When your ears get overloaded/hot

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Waffleness

Waffleness

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Hello,

I've been mixing this track I am working on for a while now, probably a few hours. I know its common to get almost 'bored' listening to the same piece of audio before it makes no sense any more while mixing. After listening to it for ages I just loose the feel of where it is heading and cant make decisions as to whether it sounds better or worse than it did previously. Are there any ways round this?

I just take a break from time to time, let my ears adjust back to other sounds. Full time engineers must develop a stamina to listen to audio all day?

W
 
Waffleness said:
Hello,

I've been mixing this track I am working on for a while now, probably a few hours. I know its common to get almost 'bored' listening to the same piece of audio before it makes no sense any more while mixing. After listening to it for ages I just loose the feel of where it is heading and cant make decisions as to whether it sounds better or worse than it did previously. Are there any ways round this?

I just take a break from time to time, let my ears adjust back to other sounds. Full time engineers must develop a stamina to listen to audio all day?

W
Click to expand...

Walk away.

You can listen on other systems and make notes as to what you want to change. Pick the changes that are universal across all the systems and make them and only them. Then repeat. That helps keep you from getting lost in the mix. At some point you have to take it out in the world and doing that can re-focus you when you're down to the nitty gritty. Also relistening to referrance cd's can also help. It can tell you for sure if your ears are shot or you just took a wrong turn mixing.


leave it for the day if your ears are just fatigued. Take shorter breaks through out the day to help keep you from getting that way.

Poor monitors and enviroment can leave you frustrated and unclear as to what changes are needed as well.

F.S.
 
You can do a lot of the mixing tasks very well -at very low volume-
Particularly most of the 'big picture/context things. 'Low end might be an exception that calls for moderate volume.
Another gotcha' (for me anyway) is getting in and out of micro mode w/o loosing perspective. That goes for in and out of eq/solo modes as well as when going from loud back to soft.

I prefer starting very soft to avoid and delay that inevitable slide as long as possible.. that helps.
But this is problematic with even one 'band member around unless they are really (actively) on the same page'.
A day starting with a room full.. :rolleyes::D
 
If you've been working on the same song for a few hours already, if you are work on track 35 of 50 tracks and making fairly steady process, that's one thing; in that case just take a break like everybody has said. Preferably sleep on it overnight if you can.

If, however, you have been tweaking the whole mix here and there trying to get it just right, like trying to scratch an itch you just haven't quite reached yet, you might want to consider that maybe you might be chasing a phantom mix - i.e. trying to squeeze out a sound that your tracks just will not yield.

Still take a break and sleep on it, but when you come back the next day, with fresh ears you might just find that that mix you left with last night just does not sound as good as you thought. Go back to the previously best version and try for another few minutes. If you pretty quickly find out that you're just continuing the same iffy path your left with yesterday, pick the best mix you got so far, print it and put it in the can. It's not significantly going to get any better than that.

G.
 
You definitely get used to listening to the same song more then once. I not only have gotten use to it I almost enjoy listening to a song multiple times. If I find a new song I like I can play it up to 20-30 times in the next couple of days.
 
I read somewhere that when your mixing at moderate to high volume levels, your ears change their freq response a good bit. Tutorial advice I always liked to repeat was to give your ears 15 mminutes break every hour. I suppose if your doing lower volume work, you might be able to get away from this. I concur.

Anothr aspect is your overall fatugue level, body not just ears. If you force yourself to drink coffee, stay up late mixing... teh track will definitely sound way different the nxt day with fresh ears. What sounded good the night before late, IV'ing caffeine, LMAO... might well sound like shite th next morning.

Yet another aspect of ear AND overall body fatigue, is the "female ghost voice" syndrome. This is well documented and fairly common. During extended periods of high volume high-frequency sound sensory input... you will think you JUST missed a female-ish voice. Yelling your name, screaming, or just talking. You wont HEAR it, you will perceive that you JUST missed it as you take the 'phones off or lower the volume.

I had heard of this, but didnt place any value on it, LMAO. First time it happened, it makes you jump out of your skin. When I was a wee lad, I played drums for years. I would here and there run upstairs as I thought I had just missed my mom yelling for me. She was perplexed, as she said my older brother (who also played the same set for years...) used to do the exact same thing. The only thing we ever came up with, was my mom noting it would only happen during loud contyinuous playing using a lot of cymbals. (high freqs....)

