Tenitis Repercussions in Mastering

[nicenobs]

I'm wondering if anyone can offer advice or information on the following:

I have Tenitis and would like to get into Mastering. Does anyone think this is a bad idea? I can only hear ringing in both ears, when it is dead quiet, but I'm wondering if having Tenitis will affect me being unable to hear certain frequencies, etc.

Thank you

[wado1942]

I'd say it's only a problem if you find yourself always wanting to notch out 12KHz.

[strdsk]

There are ways of treating that these days...with steroids and hearing aids. I worked for Miracle Ear years ago and the misconception is that aids are only used for hearing loss. Go talk to your local audiologist or ENT and ask them about alternatives! Good luck!

[Zownd]

Originally Posted by nicenobs

I'm wondering if anyone can offer advice or information on the following:

I have Tenitis and would like to get into Mastering. Does anyone think this is a bad idea? I can only hear ringing in both ears, when it is dead quiet, but I'm wondering if having Tenitis will affect me being unable to hear certain frequencies, etc.

Thank you

Hi Nicenobs,

A good friend of my mother's is an ear doctor in 2 of the better hospitals here in NL

I have had many conversations with him
We talked about lot's of things. One of my clients has Tenitis and his mixes sound great! So I asked him how Tenitis works (you should visit a professional doctor too) he told me that the little receiving hairs (receptors) in your ears can die and can also get mutulated by sound.
but even if some of them are not good anymore, the ones around the bad receptors will still give you enough info.

Don't confuse Tenitis with a hearing problem! you might still hear all frequencies quite well. That is the most important thing.

So I say go for it! get your ears tested for damage, which might not even be there.
Normally they don't go above 8khz,.. but if you explain your situation they can go up to 16khz, if they like you

Even when you might have a small problem it evens out at normal levels.
Doctors check at what level you can('t) hear certain frequencies. If you listen on a normal level you will hear those frequencies. You might have problems in hearing things like reverb-tails.

Most important is understanding what you do.
It takes a trained ear (even a bad one) to hear/understand what compression, limiting etc does.
So training your ears, which takes years is the most important factor IMHO.

Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Mark

P.S. pardon my English,... but I guess you'll understand

[joeaudio]

Chris Gehringers old room at The Hit Factory was insanely quiet.
When I walked in there and closed the door the ringing in my ears was scary.
As long as there is a reasonable amount of ambient noise (or music of course)
I don't notice it at all. I played drums in a rock band for 10 years.
You'd be surprised how many engineers have far from technically correct hearing.

[Ben F]

You mean tinnitus?

Get your hearing tested first to find out if there is any permanent damage, and what area the damage may be. Many people in the music industry have some sort of noise related hearing loss. After all it's the part of your body that you are using the most. Like a professional tennis player there is bound to be injuries at some point.

[lucey]

Speaking for myself, the day is an hourglass of time from fresh ears to fatigue, partly a ring, partly mental and emotional drain. So to master as a hobby? Sure. No sweat. Listening is in the brain and heart, not the ears. Enjoy yourself. Learn. Make music history!

Yet to do it professionally, where you will work for hours a day, weeks and years on end? It's going to be very tough. Just being honest with you. In all likelihood there are only so many 'good' hours in the day for your ears without inducing more of a ring, and you're going to be really pushing things by starting off ringing and then maybe wearing yourself out. You may also work yourself into more hearing damage?

It really depends on the source of your tinnitus, and your health, rest, etc.

All the best.

[pmx]

Don't confuse Tenitis with a hearing problem! you might still hear all frequencies quite well. That is the most important thing.

it is a hearing problem, but it has several grades of severity. the inner ear or more specific the organ of corti has 'per frequency band' so to say four hair cells attached to the basilair membrane. one for perception of frequency and three that function as an attenuator of the incoming level. these transfer the acoustics movement into a mechanical movement which is then transferred to an electrical movement (current) by the sensors to the tectorial membrane.

kill one of the attenuators and your still ok, kill all and you lose that band's dynamic range. the bands have quite a broad q-factor, so you don't loose perception of that frequency at once. one of the causes of tinnitus can be the shortcircuiting (or dying) of one of these haircells (and their sensors) resulting in a tone that you hear. although technically you don't hear it, it's a neural phenomenon. if you loose to much resolution (or dynamic range) in your inner ear, and the tinnitus perseveres, you might get in trouble with mastering. but you'll be in more trouble trying to get some sleep i'd imagine.

(there's loads of other ways to get tinnitus by the way, damage of the inner ear is just one.)

[jeff_free69]

According to my audiologist here in the US there are no proven treatments or cures. And if I wanted to try some annecdotal remedies like ginseng etc , feel free. (he actually suffered a bit from it too )

Mine's not so bad, with it being most noticeable as i first wake in the morning. I also noticed, and this is very repeatable for me, that after a night of serious drinking it is aggravated. (Patron or Jack Daniels are the worst offenders!) (could be due to swelling of the blood vessels (?) )

Long ago I adopted a policy of keeping reasonable levels in the studio (upper 80's dbs) to avoid any possible further damage.

I'm not so strict about the Jack

[Jerry Tubb]

What? I can't hear you.

