Notch Music takes a song you already love and gently removes the one thin sliver of sound that sits at the pitch of your ringing — leaving you a version of the song that's yours to keep.
Three free notches, no account · One-time purchase · Nothing uploaded — your music never leaves your device.
Slide to move the notch. In the real tool, the pitch comes from a built-in tone matcher — or the exact number from your audiologist.
Nothing that looks or feels technical — choosing a song is no harder than attaching a photo to an email.
Choose any music file on your own device. It never gets uploaded; your device simply opens it.
A soft tone slides up and down until it sits right on top of the sound you hear. Have an audiologist's measurement? Type in that exact number for the best results.
In a few seconds the tool removes a narrow band at that exact pitch. The song still sounds like the song — it's just missing a sliver most people never consciously notice.
Your new, notched version saves straight to your device. Play it anywhere, copy it to your phone, come back and notch another.
One clip untouched, one with a one-octave band lifted out around 4 kHz — roughly 3,000 to 6,000 Hz gone. Most people are surprised by how little the music loses. That is rather the point.
Switch between them while it plays — the track keeps its place, so you hear the same moment both ways. Headphones make the difference easier to catch. This is one fixed demonstration notch; the tool cuts at your pitch, on your own music.
Your song isn't uploaded to us or stored on some server. All of the work happens right on your own phone or computer, in the browser you're already using.
A modern browser is a surprisingly capable little workshop. Rather than shipping your song off to a distant kitchen to be cooked, we hand your browser the recipe and it cooks the song on your own counter. Once the tool has loaded, you could switch off your internet entirely and it would still work — nothing is traveling across the network, because the computer doing the work is yours.
That also means there's no account to create, no library of your music sitting on our servers, and no monthly fee to keep a server running. It's why we can honestly say the tool is yours for good.
We built a notched-sound tool, and we want you to use it with clear eyes. Here is what to expect — the encouraging parts and the limits.
A 2010 study found that people who listened to their own favorite music with the tinnitus frequency notched out reported lower loudness. Later, more rigorous trials mostly didn't show a clear benefit over placebo, and a 2024 meta-analysis called the evidence limited. It helps some people; for many it does nothing measurable. Read the studies, one by one →
The whole benefit depends on matching your tinnitus pitch as closely as you can. We help you check it, and it's worth taking your time. Early research suggested the approach works better when the pitch is below about 8 kHz.
Music you've bought or saved works perfectly. A track that only lives inside a streaming app like Spotify or Apple Music is locked by that app, so it can't be used here.
Low enough to be pleasant, never sharp. If a sound ever feels harsh or stirs the ringing up, turn it down or stop — especially if loud sounds already bother you. This is meant to be a comfort, not an endurance test.
Any reasonably modern phone, tablet or laptop handles a song in seconds. No special equipment, no app to install, no account.
Because it hinges on an accurate pitch match and a check of your hearing, an audiologist is exactly who should be involved. Notched listening is one calm, optional part of your day — never a substitute for a care team.
Most pages selling notched sound quote the 2010 study and stop. Here is the rest of it, including the results that did not go the way anyone hoped.
Sixteen people with chronic tinnitus listened to their own favourite music — half with the tinnitus band removed, half with a sham notch elsewhere. After a year the notched group reported significantly quieter tinnitus, and brain recordings showed reduced activity in the area matching their tinnitus frequency. Eight people per group.
Okamoto, Stracke, Stoll & Pantev, PNAS 107(3), 1207–10. doi:10.1073/pnas.0911268107
An intensive version reduced loudness and distress in people whose pitch was at or below 8,000 Hz. Above 8,000 Hz, nothing measurable changed. The gains did not hold once the listening stopped, which is why this is framed as an ongoing practice rather than a course of treatment.
Teismann, Okamoto & Pantev, PLoS ONE 6(9), e24685. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0024685
The first properly powered, double-blind, randomised trial. Two hours a day for three months produced no change on the study's main measures of tinnitus handicap and distress. One month after training ended, perceived loudness was significantly lower in the notched group — a real but narrow win, on a secondary measure.
