 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13
and 15 as reference pitches for the 7 tone Ptolemy scale (this covers octaves
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15). I have added 27 and 45
because they often show up when you use the other numbers as reference
pitches. Octaves of 1, 3, 5, 9, 15, 27 and 45 have been color-coded so that
you can see which reference pitches make scales that share notes with each
other. Octaves 7, 11 and 13 have not been color-coded because they don’t
share any notes. Apart from the 4/3 and 5/3 intervals, the rest are harmonics
of lower octaves of their fundamental frequencies. So, because this scale
repeats over octaves, the color-coded notes on these intervals are also
showing you harmonics that are shared between octaves of 1, 3, 5 etc. when
they are played as single tones.

As you can see, octaves of 7, 11 and 13 don’t share harmonics with the
others or each other, which is why intervals with ratios that have 7, 11 or 13
in them sound odd when played with notes based on the other numbers.
Because octaves of 7, 11 and 13 don’t share any notes / harmonics with the
other numbers when they are used as reference pitches for the scale, using
them will also result in songs that don’t sound good on the same album / in
the same DJ mix as ones with the more interconnected numbers as
reference pitches.
If you are using the full harmonic bpm / brainwave system in this book, and
need low decimal numbers as Hz frequencies all the way down to the
lowest octaves, you will find that octaves of 1, 3, 5, 9, 15, 27 and 45 are
also really good reference pitches for this. Don’t get me wrong; octaves of
7, 11 and 13 do have fairly low decimal Hz frequencies when used as
reference pitches for this scale, but the problem is that using them will not
include octaves of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 27 and 45, whereas using
octaves of 1, 3, 5, 9, 15, 27 and 45 will. Obviously these numbers are very
good to have in your scale if you are trying to avoid decimals.
If you look in the previous chart you will see that the scale in G = 384 Hz is
the only one that has all 7 of its notes color-coded. This means that it has 1,
3, 5, 9, 15, 27 and 45 as the lowest whole number octaves of its 7 notes and,
therefore, contains 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 27 and 45 and their
octaves. In the following chart you can see its Hz frequencies and harmonic
bpms. As you can see, they don’t have too many decimals and so are good
to enter into most software. These 7 numbers are what I call “magic”
numbers, as their usefulness is really multifaceted.

In the later chapter on practical applications of brainwaves, you will see that
the best plugin for adding binaural beats into music cannot accept numbers
with more than 2 decimals. So, you really do want small numbers in these
low octaves. If you are working with very low epsilon brainwaves between
0 and 1 Hz, you may want even smaller numbers than in the above chart. A
very easy and effective way of achieving this without losing any harmony is
simply to add one decimal into each of the 7 magic numbers. This will
make 432 into 43.2, 384 into 38.4 and so on. Obviously adding a decimal to
a number that ends in 0 is the same as just removing the 0, so numbers like
240 just become 24. Musically, adding this decimal or removing this 0
lowers the frequency by three octaves and a 5/4 major third. Because it is
below and not above your starting frequency, this major third is actually
called a minus major third and has a ratio of 4/5 and not 5/4.
Since the scale already has so many of these major thirds in it, adding this
decimal does not mess with the overall harmony at all. Some of the notes
will become frequencies that were other notes in the scale before you
changed the decimal, while the others will become frequencies that were
not in the scale, but that are in the 12 tone version of this scale when it has
384 Hz as its reference pitch. So, all of these frequencies are in good
harmony with each other and will still sound nice on the same album or in a
DJ mix. In the following image I have changed the notes’ names so that you
can see what they have become. Compare this chart to the previous one to
see what has been changed.

In the following image you can see that these numbers don’t get more
decimals when raised by a few octaves, and so are still good as reference
pitches. They also have good harmonic bpms, most of which can be found
as Hz frequencies and bpms in the original 384 Hz based scale…

These numbers really are magical and will make almost any mathematical
calculation simpler. The fact that they are also in such good musical
harmony with each other makes everything work out really well for us
musicians. To see all 12 of them and their low Hz + harmonic bpms in one
chart, read the “Ptolemy’s 12 tone just intonation scale” chapter.
To get another perspective on all of this we can look at this as a stack of
fifths. In the same way that a Pythagorean scale is made from a stack of
fifths, so the Ptolemy scale can also be broken down backwards into a stack
of (not all perfect) fifths starting with C = 1 Hz, by simply raising or
lowering the octave of each note a certain number of times. This works so
well because the first 7 notes in a stack of fifths starting with C make a G
major scale when adjusted into one octave.

The following image contains the first seven notes from a stack of perfect
fifths (Pythagorean scale) and, below it, the first seven notes from the
Ptolemy stack of fifths. You can see that the first 4 frequencies in both are
exactly the same, while the last three in the Ptolemy stack are slightly lower
(but are still a small stack of perfect fifths). This is similar to the
Pythagorean Zodiac scale, only here the fifth between A and E is smaller
and E, B, and F# are slightly lower.

This narrow fifth is not as narrow as the one in the Pythagorean zodiac
scale, so playing A and E together actually sounds alright and only wobbles
a bit. When both scales are played and compared to each other, you will
find that the E, B, and F# in the Ptolemy scale sound better with the other
notes than E, B, and F# in the Pythagorean scale do. This is because the
Ptolemy E is the pure major third of its C, with a nice small ratio of 5/4, B
has the same 5/4 major third ratio with G, and F# with D, while the
Pythagorean scale has no 5/4 major thirds and has much larger ratios in the
same places.
If we look at the mathematical properties of these numbers we can see
things from another angle. 320 Hz (Ptolemy E), for example, has the
“magic” number 5 as a lower octave while 324 Hz (Pythagorean E) has the
unremarkable 5.0625 Hz in the same place. The B and F# after the E also
have mathematically better numbers, as B = 240 Hz is an octave of 60 Hz
and F# = 720 is an octave of 360 Hz. We already know that 5, 60, and 360
(octaves of 80, 240 and 720) are great for low decimal calculations, and are
closely connected to 1 in the harmonic series. The same cannot be said for
81, 243, and 729. If you lower each number by octaves to the lowest
possible whole number (before decimals occur), you will see that you can’t
lower any of the ones of the Pythagorean stack of fifths at all. The last three
notes in the Ptolemy stack of fifths, however, can be made very nice and
small, revealing the magic numbers 5, 15 and 45.

1, 3, 9, 27, 5, 15, 45 and their octaves have been used to simplify

calculations for thousands of years, and also happen to make a really good
sounding music scale. So, there really does seem to be a correlation
between mathematically useful numbers and musical harmony. There is a
very interesting place where many of the good numbers show up together,
and that is in the lists of highly composite and superior highly composite
numbers.
A highly composite number is a whole number with more divisors than any
smaller whole number has. The first few highly composite numbers are: 1,
2, 4, 6, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 120, 180, 240, 360, 720, 840, 1260… A superior
highly composite number is a whole number which has more divisors than
any other number scaled relative to some power of the number itself. The
first few superior highly composite numbers are: 2, 6, 12, 60, 120, 360,
2520, 5040… (all superior highly composite numbers are also highly
composite numbers). Some people say that the ancient Greeks knew about
these numbers, as Plato himself set the ideal number of citizens in a city at
5040. The ancient Sumerians definitely knew about them, which is why
they chose to divide the circle into 360 degrees, and why they decided to
have 12 inches in a foot, 60 minutes in an hour, and 12 hours in a day etc.
If you are a musician and don’t know what divisors and whole numbers are,
a divisor is any number that can be divided by another number, while a
whole number is any number with no decimals. So, 60 is great for time
because it can be divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30 and 60, while
360 is very good for dividing the circle because it can be divided by 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 24, 30, 36, 40, 45, 60, 72, 90, 120, 180 and
360. Plato’s favorite 5040 is one of the best, as it can be divided by 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 24, 28, 30, 35, 36, 40, 42, 45,
48, 56, 60, 63, 70, 72, 80, 84, 90, 105, 112, 120, 126, 140, 144, 168, 180,
210, 240, 252, 280, 315, 336, 360, 420, 504, 560, 630, 720, 840, 1008,
1260, 1680, 2520 and 5040.
If you take all of the highly composite numbers below 1000, remove any
that are octaves of each other and shift them all into one octave, you will
have 512, 384, 288, 240 and 360. These are all found in the Ptolemy scale
when it has G = 384 Hz as its reference pitch. This shows us that highly
composite numbers are a very musical set of numbers. The ones above 1000
are also harmonically connected to the ones below, they are just not found
in this particular 7 tone scale.
You may have noticed that 7, 11, 13 and their octaves are not highly
composite numbers; they are consecutive prime numbers, though. A prime
number is a whole number greater than 1 whose only two whole-number
factors are 1 and itself. Basically they are numbers that can only be divided
by 1 and themselves. Obviously these are nowhere near as useful for
dividing things up as highly composite numbers are.
The first few prime numbers are: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37,
41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97, 101, 103, 107, 109, 113…
There are online lists that go into the 10000’s, and I have not seen any
recognizable magic numbers among them except for 2, 3 and 5. This is all
okay, though, because 2, 3 and 5 are already so small that not dividing well
does not really matter much for brainwave / scale making. The number 2 is
actually also a highly composite and a superior highly composite number,
so it seems like these very small numbers are quite hard to put into one box
anyway.
All in all, if you ignore 2, 3 and 5 (which make a perfect inverted major
chord) the rest of the prime numbers seem to be a list of non-musical /
disconnected numbers that are best avoided when choosing ratios or
reference pitches. In a way, you could say that they are the exact opposite of
the well-organized and very harmonic highly composite / superior highly
composite numbers.
Prime numbers are important, though, because all whole numbers can be
written as a product of primes. In normal language, this means that you can
make any whole number by multiplying prime numbers together (this is
called prime factorization). What is interesting is that one of the properties
of highly composite and superior highly composite numbers is that their
prime factorization will always be consecutive prime numbers.
With just intonation scales, people often set a “prime limit” in the ratios. In
a 5-limit scale for example the numbers in the ratios don’t have prime
factors higher than 5, while in a 7-limit scale they don’t have prime factors
higher than 7. So while prime numbers themselves are not very musical,
they are still part of the deeper structures of harmony.
 Light spectrum
There is an amazing thing about the 7 tone (do - re - mi - fa - sol - la – ti)
major scale in G, whether it is Pythagorean, Ptolemy, or equal temperament,
and that is its connection to the color light spectrum. Color is also a
vibration and so colors can also be measured in Hz, although the visible
light spectrum starts about 40 octaves above G = 384 Hz, so its numbers as
Hz frequencies are quite large. This seems like an excellent opportunity to
use the law of octaves to find audio tones that have similar properties to
each color…
Light is actually measured in Angstroms with the center point for red being
about 6870 Angstroms. The sum for converting Hz to Angstrom’s is very
complicated which is why I will just use Hz instead. So, if G = 384 Hz, then
forty octaves higher would be G = 422212465065984 Hz. In the color
spectrum this frequency is close to 6870 Angstroms and also sits in the
band occupied by the color red.

Red is the first color on the light spectrum (the colors in a rainbow or
prism), so red is the lowest vibrating color that human eyes can see. This
sounds very good for a root frequency of a scale, to me; the first note in a
scale around which all the rest are arranged in harmony, and so also the
lowest vibrating note in the scale.
In a major scale starting with G, the highest note before the next G is F#. In
the Ptolemy major scale F#'s frequency is 360 Hz. Raising 360 Hz by 40
octaves gives you 395824185999360 Hz. This frequency sits on the far
right of the spectrum, in the frequency band occupied by the highest
vibrating color that humans can see: violet.
So, it turns out that the light spectrum covers just under one octave, which
starts about 40 octaves above G = 384 Hz. I mentioned before how sound
changes properties every 8 octaves… well 8 x 5 = 40, so the light spectrum
also starts at one of these eighth octave points. It is important to remember
that the light spectrum is really a continuous fade from one end to the other,
it is only our eyes and minds that divide it into 7 colors. But the fact that it
covers just under one octave makes any scale that divides an octave into 7
parts fit over it very well, as the next note after the 7 notes (octave of the
first note) will be just above the top of the spectrum. Because each color
covers a band around that frequency, the 7 tones that make a G major scale
in the 12 tone Pythagorean, Ptolemy, and even equal temperament scales,
will all fall into the same color bands.
As usual, there are patterns to be found and things to be learned. The G
major chord, for example, mirrors the three primary colors, which is quite
amazing as the major chord and three primary colors are the building blocks
from which more complex scales and colors (paint mixing) are made.

