Binaural StudioContact

12–30 Hz

Beta

The alert, engaged band — dominant during active thinking, problem-solving, and focused external attention.

Hear Beta

This preview plays a 18 Hz binaural beat.

220 Hz
40%
Listening note

Stereo headphones or earbuds are required to hear the binaural effect. Use a low, comfortable volume, and stop if the tones feel uncomfortable. Do not listen while driving or when you need to hear your surroundings.

Beta rhythms dominate when you're awake and engaged with the world: reading, deciding, talking, working through a problem. It's a wide band, and "more beta" is not simply "more focus" — anxious rumination is also a beta-heavy state. Like every band here, it's a correlate of mental states, not a dial that controls them.

What people use it for

Beta-range beats (most commonly 14–18 Hz) are the standard pick for work sessions and study blocks. One of the earliest controlled studies on binaural beats used beta-range stimulation during a long vigilance task and reported better sustained attention compared to theta-range beats.

In the studio

  • Set the beat between 14–18 Hz for focus work (the Focus preset uses 15 Hz)
  • A carrier around 200–250 Hz stays out of the way of speech if you work near others
  • Low pink noise underneath helps mask office chatter
  • The Focus Ramp journey climbs from 10 Hz to 18 Hz and holds it for a 25-minute block

Worth knowing

For focus, the masking and ritual effects are probably doing real work alongside any entrainment: consistent audio marks the start of a work block and covers distracting sound. That's not a bug — it's most of the practical value.

Want to choose another beat rate? The Studio can generate a beat anywhere in the 12–30 Hz range.

Open the Studio

Common uses

Related research

Moderate evidencethetaalphabetafocusrelaxation

Efficacy of binaural auditory beats in cognition, anxiety, and pain perception: a meta-analysis (García-Argibay et al., 2019)

The most useful single reference in the field: a meta-analysis pooling controlled binaural beat studies across cognition, anxiety, and pain outcomes. It found a modest overall effect, with longer exposure and beats presented without masking sound tending to work better. It's also candid about the field's problems — small samples and wildly inconsistent protocols. If you read one paper before forming an opinion, read this one.

Read the study ↗
Mixed evidencedeltathetaalphabetagammameditationsleepwalking

Auditory beat stimulation and its effects on cognition and mood states (Chaieb et al., 2015)

A wide-angle review of auditory beat stimulation — binaural and monaural — covering memory, attention, anxiety, and mood. Its honest conclusion is the reason it's on this page: results are promising in places but inconsistent, protocols vary too much to compare cleanly, and the mechanism is not established. This is the paper to cite when someone claims the science is either 'proven' or 'debunked' — it's neither.

Read the study ↗
Preliminary evidencebetathetafocus

Binaural auditory beats affect vigilance performance and mood (Lane et al., 1998)

One of the earliest controlled studies, and still one of the most cited. Participants performed a monotonous 30-minute vigilance task while listening to beta-range (16 and 24 Hz) or theta/delta-range (1.5 and 4 Hz) binaural beats embedded in pink noise, without knowing which. The beta group detected more targets and reported less mood deterioration. Small sample and a single task, but a genuinely blinded design — rare in this literature.

Read the study ↗