79 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
79 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
---
|
|
title: "How SoX helps me about tinnitus issues"
|
|
date: 2019-04-22
|
|
url: how-sox-helps-me-about-tinnitus-issues
|
|
layout: post
|
|
category: Articles
|
|
image: /img/blog/how-sox-helps-me-about-tinnitus-issues.jpg
|
|
description: "Suffering from tinnitus is a nightmare, but sometimes what can help you may be closer than expected"
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
[![A missing blog post image](/img/blog/how-sox-helps-me-about-tinnitus-issues.jpg)](/img/blog/how-sox-helps-me-about-tinnitus-issues.jpg)
|
|
|
|
### Tinnitus
|
|
|
|
[Tinnitus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus) ("_acouphènes_" in French) is a f\*cking disease, and could be **really** disabling.
|
|
We, most of the time, inwardly judge whether someone is able to do something (or act as required) by its _physical_ capabilities (a guy sitting in a rolling chair, a woman with a blind cane, an excited child with behavioral issues, etc.).
|
|
Beside, there are all the problems we don't _see_, but know and heard about sometimes, like back and head aches or arthritis, mostly from our parents' or grand-parents' generation.
|
|
|
|
BUT, sometimes, and that's very unfortunate, "young" people suffer from some of these (and guess what ? That's partly my case).
|
|
Between 10 and 20% of the population are concerned by tinnitus, continuously, or periodically (you should lower your music volume :wink:).
|
|
|
|
Tinnitus are a nightmare. If they could kill you, I would have named them as a sort of "cancer".
|
|
If they were visual, they would be some guys keeping your eyes open at night with lasers directed right into your pupils.
|
|
If they were a smell, they would be [hydrogen sulfide](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hydrogen_sulfide) coming from _generators_ right in front of you, all day long.
|
|
If they were a feeling, they would be some lighters right under your feet, scorching your skin until it burns.
|
|
But they are _just_ sounds, and it happens that people kill themselves due to them... So now, you may wanna read again the second sentence of this paragraph.
|
|
|
|
Tinnitus may prevent you from working, from sleeping, even sometimes from thinking.
|
|
They could lead you to sadness, or even depression.
|
|
With them, you just _can't_ enjoy emptiness and calm of the night (or empty spaces), because you don't know what is _void_ (anymore).
|
|
|
|
### Treatments
|
|
|
|
This is one of the domains in which doctors still **don't** know how to treat them, despite the fact that research have been leaded for years now.
|
|
If you encounter a website or someone telling you that a pill (or whatever) can do the job, congratulations, this is a quack.
|
|
|
|
So you can't heal from it, but it does not mean that you can't do a thing about it.
|
|
|
|
Most of people who have learned to live with them perform some ["white-noise"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_noise) sessions.
|
|
The idea is to "fill" your ears with some relaxing (or almost-relaxing) sounds, that are above the "parasites" you hear.
|
|
|
|
Of course you could listen to some music, but it may occupy too much your brain, and you might wanna keep it "relaxed" or focused on something difficult.
|
|
|
|
There are plenty of resources all over the Internet to help you dealing with them, but I wondered if we could generate something _directly_ from our hardware, instead of streaming something and thus generating _useless_ network activity (wow, such a transition :100:).
|
|
|
|
### SoX
|
|
|
|
[SoX](http://sox.sourceforge.net/) (_Sound eXchange_) is a cross-platform free and open-source ~~software~~ Swiss-Army knife for audio conversion.
|
|
We can also use it to generate some frequencies, and thus _sounds_, as we want them to be.
|
|
|
|
... and that's good news, 'cause we precisely wanted to generate some white-noise-like sounds !
|
|
Additionally, it's important to keep _hacking_ things (:computer:), below is a way.
|
|
|
|
### Play !
|
|
|
|
So this is what you can do :
|
|
|
|
{% highlight bash %}
|
|
# Debian procedure.
|
|
# A special thanks to the communities for maintaining this package, and the other ones too <3
|
|
apt install sox
|
|
{% endhighlight %}
|
|
|
|
Now, you may start generating some pretty cool noises (please care not to higher the volume too much, it could be relaxing at first, but damaging on the long run...) :
|
|
|
|
{% highlight bash %}
|
|
play -n synth brownnoise mix synth pinknoise
|
|
{% endhighlight %}
|
|
|
|
For instance, the command above generates (indefinitely) a mix between "pink" and "brown" noises, much more pleasant than a raw "white" noise.
|
|
|
|
> Pro tip : Press CTRL+C to leave SoX :wink:
|
|
|
|
### Conclusion
|
|
|
|
'hope you enjoyed this article. It has been a long time since the last article, but I wanted to share something so here it is.
|
|
|
|
> This post would be nothing without [answers from the StackExchange community](https://askubuntu.com/questions/789465/generate-white-noise-to-calm-a-baby), so thanks to their authors too.
|