The next image shows the small band of visible light that we have been
dealing with. I can’t help but wonder if the octaves above and below (radio,
microwave, infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray and gamma ray) might not follow the
same patterns as visible light does. If they do mirror each other in some
way, then maybe we could use our understanding of light to understand
things that lie between, above and below it in the spectrum. This could even
help us to understand other dimensions and higher realms, as any repeating
patterns may extend further than we can see. There are 7 “levels” in the
electromagnetic spectrum, so the eighth level above gamma rays must be
the first level in a new set of 7 levels...
 Chakra work
The color spectrum has been used in chakra work for a very long time. This
is an ancient field of study, and is a good place to learn about the more
esoteric side of light. When you super-impose a standard chakra chart over
a G major scale, everything fits together perfectly.

Most chakra charts say that red is the lowest vibrating or "root" chakra and
that violet is the highest vibrating or “crown” chakra, with the same colors
for the chakras in between. So, I made a possible chakra / audio frequency
chart from the 7 tone Ptolemy scale in G, matching its Hz frequencies and
bpms to their matching colors 40 octaves higher.

The following chart came to me in a flash of numbers and connections. It is

the same as the one above, but each color-coded horizontal row also falls
into a new octave and, therefore, a different brainwave state. The vertical
column marked "brainwave frequencies" covers the first 7 octaves of
brainwave frequencies, and the column marked "audio frequencies" covers
the next 7 octaves of audio above it. I put the octaves side by side and
calculated frequencies that are octaves of each chakra frequency, and that
also all falls into 14 successive octaves. Then it just about covers the full
range of musical audio, all the way from the slowest beats right up to the
highest tones. Basically it is just a 7 tone Ptolemy scale but with each
successive note in the next octave.
I added the eighth octave to include the high gamma brainwave state and
called it “spirit realm” in the chakra column. It is not a chakra, though; this
octave represents the next level of reality.

I think the "audio" column has a good frequency range to use for each
chakra; a nice bass tone for the base chakra and a very high whistle for the
crown. Remember, these are just possible frequencies, I can’t say that they
are exactly right. In fact, I can’t even prove that chakras exist at all! If you
don't believe in chakras, however, you can still make a “light spectrum”
sound journey. This will still be very interesting and fitting with nature.
Remember that each color covers a band around that frequency. So, even in
music tuned to A = 440 Hz with the equal temperament scale, each note in a
G major scale will still fall within that color band, as will the same notes in
the A = 432 Hz Pythagorean scale. I just used the Ptolemy scale here
because it has nice low decimal numbers for harmonic bpm and brainwave
work.
 The 7 modes
If you are making a song for each chakra using any 12 tone chromatic scale,
a good method is to use only the 7 notes from a G major scale to make a
different 7 tone scale for each chakra. If you do this you will find that the
scale for G will be a major scale.

While for E, it will be a minor one.

As you go through these 7 scales you will find that no two are the same,
giving each of the 7 chakras its own unique tune or mode. The ancient
Greeks, Pythagoras, Socrates and his students, Aristotle and Plato, were
very interested in modes. They believed that each one mirrored an
emotional state in man, and that listening to certain modes would eventually
change a person so that their emotional state matched that mode. They took
it a bit far by wanting to ban certain modes and instruments that could play
more than one mode. At one point they actually wanted to ban all musical
innovation, because they considered this freedom to be very dangerous!
The 7 modes are easy to understand when you start them in C, because then
they fall on all the white notes. If you shift these modes upwards, however,
starting on G to mirror the light spectrum, then you have that one black note
(F#) and no F in all 7 of them. It is very interesting how some chakra charts
start with G = red = base chakra, while others start with C = red = base
chakra. This could be explained by the fact that red and green are
complimentary colors, and are connected in a strange way. If you stare at a
red object for a while and then look at a white wall you will see a green
after image. If you stare at a green object you will see a red one, so it is
possible to assign C to red if you think in complimentary colors. A red
object actually looks red because it absorbs all colors except for red, which
it reflects. So, in a way, red is not red at all, but the exact opposite. It is also
worthwhile to note that C and G are a fifth apart and so are very
harmonious with each other from a musical perspective.
There are actually certain sound healers that use dual systems of healing
based on complimentary colors, where they first determine the “orientation”
of a person and then decide whether they must use a “red” or “green”
system. In this way they may use the resonant frequency of a problem or its
complimentary frequency to fix it.
In the harmonic series, the fifth is the next harmonic after the octave. So,
when you hear C (green) you will usually hear G (red) clearly in its
harmonics, too. This is why you can make a G note on a piano ring by
hitting the second C below it (the third harmonic of the C tone matches the
fundamental frequency of the G tone). It is a bit off with equal temperament
but it still works, showing us that sound entrainment is not only effective
with octaves but also with overtones, and that it still works even if the
frequency is slightly out.
The following chart shows the modes and their names as they are normally
arranged, starting with the Ionian mode in C and using only the white keys.
If you use complementary colors, then starting with C = red makes perfect
sense and can be used in a dual healing / chakra system that uses the
complementary color for each note.

If you start the modes in G instead of C, however, they mirror the actual
color for each note and include F#, which is a black key, instead of F.
As you can see, you now have a mode for each of your chakras. The root
chakra, for example, plays the Ionian mode which is identical to a natural
major scale, while the third eye chakra plays the Aeolian mode which is
identical to a natural minor scale. Although I had no idea that they had
names, I discovered these modes when I was about 9-years-old. To make it
easy to play piano, I noticed that if you only use all 7 white keys and left
out all the black ones, then it was easy to play complicated sounding music
full of key changes that always just sounded "right".
When doing this, however, I found that I could play nice chords in all of the
7 keys except for B. This is because all of the notes have their fifth among
the others expect for B. To solve this I would just use F# instead of F when
playing in B. Doing this essentially changed the Locrain mode, so that was
no longer the same but sounded better to the ear.

I am not the first person to do this. The original Gregorian scale had 8 notes
so that they could have a fifth in all of the modes (their keyboards had 8
white keys and no black keys). Using the 7 white keys with F# also still fits
with the color spectrum, as the actual amount of colors in the rainbow has
never really been proven. Some scientists say there are only 6 while some
people can see 8 or more. Since fifths fall into complimentary color bands,
the colors for these 8 notes make a perfect color wheel with complimentary
colors opposite each other. This does not work with only 7 colors, because
then the wheel has no opposite sides.

Adding this note does not change the other modes; it is only when you play
the Locrian mode that you may want the option of adding it. So, you will
still be following the traditional 7 modes, and can still make a chakra
journey with the same 7 chakras.
When using only these notes some rules are created. If your song is in E it
will have to be in E minor. If your song changes from E to C it must change
from E minor to C major and so on. I would recommend trying this on a
piano or synthesizer to see how well it works, and how these rules really do
make good sounding music very easy to make, even for a 9-year-old.
I have met many vocalists, guitarists, and other instrumentalists who follow
these same rules. This is interesting because not all instruments
automatically show you the way, as a piano does with its white keys. And
yet, so many great musicians still do this even though most of them don’t
even know why. I think this happens because even on a normal equal
tempered piano these keys still closely imitate the best sounding intervals in
the harmonic series, which also share the most harmonics. So, I guess, it is
just natural that sensitive musicians would hear and follow this pattern.
This type of music is not new and is actually called “modal music”. It was
used in ancient Greece, in medieval church music and is still used today as
the secret sauce in many great songs. Do yourself a favor and research this
yourself. It really is used in a ridiculously large percentage of songs that
have become the biggest hits in western pop culture.
 Ptolemy's 12 tone just intonation
scale
This scale is exactly the same as the 7 tone version, only it has 5 extra
notes. It also sounds best in its reference key. Because it has 12 notes,
however, you can play all 7 modes in this key. If you want to make a light
spectrum or chakra journey that moves through 7 keys, the best way will be
to use those 7 notes in this scale as 7 reference pitches for 7 new scales.
Then you can play each of the modes in these keys while always playing
the scale in its reference key. Because it sounds so good in its root key, this
scale is a very good option for making house, trance or any style of music
that stays in this key most of the time.
If you start it in C and use the complimentary color for each note, the 7 tone
major scale falls on the white keys and mirrors the 7 main colors, while the
5 tone pentatonic scale falls on the black keys and mirrors the 5 extra hues.

These 12 colors are not just random; they are really called the 12 chromatic
colors. The term chromatic is derived from the Greek word “chroma” which
means color. Any scale that divides an octave into 12 more or less equal
parts is actually called a chromatic scale. This includes the 12 tone
Pythagorean, Ptolemy and equal temperament scales.
If you arrange these 12 colors in a wheel, the complementary colors will
also always be opposite each other. Color wheels like this can be very
helpful if you are working on a color / sound journey and quickly need to
check what color or note is complimentary to another.

If you start the scale in G then it mirrors the actual colors and not the
complementary ones, with the 5 new notes falling on the black keys and
one white key F instead of the black key F#. If you look at the numbers in
its ratios (following chart), you can see that they are mostly nice and small.
This is a sure sign that this scale will also sound very nice, as its intervals
are all found quite low down in the harmonic series. It does not contain 11
or 13 in its ratios, but it does contain 7 in the 7/5 interval between G and
C#. G to C# was actually known as the devil’s interval to the ancient Greeks
because it sounds quite bad, so you may want to avoid it anyway... As with
the 7 tone version, using G = 192 Hz / 384 Hz gives you an amazingly low
decimal count in its Hz frequencies and harmonic bpms, revealing 5 new
magic numbers on the notes G#, A#, C#, D# and F.
With the exception of the devil’s C# they are all from the original 7 magic
numbers found on the other notes, just with an added decimal. You can look
at their lower octaves nearer to the middle of the chart to see this. The 5
new notes were not reached by adding this decimal, they were found by
using the best sounding intervals with the smallest possible ratios. I only
noticed this pattern recently, even though it was in the charts in the first
edition of this book all along.
It might look as if these new Hz frequencies like 102.4 and 230.4 could be
smaller, maybe just 102 and 230. But, the lower octaves of 102 and 230
have many decimals, while you can see in the previous chart that the lower
octaves for 102.4 and 230.4 are very nice and small. It is the same with all 5
of them. They look funny but some of their low octaves are actually better
than the low octaves of the 7 original magic numbers. This makes perfect
sense when you think about that added decimal, and how 1 has become 0.1
while 9 has become 0.9 and so on.
Because adding this decimal lowers the frequency by a three octaves and
4/5 -major third, these new numbers also work very well as reference
pitches for this scale, and will be in good harmony with the other 7 magic
numbers. The following image has 102.4, 230.4, 268.8, 307.2 and 345.6 as
reference pitches for the scale. I have color-coded the 4 original magic
numbers that appear. You can actually see that 128, 288, 384 and 432 are all
in the row with the 5/4 ratio. If you reverse this ratio to 4/5 and apply it to
any of these 4 numbers, you will get the number at the top of its row (128
multiplied by 4 and divided by 5 = 102.4). It is interesting how these
specific 4 of the 7 magic numbers appear, as they are also octaves of the
first 4 numbers in the Pythagorean stack of fifths. C# does not have any of
the original magic numbers connected to it, but it is connected to 384 Hz by
the devil’s interval, so this is understandable.
These 5 also share many notes and harmonics with each other. I have not
color-coded them but they are in the above chart.
In the following image you can see that using octaves of the other 7 magic
numbers as reference pitches will sometimes include a few of these 5 new
ones. Only G = 384 Hz, however, will include all of them. You can get
268.8 Hz (octave of 537.6 Hz) by using an octave of 7 as a reference pitch,
showing us that it is connected to 384 Hz but via the devil’s 7/5 interval and
a 6/5 minor third.
In the following image I have used octaves of 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 27
and 45 as reference pitches for the scale (remember that this covers octaves
of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 27 and 45). Octaves of the
original 7 magic frequencies are color-coded so that you can see shared
notes / harmonics. Take note that 7, 11, and 13 don’t connect at all, and that
the devil’s 7/5 interval does not have any magic numbers in its horizontal
row. Because our eyes like the 7 harmonic divisions of an octave, color-
coding the 5 new numbers with the other hues in the same chart made it
very hard to see what was going on. It is fine when all 12 chromatic colors
are in order, but when they are mixed up it becomes very hard to tell one
shade from the next. The previous chart, however, has the exact same
frequencies as this one only the 5 new numbers are color-coded, so you can
just compare the two charts to get the full picture.
Remember that this scale always sounds best when played in the same key
as its reference pitch, or a fifth, fourth, or major third above it. So, because
using G = 384 Hz as a reference pitch reveals 12 of the most
mathematically useful numbers, you can use the following chart to find
useful reference pitches for music in all 12 keys. If you want to see the very
low octaves, there is a chart near the start of this chapter that shows them.
Because they share so many notes when used as reference pitches for this
scale, they will also sound very good on the same album / in the same DJ
mix. Only the devil’s C# may not fit so well. I have shown them in 3
different octaves so that you can see how many of the numbers are actually
the same, only with an added decimal.

