Mixing/mastering with hearing loss

[daveydad]

Maybe this has been discussed here in the past, but I'm wondering what those of you with mild to moderate hearing loss do to help your mixing process? Do you use headphones only? Can full headphones be used with hearing aids? Over the past 10 years, my hearing loss has gotten fairly bad in the mid to high frequency range so I tend to boost things like high-hats, cymbals, bells, and other high freq instruments too much; and I often can miss slight harshness in my mixes. I sometimes try to have my wife listen to things I mix but that gets to be a hassle. Most people say I do a good job mixing but I'm getting more and more concerned about how things might sound and I don't even know it! Would love to hear experiences from the rest of you. Thanks!!

PS: I have yet to buy hearing aids... fearing they won't help at all with the mixing/mastering process.

[hummingbird]

David, have you had your hearing tested?

[daveydad]

Ha! Yes, probably 15 years ago during a routine physical they said I had noticeable hearing loss in the 2kHz range. I'm sure now it's gotta be even worse....

[andygabrys]

I think you just have to deal.

Use reference tracks that are commercially available and good examples of the genres you are working in.

Your listening to them is going to show a lack of 2khz, and if your mixes sound like they have a similar frequency distribution with a similar lack of 2khz, the you are as close as anyone else.

[daveydad]

Andy, yep, that's basically what I've been doing all this time! lol

[hummingbird]

The reason I asked David is that it's probably time to get another hearing test so you can see the chart and see where the hearing is best and where it is weakest. This would assist you in adjusting what you are doing, as 15 years probably means change. You need to talk to an audiologist about your concerns and your needs, and determine if you need help to hear in daily life yet (or need adjustments if you already do).

I have reverse hearing loss which means high pitches irritate me and I have difficulty hearing low ones. It was interesting to me that the frequencies the audiologist talked about had no reference to notes on the piano. I took in a chart of where I started to notice difficulty in matching a pitch on the piano (i.e. playing a C3 for a male student, but singing C4, for example), but it meant nothing to him lol.

I do not using hearing aids with headphones. I have what you might call a level 3 hearing aid, not the most expensive, but second one down, and we spent a lot of time adjusting it. There are 4 different programs we can set. I also have an open hearing aid which means the ear canal is not closed and therefore I can hear some natural sound with the amplification. I felt this was quite important for teaching (I actually have no problem hearing people sing, but speech can be difficult, especially when working with shy singers!). Still, when I listen to a mix with speakers and hearing aid I hear some artifacts due to the amplification... the aid just isn't meant for music production *smiles*. So I use my natural hearing with headphones. I do many many Mono mixes to help me hear the space/depth... I mix visually using panning... and A/B is quite important. For me, since I don't hear the bass as much as others might, I work to ensure there is a lot of bass in whatever I do and that I can clearly hear it -- that's probably one reason why I tend to write tension/suspense! I am aware that the 'space' I am hearing in the headphones doesn't match what I might hear in the studio, so I have the Waves plug-in.

There's also some other things you must do to take care of what you have:
- always turn volume down before putting on headphones, and slowly turn it up
- rest your ears often... best for mixing as well as good for your hearing - take off the headphones after a few listens
- avoid loud music and other sounds whenever possible (I wear ear protection at movies and concerts - I never need an aid at a movie!)

Don't forget we are here too. If you need help listening to a mix, post it up! IM me!

I used to be shy about talking about my hearing loss - but you know, since I finally got the hearing aid, I find I engage much more in life. It was an adjustment, but well worth it. I worry it might affect my music, of course, but every forward or signed deal helps me feel more confident. It doesn't need to stop us from producing. We just need to understand how the loss affects what we hear, and come up with creative ways to resolve that issue.

cheers
H'bird

[Len911]

http://www.hearingreview.com/2014/07/be ... ware-tips/

http://www.etymotic.com/consumer/person ... n-qsa.html

The problem with hearing aids is that they have their own specs for the audio components they use.
a/d converters, amps, compression, and how they are adjusted by the audiologist.

[Len911]

My sister has worn a hearing aid all her life. She now has cochlear implants.

To make a long story short, the music was sounding odd to her, I went with her once to help explain what she was hearing and what needed adjustment. The problem I learned was that the cochlear implants actually re-synthesize the sound! Sort of like http://www.klingbeil.com/spear/

SPEAR is an application for audio analysis, editing and synthesis. The analysis procedure (which is based on the traditional McAulay-Quatieri technique) attempts to represent a sound with many individual sinusoidal tracks (partials), each corresponding to a single sinusoidal wave with time varying frequency and amplitude.

Something which closely resembles the original input sound (a resynthesis) can be generated by computing and adding all of the individual time varying sinusoidal waves together. In almost all cases the resynthesis will not be exactly identical to the original sound (although it is possible to get very close).

Cochlear implants are great for people who have never heard before, they won't know there is a difference.

Audiophile hearing aids probably aren't there yet.

[Paulie]

Andy is correct (yet again). Use reference mixes.

I'm mostly deaf in my right ear, I stopped wearing my hearing aid when I had to get glasses (after 20+ years of Lasik-corrected vision). My current hearing aid doesn't stay secure when I wear glasses, which is now all of the time.

Reference mixes are a great help, I will often flip my headphones so that my good ear gets to hear both sides of the mix. It becomes annoying after a while. Then I got a Behringer Behritone monitor (mono speaker) and I do a lot of my mixing on it. You can also stick with headphones and switch to a mono mix in your DAW, and then back to stereo. If it sounds good in mono it will sound great in stereo.

I mix with headphones almost all of the time, using reference mixes. This is usually because I record in the evening when the kids or wife are asleep and I don;t want to wake them. I only really use my near field monitors during the days and to briefly check mixes after doing a headphone and Behringer mix.

Lastly, post stuff in the Peer to Peer. I've done this several times and I always get great specific feedback that helps my mixes.

Paulie

[hummingbird]

Good post Paulie. I forgot to mention I've been almost totally deaf in one ear since 12 years old. I mix in mono all the time, and then run a stereo and ask for feedback. Good tip on the Behringer Behritone monitor!