One ear mxing?

strmkr

strmkr

New member
My hearing in my right ear has degraded into literal shit over the past year or so,to the point that it is not really useful at all anymore.I stopped doing client work earlier this year since I didn't think it was professional or ethical to charge for studio work done with a blown out ear. I guess the effect of standing on the same side of the stage for 25 years finally took its toll.

However,I still hear very well with my left ear,and still very much enjoy recording.I want to record a lot of my own stuff and do some music with some friends just for fun.

If anyone out there has any any tips,tricks suggestions,tools experience etc. to help me out,I sure would appreciate it. :D
 
Hey Strmkr,

I'm not in the same exact boat as you, so I can't directly relate or presume to know what you're facing...,However, at the moment I'm in the midst of the most misleading, painful and frustrating infection I've ever known in my life. (I'm pretty sure I'd have to just die to feel better in general-LOL)
Be that as it may...I'd say 98% of my hearing is just "Poof!" gone. If I clap my hands in front of my face I can just barely hear it.., it's more like I feel the presure wave. The same goes for the phone, television and smoke detector. I'm gonna assume that you too are frustrated or have been by different things because of your loss. My nerves are shot from people that I can't hear approach suddenly being there when I turn around...Might seem silly. but it has scared the heck out of me repeatedly.
I feel SOOOOOO lucky that my hearing SHOULD return post infection, but to what degree I can't say...When I asked the doctors I was disouraged by the nervous looks they gave one another before writing down to the effect "Well, you have to stay optimistic about a simple full recovery, BUT It's just too early to tell about any possible permanant damage."
I hope maybe kids or anyone that reads your thread will take to heart the importance of good hearing protection for live music or work environments (Naturally most people here know this big time, but you never know who might read it i guess.) 'cus it's scary as hell and frustrating as fuck to face what you may have once taken for granted being gone.

I know it may seem strange, but have you thought of a hearing aid for the damaged ear? I don't know if they have certain frequency response that you can take into consideration when mixing or what not...Maybe someone here knows about this.
Regardless.. I hope you find a way around things and make it workout.

(Sorry everyone about long post concerning my health...Just bored really and in between suitable posting material)


:)
 
I'd rather lose use of an eye than an ear...I feel for ya man.

Look at it this way, at elast you don't ahve to record anything shitty anymore. Concentrate on your music and enjoy.

What about a cochlear implant?
 
Thanks for the replies and encouragement. I really haven't done a lot of research on possible treatments yet because I have spent the last 4 months working 7 days a week at the day job to straighten out my financial mess.

I am going to look into options and see what I can afford to do. Maybe I'll do mono recordings as a signature sound:D
 
I am going down that road too. My left ear has lost all the high end response. This summer, I was outside listening to the crickets. I blocked my right ear and the crickets completely disappeared! Its just the real high stuff though--I hear my computer fan fine.

Now, my doc seems to think its because my eardrum is inverted from sinus pressure actually pulling it in, but it hasn't come back yet and probably won't.

I don't know how severe the loss is in your ear, but the best bet might be to actually do the bulk of your mixing in mono. If you can get it sounding right in mono, that means you've tracked and EQ'd things as they should be. Once you get that far, do your pans according to experience and you should be about right with your mix. Brian Wilson has only had hearing in one ear for his whole career and he's done fine. I don't know about medical routes, but it would certainly be worth checking into.
 
Same problem here as Crawdad. Left ear is just not useful over 3K.

I mix the lo end with both ears but turn my one good ear to the sweet spot to check the overall mix, pan, delay and reverb. I am doing actually quite well in maintaining the quality of my mixes.

After you get use to it and understand your limitations it actually is quite useful for concentrating in the areas both ears have in common and then working the one ear for the high end.

I also start out doing my mixes extremely lo volume and get things working then later progress up to higher levels of volume as I get nearer to the end.

I have just learned to work around it however, I baby the one good ear. No extended high volume stuff over about 30-60 seconds.

If the other ear goes, my mixing days are over and I'm buying a tele, putting treble on 10 and cranking the volume on a Marshall stack the rest of my days. Won't matter then.
 
I am staring to feel better now that I know there are others out there that are in the same boat and are continuing to record and mix. I was really depressed for awhile,but I think I am about ready to jump back on the horse and go for it.

Thanks a bunch for the replies :D
 
I've lost most of the hearing in my left ear and some high end in the right.

You do learn to compensate!!!

I track in mono and trust my good ear. When I'm tracking my own stuff I know from past use what tone controls should be about where to get a sound "on tape". When tracking others I again trust my good ear (and hope they know how to get "thier tone")

Like you I'm selective about what client projects I take - but you'd be surprised at the number of musicians, producers & engineers with hearing loss - and it doesn't stop them.

For mixing, I depend very much on reference CD's that I've trusted over the years. I know the CD has the proper frequencies, ambiance, etc. so I continuous compare to the CD during mixing. I also reference my mix in mono periodically (my monitor routing system has a mono routing button).

As long as you've got one good ear you are still blessed!! !
 
Once this guy i new with great ears was getting ready for a session. He hadn't used anything to clean out his ears that day and when he got to the studio he saw some of those giant q-tip things used for cleaning the heads on his 2" machine. So he goes ahead and just uses those right in the middle of it the power just goes out in the studio completely and understandably he freaks out because the bands going to be there in like ten minutes. Now when he freaks out he just lets go of the q-tip and it stayed in his ear with just the stick end sticking out. Well he whips his head around and smacks that stick right into a speaker and puntures his eardrum. Well needless to say he lost all hearing in that ear and from then on when mixing in stereo he always has to stand sideways and sway front to back to get a good idea. Then he has someone else listen too the stereo parts to double check for him.
Also i heard that Les Claypool is completely deaf in one ear. He just has someone else mix all of his stereo parts for him.
 
lost about 40% in my left ear back in the late seventies from a fender stack, dual showman bottom, super reverb middle, twin reverb top, (head level needless to say) damn rock and roll, i miss it (40%) but i still rock hard as ever, mixing is a beotch of course, what i hear changes day to day it seems like, makes trying to mix awful, hit and mis to say the least...

take care of your ears, they can go pretty quickly...
 
I took a vacation day today because I really needed one. I got encouraged by all the positive replies to this thread,so I pulled out some unfinished tracks and started piddling with some mixing today. About 20 min. after I started,the h.f. driver in my left monitor went out,so I swapped the monitors around. I don't know if I should bother replcing the driver now,I can't hear it anyway!:D :D :D
 
Wow, this is inspiring! I've been deaf in one ear since 1980, and can't hear over 6.5K in the other. Guess who's deaf in one ear? Phil Specter! Hence, the "wall of sound" That's Phil tracking in mono because cans don't work for him. My best advice is to have gear with really good level/clip indicators, track by algorythym, and learn to trust other people's ears. Mic placement is the toughest thing. On a couple occasions I've had to bring in a tracking engineer with golden ears to help with mic placement, especially on drums. What the hell? You're way ahead of Beethoven, who became deaf as a stone, and had no level indicators.-Richie
 
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