If you want to try this scale, look under “files” in my FB group “Life, the
universe and 432 Hz” for tuning files in these 12 keys. While it is the
Ptolemy scale that led us to these 12 numbers, they are not only good as
reference pitches for it. These numbers are my starting point for any kind of
math based music or brainwave program making; I literally turn on my PC,
open this chart and then open my DAW.
This 12 tone scale can also be deconstructed into a stack of fifths. This
stack of fifths has 4 narrow fifths (marked by the horizontal lines in the next
image) while the rest are all perfect fifths. It is very interesting to note once
again that the Pythagorean scale with a ref pitch of A = 432 Hz and the
Ptolemy scale with a ref pitch of G = 384 Hz, can both be broken down into
stacks of fifths that start with C = 1 Hz, and that the narrow fifths make the
other frequencies in better harmony with 1 Hz and with each other.

I mentioned before that if you are working with harmonic bpm you will
often find that the fifth of the actual harmonic Hz frequency is more to your
taste. Well, the Ptolemy scale sounds good when it is played a fifth above
its reference pitch, so it will work very well for this. Because the fifth above
the reference pitch is a perfect 3/2 fifth and matches the triplet quantize
settings in your DAW perfectly, when you use high quantize triplet settings
to get tones from tiny audio slices or fast modulation, they will be perfectly
in-tune with your bassline (if it is a perfect fifth above the reference pitch).
If you don’t like the way the scale sounds when it is played a fifth above its
reference pitch, you can just calculate the frequency of this fifth and use it
as a reference pitch to make a new scale.
 Astrological music
In astrology, people assign each of the 12 constellations/signs in the Zodiac
to the 12 chromatic colors and the chromatic scale. Because they always
start with red = Aries and follow the color spectrum upwards, using G as a
reference pitch for a 12 tone chromatic scale mirrors these astrological
charts very well. You could also use the complementary color system and
start with C, C#, D, D#, E etc. leaving the rest of the chart the same, but I
will start with G here as it is the exact octave match for red.

The theory behind this is that good sounding combinations of notes are
meant to represent good star sign matches for people. The musical interval
from one fire sign to the next, for example, is a major third while matches
of these signs are known to work well among people. The same applies to
the gaps between any neighboring matching signs, water to the next water,
air to the next air etc. So, these signs should go very well together: Aries to
Leo, Taurus to Virgo, Gemini to Libra and so on. To work out more
harmonic connections you can just play on a piano to see which pairs, trio's
or even more notes, sound good together to find harmonic astrological
connections. At the moment of your birth there will be certain planets lined
up to various signs and their constellations. According to astrologers this
also influences your life. These alignments can also be expressed musically
using the chart above.
Because the major chord is found so close to the fundamental in the
harmonic series, it is the most harmonious 3 tone chord of all. So, this
would be the chord to look out for when making connections with 3 points.
For example, two fire signs that are next to each other will make a major
third, and then to complete the chord all you need is the fifth. To locate that
you go to the sign below the next fire sign above. For example, G (fire) to B
(fire) and then D (water, which is just below the next fire). The major chord
in G consists of the notes G, B, D. So, a major chord starting on Aries
would be Aries, Leo and Scorpio, and for Gemini it would be Gemini, Libra
and Capricorn.
You could also add an extra note / sign to make a 4 tone major 7th chord if
you want to. This interval, however, is very jazzy and different so you can
expect the same from people who are separated from you by this interval.
This is of great interest to me because there people called “indigo people”
who are said to have indigo colored auras and a wide open third eye. They
are said to be very creative, intelligent, able to see the real truth, and
therefore are not good at fitting into mundane society. So, it is amazing that
the seventh harmonic / major seventh is connected to the color indigo in the
light spectrum and the third eye in the chakra system.
All of this very accurately describes the behavior of 7 in vibration as it
represents the harmonic major seventh, which is nice as part of a harmonic
major seventh chord but is quite hard to fit into most songs or use as an
interval on its own. Mathematically, the number 7 also behaves differently
when used as a reference pitch for the Ptolemy scale, revealing numbers
that are not found in the normal “magic number grid”.
As I have said I am no astrologer, this is just how I break it down using the
laws of vibration. I have, however, sent this chapter to a professional
astrologer and she said it is all correct according to her views on the subject.
 Harmonic scales
If you want to mirror the harmonic series more directly in a scale, you may
want to use its intervals in their original order and not re-arranged using
ratios. This is already a done thing. A scale made by taking an octave
portion of the harmonic series and repeating it over octaves is simply called
a “harmonic scale”. These scales seldom have 7 or 12 tones and can be hard
to get used to playing on a normal keyboard. They also don’t avoid odd
sounding ratios and so often have a very exotic sound if you use all of their
notes. In the scale making software “Scala”, however, you can generate
harmonic scales with simple settings for the “first” and “last” harmonic, and
insert or remove notes (chapter on how to use Scala later in this book).
Harmonic scales 1 to 15
I have listened to all of the harmonic scales based on the numbers 1 to 16.
As expected, the ones based on magic numbers like 1, 3, 5, 9 etc. sound the
best, while the ones based on 7, 11 and 13 don’t sound very good at all.
Harmonics 2 to 4, 4 to 8, 8 to 16 or 16 to 32, for example, make very nice
scales because they have 1 as the lowest octave of their roots. Obviously 2
to 4 and 4 to 8 have too few notes to really be scales, but since each octave
contains the ones below, you will have them in harmonics 16 to 32 anyway.
You can actually find all of the scales in this chapter in harmonics 16 to 32,
but I will dissect each one so you can see the intervals you get when you
change the root to other harmonics.
If you use harmonics 16 to 32 and remove the fourth, fifth, sixth and
seventh that have 7, 11, 13 and 25 as lower octaves, then you will get a 12
tone scale that sounds really nice. There is more than one fourth, fifth, sixth
and seventh in the full scale, so removing one of each makes good sense
anyway.
Harmonics 3 to 6, 6 to 12, and 12 to 24 also sound very nice because they
have 3 as a lower octave of their root. There are some odd intervals, but
generally this scale is very nice to play.

Harmonics 5 to 10 and 10 to 20 are also very good because they have 5 as a

lower octave of their root. Harmonics 10 to 20 contains a harmonic minor
scale with a ratio of 6/5 in its minor third (the same minor third found in the
Ptolemy scale). It also has a perfect fifth, so this is a very good option for
music in a minor key if you pick the right notes.
Harmonics 7 to 14, on the other hand, sound quite strange. To get a better
perspective on this I will show its ratios instead of its harmonic numbers. If
you look at the ratios in this scale you will see that they all have the number
7 in them, and that 3 of the intervals have the word “septimal” in them. In
mathematics the word septimal actually means “relating to the number
seven”, explaining why these odd sounding intervals have it in their names.
Because this scale has no “normal” fifths, fourths, thirds etc. it is very hard
to play in a way that actually sounds good.
Harmonics 7 to 14:
1/1: root
8/7: septimal whole tone
9/7: septimal major third, BP third
10/7: euler's tritone
11/7: undecimal augmented fifth
12/7: septimal major sixth
13/7: 16/3-tone
2/1: octave

I have already described harmonics 8 to 16, but here is some more info and
a chart showing its ratios. This scale sounds great when skillfully played
and contains very good intervals (except for the ones with 7, 11 or 13 in
their ratios). Remember that every second interval will be harmonics 4 to 8
and every fourth one will be harmonics 2 to 4. If you play harmonics 4 to 8
you will have only 4 tones. These make a harmonic major seventh chord.
Although the 7/4 interval is a bit odd on its own, when you play the full
chord it actually has a very powerful sound.
Harmonics 8 to 16

1/1: unison, perfect prime

9/8: major whole tone
5/4: major third
11/8: undecimal semi-augmented fourth
3/2: perfect fifth
13/8: tridecimal neutral sixth
7/4: harmonic seventh
15/8: classic major seventh
2/1: octave
Harmonics 9 to 18 have an amazing eastern sound that is great to play. They
have a few odd intervals, but they also have a few very good sounding ones.
Harmonics 9 to 18:
1/1: unison, perfect prime
10/9: minor whole tone
11/9: undecimal neutral third
4/3: perfect fourth
13/9: tridecimal diminished fifth
14/9: septimal minor sixth
5/3: major sixth, BP sixth
16/9: Pythagorean minor seventh
17/9: septendecimal major seventh
2/1: octave

I have already described harmonics 10 to 20 as well, but here it is again

with its ratios. Remember that harmonics 10 to 20 contain that amazing
harmonic minor scale with very small magic numbered ratios.
Harmonics 10 to 20:
1/1: unison, perfect prime
11/10: 4/5-tone, Ptolemy's second
6/5: minor third
13/10: tridecimal semi-diminished fourth
7/5: septimal or Huygens' tritone, BP fourth
3/2: perfect fifth
8/5: minor sixth
17/10: septendecimal diminished seventh
9/5: just minor seventh, BP seventh
19/10: undevicesimal major seventh
2/1: octave
Harmonics 11 to 22 don’t sound very good at all. “Disjointed” is the best
word that comes to mind when I hear this scale. As you can see, all of the
ratios are quite large and all have the number 11 in them. Two of them are
so odd that they don’t even have names. You can see that most of these
names have the word “undecimal” in them. In mathematics the word
undecimal means relating to the number 11. It is best to avoid undecimal
intervals, as they really do sound quite bad.
Harmonics 11 to 22:
1/1: unison, perfect prime
12/11: 3/4-tone, undecimal neutral second
13/11: tridecimal minor third
14/11: undecimal diminished fourth or major third
15/11: undecimal augmented fourth
16/11: undecimal semi-diminished fifth
17/11:
18/11: undecimal neutral sixth
19/11:
20/11: large minor seventh
21/11: undecimal major seventh
2/1: octave

I already described harmonics 12 to 24 as being very nice to play. This scale

is actually well recommended because it has 12 tones, and so is easy to play
on a normal keyboard.
Harmonic 12 to 24:
1/1: unison, perfect prime
13/12: tridecimal 2/3-tone
7/6: septimal minor third
5/4: major third
4/3: perfect fourth
17/12: septendecimal tritone
3/2: perfect fifth
19/12: undevicesimal minor sixth
5/3: major sixth, BP sixth
7/4: harmonic seventh
11/6: 21/4-tone, undecimal neutral seventh
23/12: vicesimotertial major seventh
2/1: octave
Harmonics 13 to 26 sound very bad. Somehow, all of the notes manage to
sound flat in relation to each other. The key word here is “tridecimal”
(relating to 13). This scale is so weird that 5 of the intervals have no names.

Harmonics 13 to 26

1/1: unison, perfect prime

14/13: 2/3-tone
15/13: tridecimal 5/4-tone
16/13: tridecimal neutral third
17/13:
18/13: tridecimal augmented fourth
19/13:
20/13: tridecimal semi-augmented fifth
21/13:
22/13: tridecimal major sixth
23/13:
24/13: tridecimal neutral seventh
25/13:
2/1: octave
14 is an octave of 7, so I will skip it and move to 15. Harmonics 15 to 30
have some odd intervals, but they also have some very good ones with nice
small ratios. Just as the fairly large 15 Hz and its octave 60 Hz were
surprisingly good reference pitches for the Ptolemy scale, and the classic
major seventh (15/8) was a surprisingly useful interval, so the harmonic
scale associated with 15 also sounds surprisingly good.