Me, I dont believe in ghosts, and I will go into the scary eerie house, basement, woods, cave, etc etc readily. I just dont scare easily. BUT, if you were to be one of those people that get the "eeby jeebies" easily... remember I told you this, so if it happens you dont get the insane notion your location is "haunted" *rolls eyes*

PS - giving your ears a 15 minute break every hour, will more or less prevent this.


PPS - how many times have you been mixing at modrate levels, and suddenly gone "now what the HELL is that annoying buzzing/beeping sound? I swear that wasnt there last time i ran thru this track..." only to take the phones off/lower volume to discover yer dang cell phone is playing its merry little tune? LMAO.
 
I find the only solution to this problem is walking away. And because disk space is relatively cheap, every day...I make a copy of my project before touching anything, and add the date to the mix. I try to burn a copy of whatever I finish with for the day to disc as well (or ipod). I've had off days where I got frustrated, EQ'ed the hell out of the mix and ended up with a puddle of mudd (note to self, good name for a band). I'll come back the next day, toss the puddle and start fresh from the day before.
 
Quoting SEDstar:
"Yet another aspect of ear AND overall body fatigue, is the "female ghost voice" syndrome. This is well documented and fairly common. During extended periods of high volume high-frequency sound sensory input... you will think you JUST missed a female-ish voice. Yelling your name, screaming, or just talking. You wont HEAR it, you will perceive that you JUST missed it as you take the 'phones off or lower the volume."

I have experienced a similar phenomena to this, where I will be listening to a certain part of a song (usually after many hours) and I will hear a melody line or instrument that is not actually in the mix. It's weird, but I have actually created new melodies and gained ideas for new parts of songs from it. Apparently i'm the only one who can hear it. A few times I have asked others to tell me if I am crazy - the answer was a resounding YES..

So, I guess I can say I work with ghost writers...

(I'm sorry. It was a dads joke - but it had to be made)
 
Elapses said:
Quoting SEDstar:
"Yet another aspect of ear AND overall body fatigue, is the "female ghost voice" syndrome. This is well documented and fairly common. During extended periods of high volume high-frequency sound sensory input... you will think you JUST missed a female-ish voice. Yelling your name, screaming, or just talking. You wont HEAR it, you will perceive that you JUST missed it as you take the 'phones off or lower the volume."
Click to expand...
That is so weird. After working on something for a while I sometimes turn my monitors down or take my headphones off suddenly because I think I've heard my mum calling me from downstairs (it always turns out I'm imagining it). I guess this is what that is.
 
Elapses said:
..Apparently i'm the only one who can hear it. A few times I have asked others to tell me if I am crazy - the answer was a resounding YES..
Click to expand...
:D Nah. How could we? You'll hear your ghost, we'll just hear other ones.

And here's to The Other Ones ;)
 
I get that sometimes too! I used to always do it when we would be just kicking it listening to music for hours as kids. I would be like "hold up - the phones ringing" and we'd turn the music off and sure enough... No phone... Just me looking like i'm mentally unstable and silence! Good to know others are just as strange!
 
Hey Waffle,

Im an audiologist and just thought id add in my view seeing as this is my area of interest. When im recording, mixing etc. im always very careful not to just crank up the volume and leave it there for hours on end, even i you take breaks inbetween. A really common problem, which it sounds like you are having, is metabolic exhaustion of cochlea outer hair cells. This is bound to happen if you are listening to sound for hours on end, especially if it is at a high level, which i suspect it is. Im simply terms some of the hair cells which contribute to active amplification in your inner ear fatigue, because they've been working hard. Im sure everyone here has had it when they've been in a loud situation eg a gig or club where after the sensitivity of there hearing is temperorily lessened. The only sensible way around this is to rest, take a long break over an hour and read or just lay on the sofa or something. Your ears need to recover. The other less sensible option is to crank the volume up even more but that really wont help much in the long run O_O
 
After my wife goes to sleep, I can get some work done with headphones. After some time working on tracks this way, usually at too high a volume, sometimes I have the problem of not hearing the "female real voice" until a pillow hits me in the head and knocks off the headphones, and then I can hear it just fine. :D
 
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