In general, one divides the tinnitus syndrome into two types: subjective and objective tinnitus. By definition, for subjective tinnitus no (real) external sound is responsible for the sound sensation. On the other hand, objective tinnitus may be caused by pulsing blood vessels or even tensed muscles. For some types of objective tinnitus, the underlying sound might even be audible or measurable by others.

Tailor Made Notched Music therapy is designed to help the group of subjective tinnitus sufferers who perceive a tonal tinnitus, where the tinnitus sounds like a peep, a whistle, a ping or a buzzing. From a theoretical point of view, the therapy should not be as effective for people perceiving a noise or a sound consisting of multiple frequencies. However, thus far, there is no scientific evidence for this one way or the other.

In our opinion, a precise knowledge of the individual tinnitus frequency is the most critical factor for a successful application of the Tailor Made Notched Music Therapy. This is required to guarantee the correct tuning of the center frequency of the notch filter. Therefore, the tinnitus frequency should be determined using approved methods (so called “tinnitus matching approaches”) like an audiometric investigation performed by an ENT physician or the method of repetitive recursive matching implemented in the Tinnitus Aid Pro© application. This assumes of course that your individual tinnitus frequency does not fluctuate substantially over time.

If you are unable to determine your individual tinnitus frequency using these sophisticated approaches, notched music therapy might not be appropriate for you. Therefore, we strongly recommend performing a frequency determination prior to starting the first therapy session. Since the value of your individual tinnitus frequency might change over the course of several weeks of listening to the notched music, we recommend repeating the determination procedure from time to time, perhaps once every two months, in order to adjust the notch center frequency within the application accordingly.

In the clinical study we performed related to the Tailor Made Notched Music Therapy, the upper limit for hearing loss was 70 dB. Only adults younger than 70 years old whose tinnitus frequency was determined to be between 1 and 12 kHz participated in this study. These limitations are normally used in scientific studies in order to match participant groups and to prevent the results from being influenced by other factors (like diseases or other unrelated treatments). From our point of view, the notched music therapy should be effective regardless of the user’s age. However, the users should be able to perceive sound frequencies below and above their individual tinnitus frequency at a comfortable loudness level.

In several scientific studies, Tailor Made Notched Music Therapy had been applied successfully using a variety of music listening times. In one long-term study we performed, the participants had to listen to the notched music for 2 hours a day for 12 months. In a more intensive period, they listened for 6 hours on each of 5 consecutive days. In the most recent clinical trial, the listening time was set to approximately 2 hours per day for 3 months.

Given the results we obtained from these studies, a recommended treatment plan might look like the following:

1. Determination of tinnitus frequency either by
   1. Consultation with a trained ENT physician OR
   2. Using the recursive tinnitus matching feature within the Tinnitus Aid Pro application. This should be repeated twice daily for 5 consecutive days.
2. Listening to the notched music for at least 6 months, approximately 2 hours per day

Due to the fact that the individual tinnitus frequency might shift during the course of treatment, the frequency determination should be repeated once every two months. The notch profile will be adjusted accordingly by the application.

From a theoretical point of view, the notched music therapy works best when the frequency notch is surrounded by sufficient spectral energy on both sides of the applied notch. In general, the spectral energy of music decreases with increasing frequency. Moreover, depending on the genre (pop, rock, classic, jazz etc.) and the instruments involved, the spectral content of music differs. For example, in some classic or jazz pieces, there may be almost no energy at frequencies above 8 kHz. Accordingly, pop or rock songs might be more appropriate for the notched music therapy (especially for high tinnitus frequencies). Since the effectiveness of the therapy is strongly related to how much one enjoys listening to the music, the most important thing is to spend time listening to the therapeutic music, even if the original music may be less than ideal.

To the best of our knowledge, there are no risks caused by the Tailor Made Notch Music Therapy as long as the tuning of the notch center frequency is based on a sophisticated determination of the individual tinnitus frequency (e.g. investigation by an ENT physician or repetitive recursive tinnitus matching) and the user listens to the music using a comfortable volume level.

The percentage of reduction in tinnitus volume varies significantly between individuals. Depending on the total amount of listening time, and listening time per day, studies have shown average reductions in the range of 17-27 %. Based on our experience, one should not make any predictions on how long it takes an individual to recognize an improvement in their tinnitus symptoms.

Since notched music therapy has only been studied for a relatively short time, to our knowledge no long-term or follow-up studies have yet been performed . As long as there is no reliable data on the matter, one cannot tell whether the effect might become permanent after a specific application time. In our opinion, a repetitive application of the therapy with gaps in between (e.g. 6 months application, 3 months break) might be a possible strategy as well. In general one should not expect a total recovery but instead an improvement over time.

Due to the fact the notched music therapy relies on equal transfer of sound energy across all frequency bands in the musical spectrum, the frequency response of the headphones should be linear between 20-16000 Hz. From our experience, almost all mid-priced consumer headphones fulfill this criterion.

We DO NOT recommend wireless or noise cancelling headphones since they compress and alter the audio signal presented to the listener. We also require that headphones, not speakers, be used with application and Tinnitus Aid Pro will provide warnings when no headphones are connected.

In all of our studies, we have had very good experience with standard over-the-ear headphones, as opposed to in-ear ones. Over-the-ear headphones are not absolutely necessary, but might be beneficial for the treatment. In general, you should listen to the notched music in a quiet environment.

The sound volume should always be adjusted to a comfortable level.

All features of Tinnitus Aid Pro are based on actual results of research in the field of auditory neuroscience. These include carefully performed scientific studies including more than 250 participants with tonal tinnitus, using both double-blind and placebo-controlled protocols.

All functionality and settings related to tinnitus frequency determination and music filtering have been scientifically verified through research exclusively performed by the developers of the Tailor Made Notch Music Therapy and the Tinnitus Aid Pro application. The outcomes of these studies have been published in highly ranked scientific journals and have passed peer review.

Tinnitus Aid Pro represents a complete solution for administering notched music therapy. Tinnitus frequency determination is made possible through a clinically validated module within the application that is directly tied into the individual music filtering algorithms. This final application has grown directly out of our published clinical trial and earlier research. To our knowledge, our study is the first and only clinical trial on the effectiveness of Tailor Made Notched Music Therapy. We can now offer the same individualized frequency determination and music filtering techniques that were shown to be effective in our studies to the general community of tinnitus sufferers in a user-friendly design.

For more information, please see the bibliography of our publications.

The application can be run on any iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) supporting iOS 9 or greater.

We offer an inexpensive monthly, auto-renewing subscription. Please check the iTunes App Store for the exact amount in your local currency. Once you’ve purchased a subscription, you will not need to subscribe again. You may cancel your subscription at any time through your iTunes account.

The team of scientists and engineers behind Tinnitus Aid Pro includes authors of the most commonly cited papers on the subject of music-induced tinnitus therapy, including Christo Pantev (the inventor of TMNMT), Andreas Wollbrink, and Alex Shaykevich. We didn’t develop our software after coming across the research. Just the opposite, our published research is a direct result of the software tools we’ve developed and are now making available to the public. We aren’t merely guessing at these methods, we created them. As a result, the algorithms for individual tinnitus frequency detection and music filtering are completely aligned with our published research and will continue to evolve with it.