Harmonics 15 to 30:

1/1: unison, perfect prime

16/15: minor diatonic semitone
17/15: septendecimal whole tone
6/5: minor third
19/15: undevicesimal ditone
4/3: perfect fourth
7/5: septimal or Huygens' tritone, BP fourth
22/15: undecimal diminished fifth
23/15:
8/5: minor sixth
5/3: major sixth, BP sixth
26/15: tridecimal semi-augmented sixth
9/5: just minor seventh, BP seventh
28/15: grave major seventh
29/15:
2/1: octave

The pattern seems to be clear; harmonic scales based on 7, 11, and 13 are
very strange to play as they have no nice fifths, fourths, major thirds etc.
while scales based on the other whole numbers from 1 to 15 are quite
playable and all have a few good intervals in them. Having a scale with a
few good intervals and some odd ones is fine, as odd notes are sometimes
nice to play between really good ones. It is only when a scale has only odd
intervals, as the ones based on 7, 11 and 13 do, that it becomes almost
impossible to play in a way that actually sounds nice.
Because the best intervals don’t have numbers larger than 16 in their ratios,
I have only really explored the whole numbers from 1 to 16 fully. If we
look at the numbers 16 to 32, ignoring octaves of 1 to 16 however, the next
numbers to learn about would be 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29 and 31. We
already know that 432 Hz (octave of 27) is connected to the good numbers.
400 Hz (octave of 25) is also connected and can be found in the Ptolemy
scale with 240 Hz (octave of 15) as its reference pitch.
When 400 Hz is used as a reference pitch the scale will actually contain
some of the original 7 magic numbers, so 25, 50, 100, 200, 400 etc. are
really magic numbers, too.
Ptolemy scale with 200 Hz as a reference pitch:

0: 200.000000 Hertz.
1: 213.333333 Hertz
2: 225.000000 Hertz
3: 240.000000 Hertz
4: 250.000000 Hertz
5: 266.666667 Hertz
6: 280.000000 Hertz
7: 300.000000 Hertz
8: 320.000000 Hertz
9: 333.333333 Hertz
10: 360.000000 Hertz
11: 375.000000 Hertz
12: 400.000000 Hertz

336 Hz (octave of 21) is also connected to the good numbers. You will find
it in the Ptolemy scale when you use octaves of 7 Hz, 15 Hz or 268.8 Hz as
its reference pitch (see charts in previous chapter). If you delve into those
charts, however, you will see that it always related to the other magic
numbers via the odd sounding seventh harmonic or the 7/5 devils interval…
The other numbers, 17, 19, 23, 29 and 31 don’t seem to connect to the
magic numbers at all, and don’t sound good in ratios because they are too
large, so I don’t know much about them. What I have noticed, however, is
that the numbers that don’t connect well (7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31) are
all consecutive prime numbers...
 Harmonic number patterns
When you start the harmonic series with different octaves of the magic
numbers in this book, you will uncover even more patterns. The harmonic
series for 18 Hz (octave of 9 Hz) and 24 Hz (octave of 3 Hz) in the
following two images are good examples of this.

If you use that numerology trick to break each number down in the above
image to a single digit, 18 would be 9 because 1 + 8 = 9 and 36 would also
be 9 because 3 + 6 = 9. All of the other numbers in the harmonic series for
18 Hz will do the same thing; they will all add up to 9. You can start the
harmonic series with any number that adds up to 9, and all of the new
numbers will do the same. If you do the same thing with the harmonic
series for 24 Hz (following image) you get a repeating pattern of 6 - 3 - 9 -
6 - 3 - 9 - 6 - 3 - 9. If you want 3 - 6 - 9 just start the series with 3 or 12.
 Solfeggio tones, 440 Hz and the eleventh harmonic
If you look at the green blocks in the two previous charts you will see 396
Hz in the harmonic series for 18 Hz, and 528 Hz in the harmonic series for
24 Hz. These numbers are part of a set of frequencies called the “Solfeggio
scale”. The full set is: 171 - 417 - 741 - 285 - 528 - 852 - 396 - 639 - 963,
with 528 Hz being known as the “love frequency”. Unfortunately they
mostly sound horrible together and are not very good for making music at
all. You also won’t find these numbers in any ancient text or anything like
that, only on websites quoting a certain “Dr. H”.
I think that the real Solfeggio scale is more likely to be the “do - re - mi - fa
- SOL - la – ti” scale; the word SOL seems to hold a small clue… The only
interesting place I have ever found these numbers is on every number pad in
the world. Although they do represent the first 9 harmonics, the way the
scale uses different arrangements of the numbers in each vertical row makes
no harmonic sense.
What is really interesting, however, is that the green blocks on which 396
and 528 fell in the previous charts represent an “undecimal semi-augmented
fourth” with a ratio of 11/8. This ratio represents the eleventh harmonic
with its root raised by 3 octaves. I find it very interesting how these two
solfeggio frequencies are off-set from octaves of 3 Hz and 9 Hz by this very
unpleasant interval.

I actually read an article in which scientists claim to have shattered cancer

cells by playing two tones; a root tone matching the resonant frequency of
the cancer cells and its eleventh harmonic (Google cancer and the 11th
harmonic). This does not mean that the eleventh harmonic is healing; it
means that it damages things.
There was already a chart earlier in this book that showed the Ptolemy scale
with 11 Hz, or rather its higher octave of 352 Hz as its reference pitch. If
you were awake you may have noticed that the solfeggio tones 396 Hz and
528 Hz, and also our modern day standard reference pitch A = 440 Hz,
were in it. Here is a better chart highlighting this. It shows harmonics 16 to
32, but the relevant intervals are the same as in the Ptolemy scale. Because
these intervals are directly from the harmonics series, you now know that
396 Hz, 440 Hz and 528 Hz are all harmonics of 11 Hz.

You may remember that 11 Hz and its octaves don’t share any harmonics
with the magic frequencies, and that tones with no shared harmonics don’t
sound good together. This means that music with 396 Hz, 440 Hz or 528 Hz
as reference pitches will not sound good with music that has the magic
numbers like 256 Hz, 288 Hz, 384 Hz or 432 Hz as reference pitches, and
so will not be good on the same album or in the same DJ mix.
 Harmonic geometry
The harmonic series plays a major role not only in vibration but also in
certain static shapes and forms. The Fibonacci series is the best place to
start explaining this.
Fibonacci series

The Fibonacci series is a sequence of numbers that occurs frequently in

nature. It can be seen in the arrangement of petals and seeds on flowers, in
the spiral shape of snail shells and in the arrangement of branches and
leaves on trees. It is the same spiral seen when water goes down a plug hole
or when a hurricane forms around its eye, just as it is the same shape found
in the spirals of galaxies and the hair on the tops of people's heads.
Man has used the Fibonacci series to copy nature for centuries. You will
find it in the structure of many ancient buildings like the Parthenon in
Greece, the Great Pyramids of Giza, Stonehenge, and also in the
arrangement of some classical music where an 8 minute piece will often
peak at 5 minutes. It is still used today by musicians, architects and artists
to produce beautiful proportions that resonate with nature.
As a number sequence, the Fibonacci series becomes easy to understand.
You just take the number one and add it to itself to get two. Then add them
together to get three: 1 + 1 = 2 and 1 + 2 = 3. Now you have 1 - 2 - 3.
Then just add the last two numbers together to get the next number: 2 + 3 =
5. That gives you 1 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 5, add the last two numbers again, 3 + 5 = 8
and so you can go on and on. The result will be 1 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 5 - 8 - 13 - 21
- 34 - 55 - 89 - 144 … it goes on forever, an infinite spiral growing
exponentially larger with each new number.
If you take any two Fibonacci numbers that are next to each other, for
example 5 and 8, and use them as lengths for the sides of a rectangle, you
will get a golden rectangle with the golden ratio across its long and short
sides. You will find the same ratio if you look at the double spiral of the
seeds in some sunflowers, where if one side has 13 seeds the other will
often have 21 (two sequential numbers from the Fibonacci series). You will
find this pattern in the petals, leaves, seeds or other parts of many other
plants like pine cones and pineapples, not only sunflowers.
You will also find the golden ratio in the perfectly proportioned pentagram;
the circles in the image below show you the points where it is found in each
long side.

If you use the degrees in the angles of a pentagram as Hz, you will find that
36 Hz to 72 Hz is an octave and 72 Hz to 108 Hz is a perfect fifth.
These are the first three harmonics in the harmonic series for 36 Hz, and are
also all that the Pythagorean scale is made of (octaves and perfect fifths).
Now I can see why the Pythagoreans liked this symbol so much.
If you take the last digit in the first 60 Fibonacci numbers you will find a
pattern of numbers that repeats through the entire infinite series, starting
again after every 60 numbers and repeating in their last digits. If you
arrange these 60 numbers in rows with 5 numbers in each one as I have
below, a pattern of 0, 5, 5, 0, 5, 5… reveals itself in the first row. There are
many similar hidden patterns to be found in the Fibonacci series when you
play with it mathematically, which is why mathematicians are still studying
it.
0, 1, 1, 2, 3,
5, 8, 3, 1, 4,
5, 9, 4, 3, 7,
0, 7, 7, 4, 1,
5, 6, 1, 7, 8,
5, 3, 8, 1, 9,
0, 9, 9, 8, 7,
5, 2, 7, 9, 6,
5, 1, 6, 7, 3,
0, 3, 3, 6, 9,
5, 4, 9, 3, 2,
5, 7, 2, 9, 1.
If you raise the Fibonacci series by a few octaves to get musical tones, you
will find the octave and a fifth needed to make a Pythagorean scale right at
the start (1-2-3). You will also find a C major chord with a 5/4 major third
and a 3/2 perfect fifth. This is the same chord found in the Ptolemy scale
and in the harmonic series, only the order of the notes and the octaves they
are in is different. This kind of chord is called an inverted chord. A normal
major chord would be 256 Hz - 320 Hz - 384 Hz, while this one is 256 Hz -
384 Hz - 640 Hz. The general feeling of the chord is the same as the
original, though.

In the image below I have done the same thing with the harmonic series. As
you can see, it contains the same octave and fifth and also the same C major
chord, only the notes in the chord are in the correct order. This connection
between the harmonic and Fibonacci series actually is pretty obvious. The
Fibonacci series = 1-1-2-3-5-8-13… and the harmonic series = 1-2-3-4-5-6-
7-8-9-10-11-12-13… So, the harmonic series really contains the entire
Fibonacci series within its sequence numbers.
In the above chart you can see that this major chord is found between
harmonics 4, 5, and 6 in the harmonic series. The numbers 4, 5, and 6
actually reveal its structure and ratios: 5/4 = a major third, 6/5 = a minor
third and 6/4 can be lowered to 3/2 which is a perfect fifth. So, this chord is
really a 5/4 major third with a 6/5 minor third on top of it, and these add up
to make a 3/2 perfect fifth.
The 12 tone Ptolemy scale has this 4-5-6 major chord when played in its
root key, and it also has a 6/5 minor third in its root key just below the
major third (as on any piano). So, you can play a major or minor chord in
the root key of this scale and it will still mirror the geometry in this chapter,
only the minor chord inverts things somewhat.
 Pythagorean Theorem
The same major chord shows up in the Pythagorean theorem. This theorem
states that a squared + b squared = c squared. In other words, the sum of the
squares of two sides of a right triangle is equal to the square of the
hypotenuse. This theorem is used in theoretical mathematics and also in real
world calculations. An obvious example would be calculating the exact
length of a ramp when you only know the height (a) and distance on flat
ground (b).
Image by: Florin De Gelder

When I first saw the above image, I noticed that there are 3, 4, and 5 cubes
in each side of the triangle. I was not sure if this was just art or if they were
actual ratios. So, I used Google’s Pythagorean theorem calculator and found
that 2 squared + 3 squared really does = 5 squared. Because 3, 4, and 5 are
octaves of 192 Hz, 256 Hz and 320 Hz, I figured that it should be the same
with them. After checking with Google I found that I was right: If a = 192
Hz, and b = 256 Hz then c = 320 Hz. This is the exact same 4-5-6 major
chord found in “everything”, only it is inverted with 6 being lowered by an
octave to 3.
The tetractys is another important Pythagorean symbol. It consists of ten
points arranged with 1, 2, 3 and 4 points in each row to make a perfect
equilateral triangle.
Tetractys

Musically, it represents the first 4 harmonics which contain the favorite

ancient Greek intervals: the octave, the perfect fifth and the perfect fourth in
the spaces between them.

To the Pythagoreans the numbers 1 to 4 had cosmic meanings. These seem

to mirror the sonic properties of the intervals connected to them quite well.
The tetractys also represented space:
1 = a single point with no dimensions.
2 = one dimension (a line between two points).
3 = two dimensions (a flat triangle with 3 points).
4 = three dimensions (a tetrahedron with 4 points).
The Pythagoreans actually had a prayer about the tetractys:
“Bless us, divine number, thou who generated gods and men! O holy, holy
Tetractys, thou that containest the root and source of the eternally flowing
creation! For the divine number begins with the profound, pure unity until it
comes to the holy four; then it begets the mother of all, the all-comprising,
all-bounding, the first-born, the never-swerving, the never-tiring holy ten,
the keyholder of all.”
When initiates joined the Pythagoreans they had to take an oath, which also
mentioned the tetractys:
“By that pure, holy, four lettered name on high,
nature's eternal fountain and supply,
the parent of all souls that living be,
by him, with faith find oath, I swear to thee."
 Regular polygons
But this is not the end of the story; the harmonic series is found in many
more places throughout the geometric world. If, for example, you take the
degrees in the interior angles of the regular polygons and add the numbers
of the angles in each one together, or take the amount of degrees in the
circles in the flower of life, you will find it in both of them.
How this works: An equilateral triangle has 60 degrees in each corner, so 60
x 3 = 180 degrees. A square has 90 degrees in each corner, so 90 x 4 = 360
degrees and so on (note that the tetractys also forms a perfect equilateral
triangle).

