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.
Included free with your copy
Three free notches, no account · One-time purchase · 30-day money-back guarantee · 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 store, no account. On a phone, add it to your home screen and it opens like an app — even offline.
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.
I’m giving 20 copies of Notch Music to people with tinnitus who will use it for a few weeks and tell me honestly how it went. Your copy is the full version, free and yours to keep: song notching, the player, sleep sounds, the Flare-up Reset, the practice log and the Attention Trainer.
All I ask is a short email reply after two to four weeks: what helped, what didn’t, and anything that confused you. Mixed or negative feedback is just as welcome. I’ll only quote you on this page if you say I may. — Diallo
All the free copies have been claimed. Thank you to everyone who signed up.
You can still notch three songs free, and every purchase has a 30-day money-back guarantee.
I’m Diallo Kantambu. I’ve lived with tinnitus for more than thirty years, and I wrote The Tinnitus Mental Fitness Model, a peer-to-peer guide to living well with it. Before that I founded two software companies, and making technology easy to use is the work I know best.
I built Notch Music because notching your own songs usually means audio-editing software and a lot of patience. I wanted it to take a few seconds, on the phone you already have, without your music going anywhere.
You’ve seen above that I won’t oversell it. The research is mixed, and I’d rather you hear it on three of your own songs, free, than take my word. If you buy it and it isn’t for you, write to me within 30 days and I’ll refund you in full.
Each year, 10% of net profits go to a tinnitus research project I think shows real promise, and I’ll name it here.
Diallo Kantambu · hello@notch-music.com · YouTube
Secure checkout by Stripe. After payment you're taken straight to the tool — bookmark it, or on your phone add it to your home screen.
30-day money-back guarantee. If Notch Music isn’t for you, email hello@notch-music.com within 30 days of purchase and you’ll get a full refund. No forms, no questions.
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. You can also hear a two-minute sample of each sleep sound. After that the $49.95 licence lifts the limits, on every device you own. The count is kept in your browser, so it is per browser rather than per person.
Yes. Notch Music has a 30-day money-back guarantee. If it isn’t for you, email hello@notch-music.com within 30 days of purchase and you’ll get a full refund. No forms, no questions.
Diallo Kantambu, who has lived with tinnitus for more than thirty years and wrote The Tinnitus Mental Fitness Model. Notch Music is sold by Tinnitus Fitness. Questions go straight to him at hello@notch-music.com.
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.
Yes. Add songs to My songs and they play with the notch applied as they play, at your current pitch, with shuffle and lock-screen controls. If your pitch changes, every song follows automatically, and your listening time goes into your practice log on its own. The songs are kept only on your device. You can still save notched copies to play anywhere else.
Tap Flare-up Reset at the top of the app for a two-minute reset: slow breathing with a soft notched sound, then noticing the ringing and letting it be. Afterward you note what came before it, such as short sleep, stress or noise, and the app shows the patterns over time. If your tinnitus suddenly changes, is in one ear only, pulses with your heartbeat, or comes with hearing loss or dizziness, see a doctor promptly.
Yes. The Sleep tab plays pink, white or brown noise, soft rain or ocean waves with the same notch cut at your pitch, for as long as you like, with a sleep timer. The sound is made on your device, so nothing streams and it works offline. Keep it soft, just at or a little below your tinnitus. Studies of notched noise found it helped about as much as plain noise, so treat it as a calm way to settle rather than a treatment.
The Practice tab keeps track for you: daily listening against the two-hour goal the studies used, a weekly 0 to 10 check-in on how much your tinnitus intrudes, and an honest summary at three months. It also reminds you to re-check your pitch each month, because pitch can drift and a notch in the wrong place does little. You can download the log to show your audiologist. It all stays on your device.
The Attention Trainer, a guided program of short listening exercises that train you to pick out, locate and switch between sounds, so tinnitus can sit at the edge of awareness. The program is laid out over 20 days, and it stays yours to repeat or keep using for good. It comes only with Notch Music, and your key unlocks it. You also get two practices that are free for everyone: the Music Gym, a listening workout with real music where you hold one instrument at a time, and the Sensory Method, an 8-minute daily practice for noticing your tinnitus and letting it go to a soft sound. Small studies of attention training like this have shown modest benefits; treat it as practice for a skill, not a cure.
Stripe takes you straight to the tool, which opens in your browser. Bookmark it, or add it to your phone’s home screen — 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. On a phone you can install it like an app: on iPhone, tap Share and then Add to Home Screen; on Android, tap Install when it’s offered (or choose Add to Home screen from the browser menu). It then opens full-screen from its own icon and works offline. 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. The Practice tab does that tracking for you. 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. And if you buy it and it isn't for you, email hello@notch-music.com within 30 days for a full refund.