My hearing has been deteriorating dramatically for the past year, to a shocking level. I'm now asking myself the same hard questions about what I can or cannot continue to do with music. My charts are WAY worse than the ones you posted. I know that I cannot trust myself to mix anymore, so I would have to hand that task off to a collaborator. I've been wondering how much longer I can even continue to make and enjoy music at all. I'm only 47, so that is a very depressing prospect. I know that I'll have to get hearing aids pretty soon, but good ones cost around $7,000 USD, and insurance won't cover them, so that is out of my reach at the moment.
The one inspiring thing I recently heard was an interview with guitarist Tommy Emmanuel on the No Guitar Is Safe podcast. He's an amazing guitarist, but is hearing impaired and has had to wear hearing aids his whole life. If he can do what he does and find pleasure in it, I'm sure I can do the same. I may just need to readjust my expectations a little, and rely on spectrograms and collaborators more than I've done in the past.
Is it still possible to produce correctly with hearing loss ?
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- KVRAF
- 5386 posts since 25 Jan, 2014 from The End of The World as We Knowit
The problem will be only in higher frequencies so: learn to better interpret your metering especially LR; be sure your EQ does all you need and easily; develop presets for instruments likely to cause problems; consider using matching EQ for tracks or mastering; ask someone else you know; keep doing what brings you joy. 
Last edited by Michael L on Tue Aug 15, 2017 6:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- 112 posts since 22 May, 2017
EQ matching looks great ! You made me discovering it ! So thank you.Michael L wrote:The problem will be only in higher frequencies so: learn to better interpret your metering; develop presets for instruments likely to cause problems; consider using matching EQ for tracks or mastering; keep doing what brings you joy.
But why the problem will be only in higher frequencies ?
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- KVRAF
- 5386 posts since 25 Jan, 2014 from The End of The World as We Knowit
^^I was unclear. What I meant was your hearing was a certain percentage loss in certain frequencies so you can use metering to compensate; but you may need help from another person at first to 'calibrate' your metering.
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- 112 posts since 22 May, 2017
Michael L wrote:^^I was unclear. What I meant was your hearing was a certain percentage loss in certain frequencies so you can use metering to compensate; but you may need help from another person at first to 'calibrate' your metering.
Okay !! And do you think that this loss is important or not ?
Thanks a lot !
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- KVRAF
- 5386 posts since 25 Jan, 2014 from The End of The World as We Knowit
^^^We are all imperfect but yours is specific so can be compensated for more precisely. You may also consider getting a headphone plugin like Toneboosters Isone and making presets with a curve that matches your hearing test.
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- KVRAF
- 7540 posts since 7 Aug, 2003 from San Francisco Bay Area
Matching EQ is a great suggestion! I hadn't considered that before.Michael L wrote:The problem will be only in higher frequencies so: learn to better interpret your metering especially LR; be sure your EQ does all you need and easily; develop presets for instruments likely to cause problems; consider using matching EQ for tracks or mastering; ask someone else you know; keep doing what brings you joy.
Incomplete list of my gear: 1/8" audio input jack.
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- KVRAF
- 26033 posts since 20 Oct, 2007 from gonesville
I suppose it depends on how profound the loss is.
Frank Zappa stated there was a hole in his hearing at 500 hz. I think it shows sometimes but not others. He did come to rely on one Bob Stone for mixing in the 1980s, and so forth. FZ's tone on guitar in 1988, his last tour was really great, though.
Frank Zappa stated there was a hole in his hearing at 500 hz. I think it shows sometimes but not others. He did come to rely on one Bob Stone for mixing in the 1980s, and so forth. FZ's tone on guitar in 1988, his last tour was really great, though.
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- Banned
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- 112 posts since 22 May, 2017
I also heard of a Kickstarter project (one kvr guy speak of it on one of my previous topics) :
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/19 ... sound-alwa
This is basically a headphone that makes an audiogram and create a curve that enable you to mix like if you had perfect ears.