180-360-540-720-900-1080-2160 = harmonic series for 180 Hz (regular

polygons).
360-720-1080-1440-1800-2160-2520 = harmonic series for 360 Hz (flower
of life).
360 Hz is one octave above 180 Hz so they are octaves of the same note,
which happens to be F# in the Ptolemy scale when it has 384 Hz as its
reference pitch.
As you can see there is a 4-5-6 F# major chord between F#, A# and C#. The
ratios in this chord are the same as in the 4-5-6 major chord earlier in this
chapter, only here it is in F# instead of G. Obviously it does not matter what
key you play it in, the ratios and geometry will always be the same.
 Platonic solids
Plato’s 3 dimensional Platonic solids are also made of these shapes. If you
take the degrees in their interior angles and add the numbers together you
get this:
Tetrahedron = 5 equilateral triangles = 720 degrees
Hexahedron (cube) = 6 squares = 2160 degrees.
Octahedron = 8 equilateral triangles= 1440 degrees
Dodecahedron = 12 pentagons = 6480 degrees
Icosahedron = 20 equilateral triangles = 3600 degrees.

Plato also connected these to the 5 elements:

Tetrahedron = Fire
Hexahedron (cube) = Earth
Octahedron = Air
Dodecahedron = Aether
Icosahedron = Water
What is quite interesting is that if you take the degrees for the 4 Earthly
ones (leave out aether) and add them together you get 7920, which is very
close to the diameter of the Earth in miles (Earth diameter = 7917.5 miles).
To add to this, the moon’s diameter is about 2160 miles which is the same
number as the amount of degrees in a cube. I don’t know what this means
but there are more similar examples involving the Sun, Earth and Moon in
the next chapter, so it is not an isolated thing.
It is also worth noting that with each number in the degrees of the
pentagram, the flower of life, the regular polygons and the platonic solids
(when their angles are added together) you will find that they all break
down to 9 when their digits are added together to make a single one.
The basic building blocks here (triangle, square, pentagon etc.) all connect
mathematically to the harmonic series which is amazing. But it gets better,
as they can be connected to it physically, too. To better understand this we
need to look at cymatics.
 Cymatics
People who work with cymatics stimulate various substances like sand or
water with sound, and observe the patterns that are created. This was first
discovered in the west by a German physicist and musician named Ernst
Chladni who found that drawing a violin bow across a metal plate with sand
on it would cause the sand to make amazing patterns. He found that
drawing the bow at different speeds and angles would cause the plate to
vibrate at its fundamental pitch or various harmonics of this, causing nodal
patterns that got more complex with higher harmonics. Ancient Chinese
gong makers knew about this and would hang gongs horizontally and use
sand cymatics to see where the gong needed more hammering. It is said that
the masters knew secret patterns for the best resonance, but this knowledge
is mostly lost in the sands of time now.
These days people just play a tone from a tone generator and use a
transducer (very strong speaker) to vibrate the metal plate. When they use a
tone generator and move the pitch around, they find that certain frequencies
make really nice patterns while others do not. Just as Chladni found, lower
ones make simple patterns while higher ones make more complex ones.
Many people make the mistake of assuming that these frequencies are
healing or special in some way, when they are really just the plate’s
resonant frequency and its harmonics.
To really understand cymatics you need to remove the plate, as its shape
influences the shape of the patterns too much. To see this in action you
really should watch a short video on YouTube called “Shape oscillation of a
levitated drop in an acoustic field”. In this video they have taken a
transducer and aimed it at a reflector so that the sound bounces back at it.
This creates a standing wave with pockets of high and low air pressure that
are fixed in place and don’t move at all. When this happens you can place
small objects or drops of water in these pockets and they will float in the
air! This is called “sonic levitation” and there are many videos about it
online.
But in the “Shape oscillation of a levitated drop in an acoustic field” video
they do something amazing. They play the fundamental frequency of the
drop of water, and it flattens into a disk (circle). Then they play the second
harmonic (octave) of this pitch and it becomes elongated, like a sausage.
This sausage, however, is oscillating. The ends move together and the sides
move apart, forming new ends so that it was like a “plus symbol” but with
only one line visible at a time, at the peak of each oscillation. When they
play the third harmonic the water forms a triangle, also oscillating with
another one so that both together would be a Star of David, but only one
was fully formed at a time.
And so they go on. Each harmonic’s shape has the same amount of sides as
its sequence number; 1 = circle, 2 = sausage, 3 = triangle, 4 = square, 5 =
pentagon and so on. The video stops after a few harmonics, but if you carry
on you will eventually have so many sides that you will have what appears
to be a circle again, only it won’t actually be one.
I find this to be of extreme interest, as each harmonic’s sequence number
now also has a physical shape. Obviously cymatics made using metal plates
and other objects are just showing you complex versions of these basic
shapes, made so by the extra factors being brought in by the objects’
physical properties. All cymatic patterns become more complex with higher
frequencies, so this must be what is going on.
The Ptolemy and Pythagorean scales in this book are made from the same
ratios found in these shapes, and the equal temperament scale is closely
based on them. So, all in all, it seems like the saying “geometry is frozen
music” is far more accurate than some would believe.
 Music of the spheres
Since frequencies are measured in Hz (cycles per second), knowing how the
second was made should be important history to any musician. Some
people say that the second is just a random man-made measure. Well, it is
man-made but it is not random at all. The second was first defined as
1/86.400 of one solar day, and later in terms of the Earth’s orbit around the
sun. Nowadays it is measured using atomic clocks that use the transitional
rate of certain atoms to define the second. This new second is not really
different to the older solar based one, only more stable (the Earth changes
speed now and again). I think it is nice to know that the second is based on
an equal division of a solar day, and that it really is a cosmic measure by the
very definition of the word.
To find out more about time, I went to Google's unit converters (seconds to
hours, hours to days etc.). I started with a 12 hour half day. This represents
exactly half a turn in the Earth's rotation. I was quite blown away to find
that there were exactly 43200 seconds in 12 hours. This actually makes
perfect sense because the second was first defined as 1/86.400 of one solar
day, and 43200 x 2 = 86400…
The following chart tracks 25920 years of time. While making it I realized
that I could just use the mathematics from the harmonic series. If you look
at the column furthest to the right in each part of the chart, you will see 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6, 7 etc. This harmonic structure is mirrored in all of the numbers to
the left of them. I guess this is all kind of obvious...
I used 28 day lunar months instead on normal ones because they make
much more sense. If you like this idea, you can download 28 day 13 month
lunar calendars online. With this system there are 364 days instead of 365,
so these calendars add one holiday to make 365 days. Pure mathematics
never really fits into nature perfectly, even our 365 days in a year is not
really accurate, there are actually closer to 365.2422 days in a year. And the
moon really takes about 27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes, 11.6 seconds to orbit
the Earth once, not 28. These orbits and rotations are also always
modulating and changing speed, so there are really no accurate numbers for
any of this. Basically the ancient people who first came up with this seem to
have used harmonic mathematics, and somehow came up with a system that
fits with the actual movements suspiciously well.
From this point I have left out some of the very long numbers on the left.
The bottom 3 rows in the above chart are of particular interest to me. In
case you don’t know, our Earth wobbles on its axis much like a spinning top
often does. This causes the stars in the sky to shift very slightly to one side
every night. It takes about 72 years for them to shift by only one degree and
about 2160 years to shift 30 degrees. 30 degrees x 12 = 360 degrees or one
full wobble, so each 30 degree arc has been connected to one of the 12
zodiac signs / constellations in the night sky. The full 360 degree wobble
takes about 25920 years to complete and move through all 12 signs (2160 x
12 = 25920). This large cycle is called a “great year”.
Since ancient times there have been people who believe that this cycle
causes “light” and “dark” spiritual ages on Earth. Right now we are said to
be transitioning from the Pisces to the Aquarian age, which is meant to be a
very spiritual age. Because each age lasts about 2160 years, however,
nobody seems to know the exact date of the change.
There are many magic numbers that show up in our measures of time and in
the music scales in this book. I am sure you are getting to know and
recognize them by now. The reason why the same numbers show up in both
places may actually be quite simple; all of them are harmonically connected
to the number 1. Our measures of time are harmonically based on 1 second,
which is based on one full rotation of the Earth. And the notes in the scales
are also harmonically connected to the number 1 or 1 Hz (1 cycle per
second).

