fabian s. klinke

Endel, Vibes, and Brain.fm

notes.

Endel, Vibes, and Brain.fm

Endel, (Not Boring) Vibes and Brain.fm all begin with a desired use such as focus, relaxation or sleep. Their interfaces look related, although the musical intervention sits in a different part of each system.

AppMain materialMusical interventionListener or contextual input
EndelDesigned sound elementsNode-based soundscape logic during on-device playbackTime, environment, movement and permitted body data
VibesMore than a thousand fragmentsReal-time fragment composition with spatial renderingDaily rhythm, movement, Energy, Presence and Shuffle
Brain.fmHuman-composed musicRapid amplitude modulation intended to elicit phase-lockingFunction, genre, duration and selected stimulation level

Endel

Endel’s current technology page describes three layers. Permitted device and sensor inputs supply context. An “AI-powered node system” maps those inputs onto soundscape logic. The sound team pre-designs the musical elements and logic, after which the device generates and adapts the sound during playback.

Contextual adaptation provides its clearest difference in this comparison. The company names bedtime, natural light, weather, time of day, head position, heart rate and motion as possible inputs, depending on the device and permissions. It does not publish its current node graph, input mappings or the part played by machine learning.

Vibes

(Not Boring) says Vibes composes in real time from more than a thousand musical fragments and sounds. Wake and sleep times, daily activity and movement can affect the result. The company frames this design through adaptive video-game music, where a change in action changes the score.

Vibes also exposes more direct musical steering than Endel’s standard modes. Energy selects Chill, Normal or Boost; Presence moves the music towards the background; Shuffle generates another combination. Head-tracked spatial audio changes the rendering around the listener. The company does not disclose the fragment metadata, selection rules, transition logic or production tools.

Vibes belongs to a wider consumer-app studio whose catalogue also includes weather, timer, habit and camera apps. Its place in that catalogue makes functional audio legible as a general app category rather than a product made only by specialist music companies.

Brain.fm

Brain.fm describes human-composed music with an added acoustic-processing layer. Its central technique is rapid amplitude modulation: rhythmic changes in level become part of the audio signal, with target rates chosen for a desired state. The service distinguishes this from binaural beats because it applies modulation directly within each stereo channel.

The app lets listeners choose a function, genre, duration and stimulation level. Its public account centres on composition and modulation rather than live sensor-driven rearrangement. The complete present-day production pipeline, personalization logic and use of AI remain private.

The strongest public study tests the modulation itself rather than the whole product. Woods et al. compare amplitude-modulated music with controls across behavioural, EEG and fMRI experiments. Their 2024 paper finds that the effects vary with modulation and the listener, with 16 Hz modulation helping sustained-attention performance most clearly among participants reporting greater attentional difficulty. Kevin Woods was a Brain.fm employee and Adam Hewett had worked for the company, so the disclosed conflict belongs with any claim about effectiveness.

Evidence limits

  • Company pages establish each service’s public architecture and controls.
  • App Store listings confirm current features and app identity.
  • The Brain.fm paper supports claims about amplitude modulation, neural coupling and one bounded attention result.
  • No reviewed source exposes the complete current code, authoring tools or production workflow of any of the three apps.

Sources

Endel

Vibes

Brain.fm

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