Generic Alternatives for Binaural Beats and Brainwave Entrainment

Plenty of programs promise to shift your brainwaves through binaural beats, and they tend to blur together once you start comparing them. Some cost money, others are free, and the feature sets overlap heavily. Most people who land on a page like this are hunting for something other than Holosync and Hemi-Sync, the two names that have dominated the brainwave entrainment conversation for years. A fair question follows: are those really the only serious choices? They aren't. A long list of generic options is out there, and you can approach them in a couple of ways.

One route is installing software that generates the tones yourself, such as Brainwave Generator or NeuroProgrammer, which build binaural or isochronic beats on demand. The other is grabbing ready-made MP3 or WAV files from the many entrainment sites floating around the web. The resources below cover both, and they should give you enough variety to figure out what suits you.

FreeBinauralBeats.com ranks near the top when you search for free binaural beats, which is reason enough to see what they put out.

The Binaural Beat Machine at mynoise.net runs entirely in your browser. No download, no install. If you'd rather tinker with an online tone generator before committing to anything heavier, this is a good place to start.

GaiaMeditation.com and MeditationRoom.org both belong on the list, each offering their own take on entrainment audio.

For mobile users, there's a dedicated Android app on Google Play and a separate title, Brainwaves Binaural Beats, in the Apple App Store for iPhone. Each lets you experiment with beats directly from your phone, and the two function in broadly similar ways on their respective platforms.

Binaural Beats Freak hosts a section of free tracks, and HealingBeats.com rounds out the collection of browser-based libraries.

The Brain Evolution System drew a real following in the late 2000s as an alternative to the bigger brands, though the company seems to have gone quiet on active promotion since. The product may still be obtainable if you want something off the beaten path. One thing they did well: clear visual breakdowns of the stimulation range targeted by each track.

EOC Institute also produces entrainment material worth a look.

MindValley sits in the personal-growth and spiritual-training space, and they've extended into binaural beats with their Om Harmonics line, aimed at meditation and inner development. Whether it outperforms anything else here is impossible to say from the outside, so the honest answer is to try it and judge for yourself.

Finally, our own site carries a longer write-up on binaural beats covering where they came from and how they work, which fills in the background this list leaves out.