This may seem like a good explanation, but when you look at the sizes and
distances between the Sun, Earth and Moon, all logic has to go out of the
window. The distance from the Sun to the Earth, for example, is about 108
times the diameter of the Sun, and the distance from the Earth to the Moon
is about 108 times the diameter of the Moon. Also the Moon's diameter is
about 2160 miles and its radius is about 1080 miles, while the Sun's
diameter is about 864000 miles and its radius is about 432000 miles. If you
remove the 0’s at the ends of these numbers you get 108, 216, 432 and 864,
which are all octaves of 432. Each 0 = the tenth harmonic, which is a major
third + 3 octaves, so there is a strange harmonic symmetry between all of
these numbers.
Another crazy thing is that the sun and moon are only the same size in the
sky from Earth because the sun’s diameter is about 400 times greater than
the moon, and the sun is also about 400 times farther away (400 is also a
magic number). This is what makes total eclipses possible on Earth. The
moon also orbits the Earth is such a way that the same side always faces us,
while the other “dark side” always faces away.
Each of the above things could be explained if they were on their own, but
all of them together are just too much to put neatly in a box. Even if these
are all approximate measures, all of them being so close is still quite
profound. If you are wondering how close they are, the Sun’s size and the
Earth’s rotation are not constant and these are actually the official estimates.
The moon’s diameter is said to be closer to 2159 than 2160 and its radius
closer to 1079 than 1080, so we are within 1 mile of accuracy with that.
The most logical explanation I can think of is that some god level being or
beings designed these planets using mathematics, but that is quite a thing to
say without any proof. If this is the case, however, the math would actually
have been very simple:
432 x 100 = 43200 seconds (12 hours)
432 x 200 = 86400 seconds (24 hours) (one rotation of the earth)
432 x 60 = 25920 years (one great year)
432 x 5 = 2160 miles (Moons diameter)
432 x 2.5 = 1080 miles (Moons radius)
432 x 2000 = 864000 miles (Suns diameter)
432 x 1000 = 432000 miles (Suns radius)
Bonus fact: 432 x 432 = 186624 (Speed of light = about 186000 miles per
second in a vacuum).
One thing worth noting is that these patterns only show up in the imperial
measures of inches, feet, yards or miles, while metric measures like cm or
km for distance don’t reveal much of anything. I guess the imperial system
must have some ancient connections that I don’t know about yet. How all of
this came to be is beyond my understanding, but since this timeless
mathematical system is also the best one for low decimal scale making, it
seems like we are stuck with it.
You may have noticed the number 432 or 4320, 43200, 432000 etc. in most
of the scales, and in the mathematics behind many other things in this book.
This is interesting because there are many people who swear that music
tuned around A = 432 Hz is really good to listen to. If you take into account
that 432 Hz is in vibrational harmony with the average rotation speed and
movements of the Earth, it makes me wonder if this might not actually be
true.
I mentioned before that on a piano you can make a key ring by hitting the
key an octave + a fifth below it, and that this works because the lower key
has the higher one as its second harmonic. I also mentioned how this works
with equal temperament, even though the notes are slightly out of tune. This
means that even if the rotation and movements of the Earth change speed
slightly according to other cycles, playing music that is tuned to the
estimated average should still “connect” quite well. Although there is no
physical proof that frequencies vibrating in approximate harmony with the
rotation speed of the Earth are better for you to listen to, creating art,
making music or constructing buildings to mirror the heavens and its cycles
has still been done for thousands of years, hence the saying “as above so
below”.
Most of the ancient cultures like the Egyptians, Mayans, Sumerians etc.
were obsessed with this, and built many of their important structures to
align with various planets and cosmic events, especially the sunrise and
sunset on the solstices. You can tell that most of them used “harmonic
mathematics” by the numbers that you find in their measures.
A good example of this is the Great Pyramid of Giza. It is part of an
arrangement of 3 pyramids set up to mirror the 3 stars in the constellation of
Orion, and was originally covered with exactly 144000 casing stones. There
are also many examples the golden ratio in its design, but the most
interesting thing of all is that when you hit the kings “sarcophagus”, the
whole area echoes at around 108 Hz with a clear 432 Hz harmonic above it.
Another good example is Stonehenge in England. Its outer circle of stones
is about 108 feet in diameter, and it is aligned to the sunset and sunrise on
the solstices. A very interesting site to look into as well is Angor Wat in
Cambodia. There are many examples of 432, 108, 144 etc. in the structures
and statues there. For an amazing sight, type "Angor Wat" into Google
Earth’s search bar and see for yourself how it lines up with the lat / long
grid for a perfect solstice alignment.
There are even some fairly modern cities and buildings that are still aligned
with the solstices such as “Manhattanhenge” with its obelisk and aligned
streets in New York, and the central oval obelisk area in the Vatican City
(harmonic mathematics may have been used in the design of the Vatican
City as it occupies exactly 108 acres of land). Both of these obelisks were
originally from ancient Egypt and were brought to the west with great effort
and at great cost. These are not the only obelisks that made this long
journey; there are two more, one in London and another in Paris. This adds
up to 4 obelisks in 4 of the modern world’s greatest power centers that were
brought from the old power center of the world where our culture began. I
recently read an article which stated that the “Institute of Digital
Archaeology” wants to install Temple of Baal archway replicas in Times
Square in New York City and in Trafalgar Square in London, so I guess
these people still exist…
The same numbers turn up in many religions. Yogis, for example, have
strings of beads called "Shiva beads" that always come on strings with 108
beads, while on New Year’s Eve Buddhist temples in Japan ring their bells
108 times to remember the 108 human sins and worldly desires. The "Kali
Yuga" also is an important long time cycle in some Indian religions that
lasts for 432000 years. Even the Jehovah’s witnesses seem to know
something because they come right to my door and tell me that exactly
144000 people will be chosen by God to save the world one day.
The Mayan's used the same maths in their famous measures of time, in their
time cycles; 1 Tun = 360 days, 1 Katun = 7200 days and 1 Baktun = 144000
days. The Sumerians also used it for all kinds of things, with numbers like
12 and 60 being used for time and 360 for geometry… There are many
more examples, but I will stop here.
It could be that just as I found certain numbers to be the best for getting a
low decimal count, so other people throughout the ages also found the same
numbers to be the most useful for making big calculations and
measurements with minimal decimals. If they used this type of harmonic
based system, then they would always have ended up with “magic”
numbers like 4320 or 1440. The following image of the Ptolemy scale with
360 Hz as its reference pitch goes into the higher octaves. In it you can see
how numbers like 4320, 1440, 14400, 19200 and even 25920 (great year)
are in the scale. This can only mean that a similar mathematical system was
used.
If you try and trace this all back, we had the ancient Greeks, Socrates and
his students, Aristotle and Plato, then before them, also in Greece and a
great influence on their work, we had Pythagoras who seems to have been
the first to bring this knowledge to the west. Pythagoras is said to have
traveled from Greece to Egypt to study in their mystery schools, after which
he was captured by the Persians and sent to the city of Babylon in
Mesopotamia which they had conquered and were ruling at the time. There
he studied with the Chaldaeans of Babylon and the Magi of Persia before
eventually returning to Greece with all of this information. The Babylonian
and Assyrian / Syrian civilizations grew out of the ancient Sumerian
civilization, which is said to be the first advanced human civilization on
Earth. When you try to trace things further back than the Sumerians, you
will enter the realms of the god level beings and will find versions of reality
that very different to what we know.
What we do know for sure is that there must have been a huge global
culture of pyramid / huge stone block builders that existed all around the
world thousands of years ago, because the stones are mostly still there. We
know that these people knew all about astronomy and were very good at
mathematics, because of the way these structures were built. The strange
thing about them is that the oldest ones often have the biggest stones and
finest stone work. These ancient stones are sometimes so big that no human
could ever have moved them, and they sometimes have gaps between them
that are smaller than the width of a human hair. It is a fact that nobody
really knows who made some of the oldest structures in Egypt, South
America and many other places, and that some of the “ancient cultures”
actually discovered but did not build all of them.
Why this timeline is important is because our culture has been heavily
influenced by the Ancient Greeks who, in turn, were heavily influenced by
the Egyptians, Babylonians, Sumerians and so on. Whether the first known
human civilizations were pre-dated by other humans, aliens or god level
beings is impossible to tell; nobody really knows what happened that long
ago.
The one thing that is constant is this harmonic number system, this matrix
of mystery that keeps popping up over and over again. I think these
numbers are really the numbers of nature, expressing the path of least
resistance mathematically.
The human body starts out as 1 cell, then 2-4-8-16-32 etc. (octaves)
Water down a plug hole / spiral galaxies = 1-1-2-3-5-8 etc. (Fibonacci
series)
Most beat free intervals / sacred geometry = 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 etc. (Harmonic
series)
All three of these things are represented by the simplest small whole
number sequences, the same ones that the ratios and frequencies in this
book are based on. This means that “harmonic mathematics” really does
represent nature, as both follow the same most efficient path of least
resistance to do things. When studied closely using sound, numbers that are
closer to 1 are connected to more enlightening intervals, while things get
more complex and emotional as you go further away from it. In the end it
seems as if 1 is the true source of everything, the seed from which
everything grows and the place to which everything returns…
 How to tune synthesizers and
instruments
By now you must really want to know how to implement this in real life,
and how to tune actual instruments to exact Hz values. Remember that
choirs naturally sing the perfect self-adapting scale with small ratios in any
key, so the tuning systems in this book are only needed because we have
instruments with fixed tuning that don’t behave naturally...
The word we use for this is kind of tuning is "micro-tuning". With micro-
tuning you can play Pythagorean, Ptolemy / just Intonation or any other
scale you can think of. Many popular VST synthesizers can be tuned in this
way. I use Omnisphere 2®, Kontakt 5®, Serum®, Zebra 2®, CrX 4®,
Cronox 2 and Albino 3® together.
Equal temperament is the only fixed scale that sounds the same in any key,
while Pythagorean and just intonation scales sound better in their root keys
and certain other keys. So, the best choice of scale is really dependent on
the type of music that you want to make. Equal temperament is best for
music like jazz where the root key changes a lot, while the Ptolemy scale is
best for music like deep house or psytrance where the root key stays the
same most of the time.
For this reason you may find that when you make a full album, you might
want to use different scales for each song. Because equal temperament is
closely based on just intonation / Pythagorean tuning, you will find that
using the same magic numbers as reference pitches for all 3 scales will
result in good all round harmony between them. A is normally used as the
reference note for equal temperament, so using A = 432 Hz will be a
sensible option as a reference pitch for it.
In the following image you can see that equal temperament with A = 432
Hz has many notes that are within 1 Hz, or otherwise very close to the same
notes in the Pythagorean scale with 432 Hz, and the Ptolemy scale with 384
Hz as reference pitches.

If you want to use the Ptolemy or Pythagorean scales then you should learn
to use the amazing free scale making software called "Scala" which can be
downloaded from this link: [Link]
[Link]/scala/[Link]. There are also many tutorials, links and
information on the Scala web page, so it is a very a good place to read and
learn more about micro-tuning.
With Scala you can generate scales like Pythagorean, just intonation,
harmonic, equal temperament, or make scales of your own. You can then
export them in a variety of different formats like bulk dump midi files, .scl
and .tun files that can be loaded into various hardware and software
synthesizers to adjust each note individually.
 How to use Scala
Even if you don’t have any micro-tunable synthesizers, Scala has its own
sound player and mouse operated keyboard. So, while reading the
following tutorial, keep in mind that you can hit the “play” icon and listen
to what you have loaded or generated at any time. You can also hit the
“show” icon to get a nice readout of your scale as ratios, Hz, cents or other
formats.
First I will explain how to make the scales and export them as various
formats for various synths, and then I will explain how to load them into the
synths. Obviously the first thing you need to do is download and install
Scala on your computer. You can find this link: [Link]
[Link]/scala/[Link]
For installation instructions on downloads for mac read this:
[Link]
On Windows you must also install gtk2-runtime-2.24.10-2012-10-10-
[Link] for Scala to work. This is the best link: [Link]
[Link]/home/[Link]/Main/Downloads
Keep in mind that installation is very easy on a PC and very hard on mac.
To get the Pythagorean and Ptolemy scale pre-sets that I used in this book
into Scala, you need to download the free zip file containing hundreds of
scales from this link: [Link]
Unzip this zip file into the folder in your program files where you installed
Scala.
These are the file names for the 3 scales you may want to try first.
“pyth_12.scl” (12 tone Pythagorean scale)
“ji_12.scl” (12 tone Ptolemy scale)
“[Link]” (7 tone Ptolemy scale)
The scales in the zip file are in the ".scl." format. They cannot be loaded
into most synths, but they can be opened and edited in Scala. Then they can
be exported in a variety of formats for various software and hardware
synths. If you want to use one of the presets, follow the tutorial below but
use “File” and “Open scale” to browse for your scale and load it. When it is
loaded, continue from step 5.
If you want to generate a scale, just go to "file", "new" and "scale". There
you will find some nice options to generate your own .scl files which you
can then edit and convert to .tun or another format. If you select "harmonic
scale" you will get a very nice 12 tone harmonic scale made from the 4th to
16th harmonics. You can change it to 16 to 32 or any other harmonic scale
that you like. When you have chosen your scale hit “apply” and “ok”, and
continue from step 5 in the following tutorial.
To use a scale with more than 12 notes on a 12 tone keyboard you can edit
it manually, choosing the 12 best sounding tones to make your own custom
scale that best suits the music you are making. To edit the frequencies of the
individual notes in a scale manually using charts from my book, just go to
“edit” and “edit scale” then you can double click on any frequency and
remove it, or enter a new one in its place. If you want to hear the scale
before exporting, you can just click “play” on the bottom right, then when
you click on a frequency in the chart it will play that note in the built in
midi player. Don’t forget to hit “apply” and “OK” afterwards.
If you want to make your own scale using Hz or ratios from the charts in
this book, you can simply start with an empty scale and enter your notes or
intervals one at a time. To do this, start on step 1 in the following tutorial:
1: Open Scala and go to “File” – “New” and select “Scale” or hold “Ctrl”
and click “I” as a keyboard shortcut to do the same thing. This will open a
new empty scale that only contains one note (perfect prime).
2: Double click the frequency of your perfect prime and change it to
whatever frequency you want your reference pitch to be. If you are not sure
where to start, here is the chart with those 12 really useful reference pitches
again.
3: Now you can simply enter the data for each note in the white “new pitch”
bar.
To enter a frequency as Hz, you have to add a “z” before your number. So,
for 288 Hz you would enter “z288” and hit “enter”.
To enter a ratio, just type it in. So, for a major third, just type 5/4 and hit
“enter”.
To enter a note using the amounts of cents that it is above perfect prime, just
enter the numbers like this: 386.3137 (cents above perfect prime) and hit
enter.
When you hit enter you will see your new note appear below “perfect
prime”. Continue like this, adding more notes until you have built one
octave of your scale.
The last note in your scale must be an octave with a ratio of 2/1. You only
need one octave because Scala generates the others for you, making a full
scale that covers your whole keyboard. Obviously it works best if there are
12 notes in your scale, otherwise each octave will fall on a different note
making the scale hard to play.
4: When your scale is ready, hit “Apply” and “OK” and click “show scale”
under “view” in the main window to make sure your scale is loaded.
5: Go to “Edit” (top of main window) and click “preferences” right at the
bottom of the “Edit” drop down menu. This will open the “User Options”
window.
6: Click the top “Output” tab and make sure that your “base frequency”
(reference pitch) is correct.
7: Click the “MIDI” tab (in the user options window) and change your
“reference frequency” to match your base frequency.
8: Below “reference frequency”, you can change “reference key” and “key
for 1/1” to the correct note for your reference pitch.
9: Click on the “Synth” tab and select the correct synth under “tuning
model”. Most VST synths will use .tun files (112 in the drop down menu).
10: Click “Apply” and “Ok” then close the “User Options” window.
11: To save it as .scl, you must go “File” and “Save Scale As” and select
“.scl”
12: To export your scale as .tun or another format, go to “File” and “Export
Synth Tuning”.
13: Select export destination and hit “Ok”.
Your scale is now ready to load into your synthesizer.
Some synthesizers refuse to play the base frequency, playing all the notes
perfectly except for the base frequency itself. To solve this problem I set my
base frequency to a very low octave that is not in my music. So, for 432 Hz
I would use 27 Hz and for 192 Hz I would use 24 Hz. With these synths I
also set the “reference key” to be a very low note that I never actually play.
For “A” I use “A0” or “A1” for “G” use “G0” or “G1” etc.
Most of these tuning files including .tun and .scl files are really just text
files, and can therefore be edited or even made using a text editor like
WordPad. If you make one from scratch, just replace the .txt or other
extension with .scl or .tun and it will work just fine.
How to load tuning files in software
synths
By now you must really want to know how to load these tuning files into
actual synths. I will start with software instruments and then move to
hardware. First make a folder somewhere on your PC to keep the tuning
files in. Remember where they are so you can browse and easily find them
again from your various VST's scale browsers. Each VST is a bit different
so I will write instructions for all the ones I have used successfully.
Albino 3®
Just click on the word “Albino” on the bottom right of the synth to see the
back. Now, at the bottom right, above the fake stereo out plugs, is a box.
Click the load button and browse for the .tun file that you want. Albino
comes with some preset .tun files. They will be in your Albino program
files (where you installed Albino).
Cronox 2® / CrX4®
Cronox and Crx4 are the same as Albino. Just click on the word “Cronox”
or “CrX4” to see the back of the synth, or click “settings” on the top right; it
does the same thing. Now browse for your .tun files and load as with
Albino, very simple.
Many other Linplug® synths like Octopus® and Spectral® can be micro-
tuned and work in the same way as above.
Serum®
Serum works in the same way as Albino and Cronox. Go to the “global” tab
and browse for your tuning file from the browser in the oscillator settings.
Use the small padlock icon to lock it, then it won’t keep going back to equal
temperament every time you change sound presets.
 Omnisphere 2®
For Omnisphere you have to copy and paste the .tun files into the
Omnisphere program files. Just go to:
Program files - spectrasonics - steam - omnisphere - settings library -
presets - tuning file
Make a new folder in the “tuning file” folder and call it "my tuning files"
(or something like that). Now, just paste your new .tun files into this folder.
To load them, just open Omnisphere and look in the middle of the main
front window, a bit to the left. You should see a box called "scale" where
you will now find your new folder and files. Use the new “Sound Lock”
function and select “tuning scale” to lock the tuning. If you don’t it will
revert to equal temperament every time you change sound pre-sets.
Alchemy®
As with Omnisphere, go to:
Program files - Camel Audio - alchemy - libraries -tuning
Paste your files in a folder there.
To load them look at the top right of the main window of the synth. There is
a box called "Tuning" in which you will now find your .tun files.
Zebra 2®
With Zebra you also need to copy your tuning files into its tuning folder
before you can browse for it from the tuning section on the synth. You can
find this folder in “my documents” in a folder called “u-he”.
Don’t forget to toggle “Voice MicroTuning” to “On” (next to the tuning file
browser in the synth), as it is off by default. Once it is loaded you can also
right click on the file’s name in file browser and save it as a preset, then you
can load it from there without having to browse for it again. Unfortunately
this synth has no tuning lock, and does revert to equal temperament when
you change presets.
 Kontakt 5®
Kontakt is a great sampler and is perfect sampling your own sounds. It
needs a “Kontakt script” to be micro-tuned. In Scala you can save any scale
in this format. Just go to “Preferences” - “User Options” - “ Synth” and set
“Tuning Model” to “129: Native Instruments Kontakt 2, via script file”
before exporting your scale.
This script is not an actual tuning file and cannot be loaded directly into
Kontakt. To use it you have to open it with a text editor like WordPad,
select all of the text (ctrl A), and copy it to your clip board (ctrl C). Now
open Kontakt and load any instrument. I don’t know why, but this does not
work without an instrument loaded. When it is loaded, click the “tuning
fork” on the top left of the instrument then click “script editor” on the far
right of the instrument window (not the script editor with a scroll icon in the
main window). Now, in the row of tabs just below the script editor tab, click
on them until you find one that opens an empty white window below it (see
following image). If all of the tabs have things in them, try another
instrument.
Paste all of the text that is in the Kontakt script file into the empty white
space, then hit the “Apply” tab at the top right. Now, to save it go to the
“Preset” tab on the left side of the synth, click it and select “save preset”
from the drop down menu. Give it a name and save it in the default
location, then go to “User” in the same preset tabs drop down menu to see if
your file is there. If it is, you will find it there from now on when you
browse from any other instrument in Kontakt. In the following image I have
highlighted the important tabs in green; this image will help a lot if you
have Kontakt open in front of you and don’t know where to find everything.
 Native synthesizers in Logic®
(EFM1, ESM, ES1, ES2, ESE, ESP, EVB3, EVD6, EVOC 20, EVP88, Garage band Instruments,
Sculpture, EXS24).

