Four formats. One system underneath all of them.

The third line is the one people miss. The contact layer comes with the session you choose, not with the model, and the same platform reconfigures for each format.

Live is a mode, not a format. Each format runs one way or the other, and the cards below say which.

VAVE Mer · Ka · Ba. Self-guided. You run the session yourself: no practitioner, no operator, no appointment. Choose a session, lie down, and the session plays. Most people meet Mer · Ka · Ba first, and many never need another format. A suggested 45 minutes of vibration, then a notice you confirm to go on; playback or live; no practitioner; layers: both, or either, your choice.

ActiVAVE. Guided, active, somatic. A somatic format: you move, breathe or meditate while the session runs, with the vibration underneath what you do. Live, a Curator-certified lead runs ActiVAVE with a Streamer. From playback, you run the session yourself, as with Mer · Ka · Ba. Live: certified lead and Streamer; playback: self-guided; layers: yoga mat only, fixed.

VAVE Practice. Practitioner-operated. A practitioner controls the system live, working with the person in front of them instead of pressing play on a file. Practice is the one format that is always live, and a trained operator is present throughout. Always live; trained operator throughout; layers: cushion pad, or both.

VAVE Extended. Longer form, phased. A longer session, in phases: Grounding, then Activation, then Integration. Guided, active work sits beside receptive delivery, and a trained operator is present throughout, on the practitioner channel. No time cap; trained operator throughout; practitioner channel; layers: both, or either.

VAVE Extended runs with a trained operator present throughout, with no time cap. That is the whole rule, and the reason you do not book Extended by yourself.

No hardware ceiling and no outside standard set that limit. We did, and we will revise the limit when a medical review tells us to.

Three levels, Hum, Sing and Ring

Every VAVE Mer · Ka · Ba session is built from Mer, Ka and Ba, three compositions: Mer for grounding, Ka for activation, Ba for integration. Every session plays at any of three levels, and the level is how far up its range the deck plays. Your headphones carry the whole session at every level; the level is how the platform plays, never which session plays. Every VAVE Mer · Ka · Ba and VAVE Extended session plays in headphones from start to finish; without headphones, the session does not start. Our sound engineer signs off every session at every level, and VAVE OS composes nothing: it plays the session at the level you choose, never above your room level.

Before your first session, the owner calibrates the room: the system plays the same sample at the three levels and the owner chooses one. Your first sessions come as a short intro program at the level the owner chose: Mer, then Ba, then Mer, Ka and Ba, each run to its end; after the program, any session your device's room level allows, Ka included. The program comes before VAVE Mer · Ka · Ba, ActiVAVE playback and VAVE Extended. VAVE Practice and live ActiVAVE play at Hum with a practitioner or lead present, and do not wait for the program.

Room level. VAVE is an instrument, and not every instrument can be played in every space. So every VAVE system can be locked to a room level in VAVE OS, Hum only; Hum and Sing; or Hum, Sing and Ring, and it never plays above it. Only the owner's account can change it. Lock it once, and never worry about the noise. The platform is designed to keep most of the vibration out of the floor. A device locked to Hum only plays every session at Hum. You confirm with your order that you have read how a VAVE sounds in a room.

What the room hears. Every VAVE system comes at Hum, the standard level, at which the platform plays below 65 dBA in the room, the level of a normal conversation. Two higher levels, Sing and Ring, exist; the owner sets them in the device configuration in VAVE OS through room calibration, and raising the level above Hum is the owner's choice and responsibility: the room, the neighbors, any noise rule, and hearing protection for anyone else in the room. What your walls, door, floor and ceiling pass depends on your structure and materials, and we publish no figure for it.

VAVE is an instrument, and an instrument sings: the sound is designed, not a defect. Read how a VAVE sounds in a room before you order.

Who can play Sing and Ring. Three conditions, all at once: the device's room level allows the level; the participant is in headphones, lying still; and while the session plays at Sing or Ring, everyone else in the room wears hearing protection. VAVE Practice plays at Hum, always. ActiVAVE is Hum wherever participants move without headphones, and Sing or Ring for a live performance where they lie still in headphones. VAVE Extended runs past the self-guided envelope, with a trained operator throughout, and follows the same three conditions.

Choosing a session with a Ka. We recommend choosing a session with a Ka only once you can complete a Mer session and a Ba session comfortably. Ka is the composition for activation. Emotion can surface during activation; begin a Ka session knowing that. Every session with a Ka ends with Ba, the composition for integration, so the session moves from grounding, through activation, to settling. Sessions with a Ka belong to the day. The evening is for Mer and Ba.

A nervous system moves between activation and rest, and returns to rest in its own time. The order of a session, grounding, then activation, then integration, is composed with that in mind.

Never for a result. A session for times of grief is exactly that.

The name, and the three compositions

VAVE Mer · Ka · Ba. The name of the self-guided session. It is an old word for a chariot: a vehicle built to carry you. Lie down, and it carries you through three compositions.

How a session is composed. We compose every VAVE session on Multisensory Relational Frequency Technology (MRFT). Your headphones have a channel of their own, and so does each vibration position, each written for the sense that receives it. What the composer works with is how those channels relate to each other over time. Mer, Ka and Ba are three ways they can relate.

Mer, the ground. The vehicle takes your weight and sets off, low and even. Every channel moves as one, and the same shape returns. Composed for grounding.

Ka, the climb. The vehicle climbs, and the road keeps turning. The channels part, each changing on its own, so you cannot predict it. Composed for activation.

Ba, the settle. The vehicle slows and comes to rest, and you step off. One channel holds a steady shape while the others move inside it, and they come home to it. Composed for integration.

A nervous system moves between activation and rest, and returns to rest in its own time.

The categories

VAVE Mer · Ka · Ba. Rest, Restore, Explore and Flow.

ActiVAVE. Categories of its own, named for the class: Yoga, Breathwork, Meditation and Self-Bodywork.

VAVE Extended. Release, Clarity, Immersion and Return.

Sacred Sounds. A tag, not a category, and any session can carry it. It marks where the sounds come from: cultural and ceremonial traditions, mantra and chant, ancient musical forms and instruments, presented with respect for their origins.

VAVE Practice. Two categories, Bodywork and Attunement, each named for the practitioner's work the session is composed to accompany rather than for what a participant chose, because in Practice the practitioner is operating the system live.

Ten sessions ship with every system, on the Base tier, permanently. They are never subscription-gated and they do not expire.

Some ActiVAVE sessions use a prop, the way a yoga class asks you to bring a block or a strap. We do not sell them: a prop is not a VAVE product or accessory, and none comes in the box.

Instead, we publish each session's requirements and check them. Live, the Curator-certified lead checks each tool before the session starts. In playback, the requirements come with the session, and you check your own.

A requirement describes our session, not your object: we can say what a session needs, because the session is ours.