But for those like me who does not like mixing with headphones, it is less interesting.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/19 ... sound-alwa
This is basically a headphone that makes an audiogram and create a curve that enable you to mix like if you had perfect ears.
But for those like me who does not like mixing with headphones, it is less interesting.
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- KVRAF
- 12615 posts since 7 Dec, 2004
Is it possible for a blind person to paint beautiful landscapes?
The answer is obvious whether or not people are willing to accept it.
Compare the work of blind artists to algorithms and try to figure out if there are any notable differences.
They share far more in common than elements that distinguish them.
Ultimately your ability to continue to work based upon a feedback process (work, listen, modify, repeat) is now limited to your remaining hearing range. If you attempt to work outside the range you'll be working blind and anything you do will be more single-direction without any of the usual feedback that would otherwise take place.
So that tends to mean you'll be guessing a lot and hoping by random chance that your work turns out well without being able to adjust it after the fact. This eliminates a very significant portion of the creative element which is fundamentally a process of selection. Without being able to understand what you have selected, you won't be able to modify your process to select better options. In other words the creative process is fractured at the point your range of hearing ends and above that point it has simply broken off and is gone forever.
The answer is obvious whether or not people are willing to accept it.
Compare the work of blind artists to algorithms and try to figure out if there are any notable differences.
They share far more in common than elements that distinguish them.
Ultimately your ability to continue to work based upon a feedback process (work, listen, modify, repeat) is now limited to your remaining hearing range. If you attempt to work outside the range you'll be working blind and anything you do will be more single-direction without any of the usual feedback that would otherwise take place.
So that tends to mean you'll be guessing a lot and hoping by random chance that your work turns out well without being able to adjust it after the fact. This eliminates a very significant portion of the creative element which is fundamentally a process of selection. Without being able to understand what you have selected, you won't be able to modify your process to select better options. In other words the creative process is fractured at the point your range of hearing ends and above that point it has simply broken off and is gone forever.
Last edited by aciddose on Tue Aug 15, 2017 10:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Free plug-ins for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Xhip Synthesizer v8.0 and Xhip Effects Bundle v6.7.
The coder's credo: We believe our work is neither clever nor difficult; it is done because we thought it would be easy.
Work less; get more done.
The coder's credo: We believe our work is neither clever nor difficult; it is done because we thought it would be easy.
Work less; get more done.
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- KVRAF
- 5386 posts since 25 Jan, 2014 from The End of The World as We Knowit
He's not blind just 'nearsighted' so we are recommending glasses. Just like you can design virtual analogs but not understand analogies.aciddose wrote:Is it possible for a blind person to paint beautiful landscapes? The answer is obvious whether or not people are willing to accept it.
Last edited by Michael L on Tue Aug 15, 2017 11:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRAF
- 12615 posts since 7 Dec, 2004
That isn't how hearing loss actually works. You can't regain the ability to hear above 20 kHz after you lose it. It's simply gone. Period.
In very old age hearing loss is a gradual cumulative process and at the upper range you can regain some sense of the activity there by making up for the loss in amplitude.
The reality though is more like taking a coarsely pixelated photograph and "unpixelating" it. It is possible to interpolate and filter the photo and there are techniques to "fill in" the content but you will never recover the original content which is either gone forever or perhaps never existed at all.
In very old age hearing loss is a gradual cumulative process and at the upper range you can regain some sense of the activity there by making up for the loss in amplitude.
The reality though is more like taking a coarsely pixelated photograph and "unpixelating" it. It is possible to interpolate and filter the photo and there are techniques to "fill in" the content but you will never recover the original content which is either gone forever or perhaps never existed at all.
Free plug-ins for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Xhip Synthesizer v8.0 and Xhip Effects Bundle v6.7.
The coder's credo: We believe our work is neither clever nor difficult; it is done because we thought it would be easy.
Work less; get more done.
The coder's credo: We believe our work is neither clever nor difficult; it is done because we thought it would be easy.
Work less; get more done.