Logic has very powerful micro-tuning possibilities exclusively for its native
synthesizers. It does, however, accept third party VST synthesizers,
including the ones in this chapter. So, using .tun files with these that match
the .scl files that are tuning the native synthesizers works perfectly. To
access the settings for native synthesizers, just go to your “project settings”
window and open the “Tuning” section. Here you can change your
“software instrument scale” from “equal tempered” to “fixed”. When you
have done that you can select a scale from the “type” menu (there are
already a few scales from the Scala zipfile there). If you want to use you
own .scl tuning files, you will need to copy them to your Logic program
files so that they appear in the scale type drop down menu in your tuning
section.
File path: Pro-app – Contents – Resources – Tuning tables.
Copy your .scl files into the “tuning tables” folder. They should appear in
your project settings tuning options. These .scl files don’t over-ride your
master tune and root key like .tun files do, so you only need one file to play
your scale in any key. To change your reference pitch and root key, look in
the project tuning settings in Logic.
If you don’t have Scala, you can open any of the .scl files that came with
Logic and just edit them in a text editor, or just make your own. They work
with ratios so you can use any of the ratio based charts in this book to make
them. Just make sure that your newly saved files have the .scl extension or
they will not work.
Right at the bottom of the tuning options window, you can also select
“hermode tuning” which is a self-adapting system that tries to keep your
music in just intonation even if you change keys. There are 3 general
variations of this that you can choose from: “Baroque” which gives you
pure thirds and fifths, “Classic pure” which has slightly tempered thirds and
fifths, and “Pop jazz” which has that harmonic seventh that is so important
in the overtone series, but can also sound a bit odd at times. The depth
slider adjusts the intensity of the tuning in relation to equal temperament.
There are a few other settings, too, so I am sure that this system can give
good results if set up carefully.
Another nice function is the “copy to user” function on the right of the scale
“type” menu. There you can copy the “fixed” scale to the cent based sliders
in the “user” section. This is nice if you have a scale where some notes
sound a bit off; you can just use your ears to make a quick adjustment. To
learn how to use these sliders, read the following Cubase section.
 Native synthesizers in Cubase®
As with Logic, Cubase can load all of the VST synthesizers that use .tun
files in this chapter, and so it also makes a very good DAW for micro-tuned
music. Cubase 7 and later versions also have Hermode tuning which works
in the same way as it does in Logic. You can find the settings in “project” –
“project setup” (only works with vst 3 synthesizers that are native to
CUbase). In older versions of Cubase, most of the native vst 3 synthesizers
can also be micro tuned via the Cubase Micro-Tuner plugin. This is a MIDI
plugin and must be inserted on a MIDI insert channel, not a regular effect
channel. It works in the same way as the “user” scale in Logic, so the
following tutorial will work for both programs.

These sliders work with “cents” (percent of 100). You can use the “cents”
data from any scale that you have made in Scala, although you do need to
make some calculations to get it to work.
With the sliders set to 0 you will have an equal temperament scale with
exactly 100 cents in each semi-tone. To calculate the amount of cents
needed to shift each note to play the Pythagorean, Ptolemy, or any other
scale, just open it in Scala and type “show scale” or go to the “view” tab
and select “scale”. Then go to “new” - “scale”, select equal temperament,
open it and do “show scale” again. Now you will be able to see and
compare both scales.
You will see your intervals are displayed as cents in the right column. Now
all you need to do is look at each note to see if it is higher or lower than the
same note in equal temperament. If it is higher you need to raise the cents
value, and if it is lower you need to lower it. Remember this “plus or
minus” value for each note because it makes the actual calculation much
easier.
To complete the calculation, just compare each note to its equal
temperament counterpart and subtract the smaller of the two from the larger.
The answer that you get will be the amount of cents needed to detune that
note from equal temperament to your new scale. Remember to check if the
new note is higher or lower than it is in equal temperament, so that you
know whether to raise or lower the slider on your micro tuner. You will
find that cents don’t have the same magical connection to harmonics and
numbers that Hz frequencies do. So, when using cents with harmonic
intervals, your numbers will usually have many decimals in them and will
need to be trimmed.
GOOD TIP: Set your synth to play a single sine or saw tooth wave with no
effects or modulation, and then use the “tuner” plugin in Cubase® or a
similar Hz based guitar tuner to check that you really have the right
frequencies.
 How to load tuning files in
hardware synths
For hardware synths you need to export your scale from Scala in the correct
format for that synth. Only some hardware synths can be micro tuned like
this, and you will definitely need your synth’s operation manual to find out
the specifics for each synth, like the strange key combinations sometimes
needed to activate midi dumps. Some modern synths also have a usb port
that can load tuning files, usually using a specific format and loading
method for that synth.
Many hardware synths use some form of bulk dump midi files. Scala can
make quite a few types of these midi files, so if you have the right synth and
want to load one of these files into it, all you need to do is follow these
steps.
Loading midi dump files:
1. Load your midi dump file on a midi track in your music workstation
(Cubase® Logic® etc.) or hardware sequencer.
2. Connect the “MIDI Out” of your workstation to the “MIDI In” of your
hardware synth.
3. Solo the Track with the midi file and make sure your synth and computer
are set to the same midi channel (channel 1 is best as it is often the default
setting).
4. Make sure your hardware synth is set up to receive a bulk midi dump
(this info you will find in your synths user manual).
5. Play back the data into your synth by hitting the play button in your
workstation. Wait until it is played through and this should do it. Your synth
"will" now be re-tuned.
Here is a fairly complete list of hardware and software synths that are
compatible with Scala.
(List from the Scala website)
Alphakanal Automat
AnaMark softsynth
Big Tick Angelina, Rainbow and Rhino softsynths
Bitheadz Unity softsynth
Cakewalk Dimension Pro
Cakewalk Rapture
Cakewalk Z3ta+ softsynth
Camel Audio Alchemy and Cameleon5000 softsynths
Celemony Melodyne 2
ChucK
crusherX-Mac!
DashSignature EVE one (not two)
Devine Machine OTR88
E-mu Morpheus
E-mu Proteus series
Ensoniq EPS/EPS16/ASR10
Ensoniq TS-10/TS-12
Fluidsynth (iiwusynth) software synthesizer
HERCs series, Abakos Pro softsynths
Image-Line Harmor
Kemper Digital Virus
Korg M1, M1R octave tuning dump
Korg X5DR octave tuning dump
Korg OASYS PCI soundcard (and softsynths supporting its .tun tuning
textfile)
LinPlug Albino 2, Alpha 2, CronoX, Octopus, Organ 3 and Sophistry
softsynths
Manytone ManyStation, ManyGuitar, ManyOne softsynths
Marion MSR-2
Max Magic Microtuner for Max/MSP and Pluggo softsynths
MIDI Tuning Standard (both bulk tuning dump and single-note tuning
change, 3 byte), supported in Timidity and Audio Compositor, E-mu:
Proteus 3, UltraProteus, Audity/Proteus 1000 and 2000 series, Virtuoso
2000, Proteus FX, Orbit, Planet Phatt, B3, Carnaval, Ensoniq: ASR-X, MR
Rack, MR-61, MR-76, ZR-76, Turtle Beach: Multisound, Monterey, Maui,
Tropez, Rio
MIDI Tuning Standard 2-byte octave tuning dump
MIDI Tuning Standard 1-byte octave tuning dump
MIDI to CSound
Modartt Pianoteq 4
Mutagene Mukoco, Macomate 88
Moog Slim Phatty. (Latest model, 100% analogue hardware synth, uses
.scl files)
Omringen Oblivion
Native Instruments Absynth 2 (via .gly file)
Native Instruments FM7 and Pro-52/Pro-53
Native Instruments Kontakt 2 (via script file)
Native Instruments Reaktor (via semitones file, frequency file or NTF file)
Pure Data
Robin Schmidt’s Straightliner softsynth
Roland GS & JV/XP families
Roland Fantom-X6/X7/X8
Roland V-Synth Version 2.0
Roland Virtual Sound Canvas, SC-8850
Smart Electronix Foorius
Spectrasonics Omnisphere softsynth
Synapse Audio Orion Pro softsynth
Synthesis Technology MOTM-650
Synthogy Ivory
Timidity and Audio Compositor MIDI to audio renderers
Tobybear Helios softsynth
VAZ Plus, 2001 and Modular softsynths VirSyn Cube, Cantor, Poseidon
and TERA 2 softsynths
Xponaut Voice Tweaker
Yamaha DX7II/TX802. Classic digital hardware synths.
Yamaha SY77/TG77/SY99/VL-1/VL-7
Yamaha TX81Z/DX11/DX27/DX100/V50 (both octave and full keyboard
bulk data)
Yamaha XG family
Yamaha VL70m
WayOutWare TimewARP 2600
Wusik Wusikstation v2
Xenharmonic FMTS VSTi
Zebra 2.0 softsynth
 Tuning acoustic instruments
If you are tuning an actual instrument like a harp, then your best bet will be
to look at the charts in this book or generate frequency charts yourself in
Scala. Then you could use a hardware or software Hz reading tuner and a
microphone to tune your instrument. Another very good way is to use a
VST synth with your scale loaded and with a pure sine or saw wave preset,
and then tune the actual instrument to match the notes by ear. It is also good
to know that there are many Pythagorean 432 Hz, 256 Hz, 192 Hz and 288
Hz tuning forks available online. These are great for tuning instruments by
ear.
Brainwave entrainment techniques

