Sequenced Binaural Beat Generator · originally created by Jim Peters · GPL v2
SBaGen.
The classic binaural-beat studio: plain-text .sbg sequences of binaural
beats, tones and noise beds, played live or rendered to file. Written by Jim Peters,
battle-tested since 1999 — still the reference the whole family grows from.
This page keeps the family together.
$ sbagen focus.sbg SBaGen 1.4.5 · playing focus.sbg
The SBaGen family
The maintained fork first — then the original, the community fork, and a clean-room successor inspired by SBaGen.
SBaGen, maintained
by Desireco · GPLv2 preserved
Desireco's fork of the original: cleaned up a little, never reinvented. Defect fixes from a full audit of the 1.4.5 code, sound output brought up to date — a working ALSA backend instead of the long-dead /dev/dsp — a real Makefile, and an 87-check regression suite pinned to the pristine upstream build. As close to the original as will work well today.
SBaGen 1.4.5 original
by Jim Peters · 1999 · GPLv2
Powerful, battle-tested C from another era, and the .sbg format that still defines the workflow. The 2011 release remains the reference — this fork and Entrain measure themselves against it.
SBaGen+ fork
maintained by Ruan Klein · GPLv2
Keeps the original alive with fresh binaries for Linux, macOS and Windows, Docker images, and isochronic tones. Development paused — the ideas continue in its successor SynapSeq.
Entrain inspired
clean-room Go · MIT licensed · actively developed
A from-scratch reimplementation inspired by SBaGen: reads .sbg today, authors a typed TOML format next. Renders WAV / FLAC / MP3 and ships beatscope to verify any renderer's output.
Making meditation tapes? This is enough.
No plugins, no subscriptions, no lock-in. The fork, as-is, is more than enough to
create solid meditation tapes: write a plain-text .sbg session —
carriers, beats, a noise bed — render it to WAV with one command, and you're done.
People have been doing exactly that with the original since 1999; the fork just
makes it work on the machine you own today. The tape is yours.
Quick start — the maintained fork
Same SBaGen, working audio on modern Linux, and a test suite that proves it.
1. Build
git clone https://github.com/desireco/sbagen && cd sbagen make # dev/sbagen-fixed — file output (WAV) make alsa # rebuild with live ALSA playback — no /dev/dsp needed make test # 87-check regression suite make check # builds clean at -O0 through -Os
2. Play or render
# play a session live (ALSA build) dev/sbagen-fixed my-session.sbg # or render straight to WAV dev/sbagen-fixed -o out.wav my-session.sbg # helper: MP3 render — a whole .sbg file, or a one-line tone-set ./mksounds.sh focus10 dev/examples/focus/focus-10-a.sbg ./mksounds.sh drift '200+10/0.5' 00:30:00
3. Anatomy of a session
## One-hour focus: 40 Hz gamma + 24 Hz beta over pink noise all-off: - focus: pink/20 180+40/30 320+24/25 0:00:00 focus 1:00:00 all-off
Tone-set line: carrier+beat/amplitude, amplitudes on a 0–100 scale
(keep the sum under 100). Schedule lines: time name — absolute, NOW,
or +mm:ss relative. 🎧 Headphones required — binaural beats collapse on speakers.
Live playback is Linux (ALSA). On Windows and macOS the plain build renders WAV files — or use SBaGen+ installers.
Three solid sessions
Copy, save as a .sbg file, play. A full library of 130 example
sequences ships in the repo — these three are all you need to start.
Focus 40 Hz gamma
Sharp attention for deep work — 180 Hz carrier over a quiet pink bed.
all-off: - focus: pink/15 180+40/25 0:00:00 focus 1:00:00 all-off
Relaxation 10 Hz alpha
Unwind without getting sleepy — 200 Hz carrier, half an hour.
all-off: - relax: pink/10 200+10/20 0:00:00 relax 0:30:00 all-off
Creativity 6 Hz theta
Loose, associative thinking — 150 Hz carrier over a warm brown bed.
all-off: - create: brown/10 150+6/20 0:00:00 create 0:45:00 all-off
Play any of them with dev/sbagen-fixed focus.sbg — and browse the
full 130-sequence library on
GitHub.
Questions
Is this the official SBaGen site?
No. The official home of SBaGen is uazu.net/sbagen — SBaGen is © Jim Peters and released under the GPL v2. This family page is maintained alongside the maintained fork; it is not affiliated with or endorsed by Jim Peters.
What changed in the maintained fork?
Only what had to change: defect fixes found while auditing the 1.4.5 code, a regression suite (golden hashes captured from the pristine upstream build, plus one test per fixed defect), a Makefile replacing the old build scripts, and the ALSA backend. The audio behavior of fixed builds matches upstream — that is what the golden hashes pin. The result: as close to the original as will work well on a modern machine.
Which one should I use?
Want the classic tool working on modern Linux? The maintained fork. Prefer installers, Docker, or isochronic tones? SBaGen+. Building something new — modern formats, embeddable engine, MIT license? Entrain.