Is that the phone ringing?

;-)

JT

[Zownd]

Originally Posted by jeff_free69

Long ago I adopted a policy of keeping reasonable levels in the studio (upper 80's dbs) to avoid any possible further damage.

shouldn't that be lower 80's?

[nicenobs]

Thanks everyone! Some very good replies here. Yes I did have some spelling errors in there. Unfortunately, I did not protect my ears in my early 20's. I'm in my late 30's now.
The ringing isn't too noticeable, but my main concern was it effecting me doing a good job.
Oddly enough, I am extremely sensitive to mids and highs and end up with muddy mixes- though now that I'm aware of this- I have been correcting the problem.

I did go to an Audiologist about five years ago and they gave me a clean bill of health, but either way- I can tell there has been some hearing loss. I'll be going back in the near future for a check up.

[Chris Bauer]

I am not in a position to give a medical opinion, but one of my neighbours is an ENT specialist and he regularly tells me to protect my ears and to work at moderate volumes. I ignore his first piece of advice (for obvious reasons), but I do work fairly quietly for most of a mastering session.

If you are getting tinnitus regularly, as Brian Lucey says, it could be a problem if you are planning to master day in day out.

Best regards,

[Peaks]

Originally Posted by zownd

shouldn't that be lower 80's?

it's a trap!!!!!!!!

[BigKD]

Originally Posted by nicenobs

Thanks everyone! Some very good replies here. Yes I did have some spelling errors in there. Unfortunately, I did not protect my ears in my early 20's. I'm in my late 30's now.
The ringing isn't too noticeable, but my main concern was it effecting me doing a good job.
Oddly enough, I am extremely sensitive to mids and highs and end up with muddy mixes- though now that I'm aware of this- I have been correcting the problem.

I did go to an Audiologist about five years ago and they gave me a clean bill of health, but either way- I can tell there has been some hearing loss. I'll be going back in the near future for a check up.

Last time I was at the audiologist the hearing test only went up to 8k. So you could be completely screwed from 8k up and be "healthy" according to their test. That's why I rarely take advice from medical professionals at true face value. My last audiologist was pretty good, though, and she admitted that the test wasn't a complete picture, especially for a guy like me who is into music and audio engineering.

I'm 24 and have tinnitus/sensitive hearing from playing in bands without proper hearing protection and monitoring at levels too loud for my own body [maybe 80db is ok for some here, but for me it's too much]. I am really sensitive to loud noise right now since playing a loud guitar amp in November. Hopefully the sensitivity will go down over time and I will get over my current battle with the tinnitus, but if I were to do it again...no music over 75db without some type of hearing protection.

I don't know if not being able to monitor above a certain SPL would prevent somebody from mastering. In my amateur opinion, I think having these issues would make it difficult to master professionally. Honestly, the most important issue would not be providing shitty masters [although that would be MAJOR problem, lol] but rather making your hearing issues even worse from listening to music 8 hours/day.

[Ben F]

Originally Posted by BigKD

Last time I was at the audiologist the hearing test only went up to 8k. So you could be completely screwed from 8k up and be "healthy" according to their test. That's why I rarely take advice from medical professionals at true face value. My last audiologist was pretty good, though, and she admitted that the test wasn't a complete picture, especially for a guy like me who is into music and audio engineering.

What they are testing for is hearing damage that will affect your every day life. That is in the 4-6khz range where intelligibility of conversation is. If you want a test up to 20khz then a specialist can do that. There is a big misconception about hearing damage being only in the top end. You could hear up to 15khz but have a big dip in the midrange- and that's where the damage counts.

[diamondjim]

Originally Posted by Ben F

What they are testing for is hearing damage that will affect your every day life. That is in the 4-6khz range where intelligibility of conversation is. If you want a test up to 20khz then a specialist can do that. There is a big misconception about hearing damage being only in the top end. You could hear up to 15khz but have a big dip in the midrange- and that's where the damage counts.

I find that interesting because my audiologist also tests mostly in the speech intelligibility range. I asked her if my aids could compensate for high end loss due to age and tinnitus, and she said they only can compensate up to about 8K, and only the most expensive, like mine, which are about $5K for a pair.

I think the limits are in the dsp that you can fit into the tiny BTE (behind the ear) devices like mine. Does anyone know of a HE that can well above 8K?

[BigKD]

Originally Posted by Ben F

What they are testing for is hearing damage that will affect your every day life. That is in the 4-6khz range where intelligibility of conversation is. If you want a test up to 20khz then a specialist can do that. There is a big misconception about hearing damage being only in the top end. You could hear up to 15khz but have a big dip in the midrange- and that's where the damage counts.

Right. Thankfully I didn't have any notches in that range. Overall, I scored a 24 and anything over 20 is considered normal. Based on the sound of it, my tinnitus is above 8k.

Definitely going back to her next month for the custom Westone musician ear plugs.

[Jim Williams]

This is no worse than someone with macular degeneration getting into video editing.

Or Stevie Wonder going to the movies.

I suspect one without medical issues of the senses would be a better candidate.

Then again, hearing a little of what's on the current pop/rock radio playlist, some sense deprivation might actually be a good thing?