Stein, Wunderlich, Lau et al., BMC Neurology 16, 38. doi:10.1186/s12883-016-0558-7
One meta-analysis pooled the trials comparing notched music against simply listening to music and found no significant difference. A second review of seven trials found no statistically significant effect on tinnitus handicap at three or six months, though four of five studies using a simple loudness or annoyance rating did show improvement. Both end the same way: the trials are few and small, and better ones are needed.
Scarpa, Carucci, De Luca et al., Am J Otolaryngol 45(6), 104467, doi:10.1016/j.amjoto.2024.104467 · Tavanai, Rahimi, Bandad et al., Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 281(10), 5033–49, doi:10.1007/s00405-024-08732-8
Many people notice their tinnitus dips for a few minutes after sound stops — residual inhibition. An EEG study of notched music found this after-effect involves not only the hearing areas of the brain but the emotional and memory networks tied to how much tinnitus bothers you.
Zhu & Gong, Hearing Research 457, 109129. doi:10.1016/j.heares.2024.109129 — records retrieved from PubMed.
So where does that leave you? Somewhere honest. The mechanism is real hearing science, not marketing, and the early findings were genuinely encouraging — but the larger and more careful the trial, the smaller the effect got. Notched music has not been shown to beat the simple act of listening to music you enjoy. That is not a reason to dismiss it; it is a reason to size it correctly: a low-cost, low-risk practice with a plausible mechanism and modest, uncertain returns, best suited to a steady tonal pitch at or below 8,000 Hz.
Secure checkout by Stripe. After payment you're taken straight to the tool — bookmark the page it opens.
Three notches free before you buy — so purchases are final.
Not sure yet? Notch three of your own songs free — nothing to sign up for. Or try the free Personalized Sound tool to feel how notched listening works before you spend a cent.
Yes — notch three of your own songs free, with no account and nothing to cancel. You get the whole tool for those three: the pitch finder, the notch, the preview and the saved file. After that the $49.95 licence lifts the limit, on every device you own. The count is kept in your browser, so it is per browser rather than per person.
No. There is no cure for tinnitus, and notched sound is not one. It may modestly help some people while doing nothing measurable for many others. We'd rather tell you that plainly than sell you a miracle.
Common audio files you own — MP3, M4A/AAC, WAV, FLAC, OGG — anything your browser can open. Songs that exist only inside a streaming app can't be used, because that app keeps them locked.
No. The song is opened and processed in your own browser, on your own device, and the notched copy saves to your device. Nothing is sent to us. Once the tool has loaded, it works with the internet off.
The tool includes a sliding tone matcher: raise or lower a soft tone until it sits on top of the sound you hear. For the most accurate match, have an audiologist measure your pitch and enter that number directly. You can also try the free Tinnitus Frequency Finder first.
Studies that saw any effect involved consistent daily listening over weeks to months, at a comfortable volume. Give it a fair, patient trial and keep expectations realistic.
Stripe takes you straight to the tool, which opens in your browser. Bookmark it — that link is your copy. If you ever lose it, or your key doesn't arrive, email hello@notch-music.com and we'll send it again.
Yes — any reasonably modern phone, tablet or laptop, in Chrome, Safari or Edge. Very old devices may be slower with long files.
No. Notched listening should complement, not replace, comprehensive tinnitus care and professional guidance.
One octave, centred on your pitch — half an octave either side, the width used in the published research. At a 4,000 Hz pitch that means removing everything between roughly 2,828 and 5,657 Hz.
Less than you would expect — the clip above is the honest test. A one-octave gap up in the treble takes some brightness out of cymbals and sibilance, and on some tracks you will hear it. Most people stop noticing within a few days. If a particular song sounds gutted, pick a different song.
Ask your audiologist. Hearing aids amplify in exactly the range you are trying to leave empty, which can partly undo the notch. Several manufacturers also build notch-style therapy into their devices — if yours does, use that instead of this.
That is a common outcome, and the research above is the reason to expect it. Give it three months of honest listening, tracking how much the tinnitus intrudes rather than how loud it seems. If nothing has shifted, stop — and put the effort into the parts of tinnitus care that carry more weight for most people. That's what the three free notches are for: hear it on your own music before you decide.