Binaural beats
Binaural beats are most often made using software, although you can use
acoustic instruments, too. In ancient times people used two de-tuned
singing bowls, didgeridoos, or other drone producing instruments.
Nowadays, however, there is some very nice software available for creating
binaural beats. As usual the most useful software is freeware / shareware
that not many people know about, like “Valhalla echo®”. If you want to
make binaural beats using your DAW, then this simple little plugin is a gem.
Valhalla echo®
“Valhalla echo®” can be downloaded here for free:
[Link] To install it simply unzip the
file to the directory where you normally install your effect plugins.
While it is really meant for making crazy sounds, it can also be used to de-
tune left /right channels to specific Hz and so can be used to de-tune any
sounds, making them into binaural beats. This is very useful because pure
computer-generated sine waves can be rather harsh. With this plugin,
however, you can use a warm analogue sine wave or any sound that you
want to be your carrier signal.
When all the knobs are set up just as they are in this image (make sure
“delay sync” is set to “free”) then the big middle knob becomes a stereo Hz
de-tuner. This is very useful because it is a plugin, and so can be used in
real time on any sound in a full song. It is particularly nice to set up an FX
send channel with a reverb and Valhalla echo after it, then you can send this
to many channels creating a nice ambient / binaural wash in the background
through your whole track (a group track can be set up in a similar way).
If you use harmonic bpm then this is a powerful tool. Just divide your bpm
by 60 and use octaves of that frequency to dial into Valhalla. The slider is
too sensitive for exact Hz work, but you can click on the numbers under the
dial (Hz) and enter any frequency with your PC keyboard. You can also
right click on the numbers and use “copy and paste” to paste numbers from
your calculator or a text file, which is very handy.
You should note that if the dial is set to 4 Hz, it raises the right channel by 4
Hz and also lowers the left by 4 Hz. So, with a setting of 4 Hz, the end
binaural beat will be 8 Hz and not 4 Hz. The fact that it raises and lowers
both channels is good because this makes it more musically useful. If it
only lowered one channel then the resulting sound would be a bit flat,
whereas if it raised one channel then it would be a bit sharp. All in all, this
is pretty much the best tool that I have found for adding binaural beats into
music.
BWGEN®
Brainwave generator or BWGEN is another amazing piece of software
downloadable for free here: [Link]
It is stand-alone (not a plugin) but it does have an “export to wave file”
option. With BWGEN you can easily make the classic sine wave based
binaural beats that you see on YouTube, or buy online as products with
names like "E dose". It can produce triangle, square, and other useful wave
forms, and can also have more than one binaural beat at the same time. So,
it can be used to create more complex brain states.
BWGEN comes with some nice presets that you can use or edit as a starting
point. You can easily make your own from scratch, too.
Here is a quick lesson:
Go to “wave” and then “preset options” and “general” to open the user
options window. Here you can name your program, set its length in
minutes, and add segments and voices. Segments are for more complex
changes in your program, while voices are for adding more than one voice
or tone at the same time.
Now go to “sound” next to “general”. Here can set your binaural beat
frequency and your audible pitch frequency. If you have more than one
voice you need to go back to ”general” and “voices” and select each voice
to edit them there.
Your tones can easily be set to sweep from one frequency to another. Just
click on the small square white "nodes" to open the “sweep parameters”
box. The default setting for the audible pitch is to track the binaural beat
frequency; that generates an audible pitch that is in mathematical harmony
with the binaural beat frequency. This is helpful if your binaural beat
frequency is slowly changing over time, and you still want a harmonious
tone for a carrier that changes in harmony with moving beat frequency. If
you want to set your own frequency, uncheck this “track” box and use the
small square white “nodes” to open the “sweep parameters” box. Then you
can set a stable or sweeping frequency for your carrier voice. With a stable
Hz frequency for the carrier tone you can make sounds that are in tune with
your music's root frequency.
The next preset option next to “sound” is “waveform” where you can
choose different waveforms for each voice. This is quite nice because with
the square and triangle waves you can also make crazy short binaural sound
effects. In the other two boxes, “background” and “noise”, you can set up
background sounds to mix with the beats, such as nature sounds, white /
pink noise etc. I would really recommend adding sounds in a better audio
workstation, though. To do this just export your binaural beats to wave
under “wave” and “play into .WAV file”, then load them into your
workstation.
Cool edit pro®
Adobe® Cool edit pro also has a nice brainwave synchronizer under
"effects" and "special" called "brainwave synchronizer". This is a nice and
very simple way to apply binaural de-tuning to any audio.
 Isochronic tones
A scientific isochronic tone is a very carefully shaped and tuned sound. The
best way to make pure isochronic tones is in your PC music workstation;
for example, in Cubase or Logic. If you want to make pure "scientific"
tones with no music, a very interesting option is to set your quantize to
seconds instead of beats and bars (I have only done this in Cubase). When
you do this it disables your normal quantize and enables the other
milliseconds (ms) quantize next to it. Now you don't need to worry about
Hz / bpm conversion. I have tried to make normal music like this (using
only seconds and milliseconds) but it is quite tricky. Using bpm and normal
quantize is more familiar.
There are two ways to get your actual tones. You can just use a synth with a
pure wave form, or you can make the waves in another program and import
them as audio. If you render them first, it is good to render them a bit longer
than they should be, because then you can edit out start or end clicks to
make nice clean pulses. This way you can also line all of the wave shapes
up better, by always starting on a "zero point" in the center where the wave
crosses the line of no air pressure. Another method is to use long waves
with a gate effect to create the isochronic pulse.
When you work with isochronic tones the border between brainwave work
and music becomes really thin. For example, one known way of working
with isochronic tones is to apply a randomizer to the carrier tones frequency
and / or panning so that each successive tone is a different random
frequency or in a different ear. Music producers do this all the time. It is just
one step away from being a panned melody or arpeggiated synth line, very
much like the African tribes who use those stereo interlocking "binaural"
melodies to induce trance by placing an mbira player at each ear of the
trancer.
If you tune your music to its harmonic bpm, then your music will
automatically be isochronic. All you really need to do is study this chart and
keep in mind what kind of rhythms create which kind of brainwave,
knowing that the rules are the same for any bpm between 120 and 240 bpm.
 Embedding brainwaves into pre-made music
There are many ways to go about this. One of my favorites is to split my
audio into frequency bands using equalizers or filters, and then apply
binaural de-tuning, isochronic gating or even just mild amplitude
modulation or panning to one or more of these bands. The best software to
use for this is your normal DAW such as Cubase or Logic. You do get
special software for de-tuning audio and embedding beats, but they are all
very limited and will never be as good as a workstation with all its
equalizers and filters.
Separating your music into frequency bands is actually quite simple. If, for
example, you want to separate the sub bass from some music so that you
can de-tune it without affecting the higher parts, all you need to do is
duplicate your song channel so you have two channels with the same thing
playing:

Then just apply different equalizers to each channel, so one channel will
play only bass while the other plays only mid-range and high frequencies:

Now all you need to do is apply isochronic gating, binaural detuning or

other forms of modulation to the channel that is playing only bass.
Obviously if you want to embed binaural beats, just use Valhalla delay on
the bass track. Of course you can use other frequency ranges in narrow
bands, not only sub bass and not only 2 frequencies. For more frequencies
just open another channel and use another EQ to isolate another frequency
band.
 iZotope Spectron ®
There is a very nice plugin for separating frequencies into narrow bands in
this way. It is called "iZotope Spectron ®". With this plugin you can solo or
bypass any frequency band (see small square solo / bypass check boxes in
image below). If you solo a band as I have in the image below, then it will
play only that band. And if you bypass that band it will play everything but
that band.

So, all you need to do is put a Spectron with identical settings on each of
your 2 channels that are both playing the same song, and set one to solo and
the other one to bypass. Now, when you play both channels together your
song will sound whole again, and you will be able to apply some Valhalla
delay (binaural detune), some isochronic gating or other tempo synch
effects to the channel with the soloed Spectron.
In this way your binaural beats or other modulation will only be applied to a
narrow band of frequencies, leaving the rest of the song unaffected. You
also don't have to only use 2 bands, you could cut out more frequencies on
the channel set to "bypass". Then you just need to add another audio
channel playing the whole song with another Spectron soloing that same
frequency. With this method you could embed many different binaural
frequencies into the same song, or you could have combinations of different
entrainment methods on different bands. If you study the picture above you
can quickly set Spectron up in exactly the same way without reading the
very long manual.
Just remember that if you want it to sound really good and to be healthy,
you should find out what bpm the music you are using has. Then you can
use frequencies and pulses that are in harmony with it (see the chapter
Harmonic bpm). Apart from being more harmonious for your brain and not
giving you a headache, if there are audible pulses or de-tune wobbles they
will still sound musically good as they will be in time with the music.
 Subliminal audio
Subliminal sounds are sounds that are hidden either just below or above
hearing range, at a very low volume behind louder sounds, or masked in
some other way. If you want to make subliminal binaural beats or
isochronic tones, a good way is to simply use audio frequencies for your
tones that are just above or below our hearing range but still within the
range of audio equipment. You could use the same method of band
separation for embedding audio into pre-made music to do this. Or, if you
are a producer, you can just add subliminal sounds to your music while you
are making it.
Subliminal messages
I never use these because the way they work is by by-passing your
conscious mind, the part that makes decisions like "this message is
bullshit", and it goes directly to your subconscious. If you do make audio
with subliminal messages, remember that you will be the first to be
programmed while trying to make it. So, generally I would advise against
using hidden words or messages, even "positive" ones. If you really have to
do it, though, you could use a vocoder with a carrier frequency that is just
out of hearing range, and your secret message voice as the modulator.
Another way is to record a very long file with your message repeating over
and over again, then pitch shift this file so that it becomes a tone that is just
above human hearing range. If you use harmonic bpm for this, you can
make a tone that is within hearing range and also in tune with your music;
basically, nice FM sounds made from repeating words…
Just be careful; taking away a person's and your own choice to think
independent thoughts might not be the best thing for you to do even if you
think you know what they / you should be thinking.
Subliminal sounds
Examples of less scary subliminal sounds would be to have subliminally
soft recordings of forests and other nature sounds hidden in your music,
very low isochronic tones or binaural beats to add subsonic subconscious
harmony to your sounds and such things. Some say that your subconscious
mind can decode backward sounds, sounds that are sped up or slowed down
a lot and even randomized. So, the possibilities of subliminal sound are
really as big as your imagination.
Primal sound
Primal sound is another healthy side of this kind of thing. Primal sounds are
a type of subliminal sound where you take a recording of nature, a person's
heartbeat or other sound, pitch shift it to a much higher or lower pitch, or
even use other effects to change them into different sounds. The resulting
sounds are always familiar and can bring up primal memories. I use these
all the time in my music by making small birds into giant dinosaurs and
things like that.
Good software for pitch shifting is Sound Forge® because of its “do not
preserve duration” option. This also slows the track down as it stretches it
out, making it longer but keeping the harmonic intervals etc. the same as if
you were physically slowing a record or tape down. Just make sure to un-
check that “preserve duration” box if you want clean sounds with no noisy
digital sound artifacts. The free-ware “Audacity” also works for this. Just
use the “change speed” effect (it changes the speed and pitch together) and
not the pitch shift one.
The end…
I am putting a course together in which you will be able to hear everything
in this book as audio files, and I’m also working on a micro-tuning course
for producers. For updates on this, more info, help or free tuning files, join
my Facebook Group "Life, the Universe and 432 Hz" and change the group
settings so that you actually get updates. If you want to be on my e-mail list,
the best way is to “buy” one of the free songs on my indigo aura band camp
page and add your e-mail there.
Links
Micro-tuned music:
Ambient meditation: [Link]
Forest trance: [Link]

Main website: [Link]

FB group: [Link]