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Re: ringing in ear... too much headphone mixing?

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:30 pm
by 4/4
could be a brain tumour.

Re: ringing in ear... too much headphone mixing?

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 7:33 pm
by monolake
A brain tumor is an extremely rare reason for Tinitus.
The following is more likely:

- too much exposure to too loud sounds
- stress
- high blood pressure

Therefore:

- avoid exposure to too loud noises (use pro- earplugs when going out )
(( And btw.: if YOU think it is TOO loud, then it IS too loud. Do not play with earplugs but expose the audience to mad levels. Unless you want to provide them with Tinitus too. ))

- avoid drinking coffee, black tea, smoking. ( blood pressure ! )
- do some sports like swimming or running ( blood pressure, and, more important: mental relaxation )
- find out if there could be other causes for massive, ongoing stress and try to reduce that.

Tinitus is not static, it comes and goes and the human brain can do great things controlling it.

As far as the headphones are concerned, I cannot see why open / closed would make such a difference. The problem is, that people tend to turn up volume with headphones, because it does not _feel_ loud. Best solution: learn producing / mixing at moderate levels and use good speakers.


Cheers, Robert

Re: ringing in ear... too much headphone mixing?

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 8:40 am
by Earwax69
Thanks Monolake.

The ringing is less present now but it still there. I dont notice it anymore unless I try. Not bad. I stopped making music since I posted this.

Yeah, we got to take breaks sometimes.

Someone should program a freeware to freeze your computer 10min each hours. Just the time to relax your ears, eyes, walk a bit and stop overusing internet!

Re: ringing in ear... too much headphone mixing?

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 1:01 pm
by 4/4
it's a brain tumour.
Click Here

Re: ringing in ear... too much headphone mixing?

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 1:03 pm
by davepermen
4/4 wrote:it's a brain tumour.
Click Here
i like how the first thing for "10 things" is an entry about "100 things" :)

google rocks :)

Re: ringing in ear... too much headphone mixing?

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 3:40 pm
by OvertoneZero
what's up with the ads taking control of my computer

not down with that

Re: ringing in ear... too much headphone mixing?

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 4:07 pm
by Rinsemeister
I used to teach audio engineering for an international college back in the
90's.

Part of the early syllabus was education for hearing preservation.

http://otolaryngology.med.miami.edu/x78.xml

Check this link, it may help a few of you to understand the "mechanics" of
hearing and just how simple it is to fuck it up completely!

Cheers,

Z.

Re: ringing in ear... too much headphone mixing?

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 6:56 pm
by Pasha
For it has been an exposure to a bass guitar solo in front of the SWR Amplifier.
I was 16 years old and stupid now 44.
For a week I did not sleep then the doctor put me on benzodiazepins and it went better.
After that I got a micro circulation prescription drug for my ears and it helped.
It never went away completely. I stopped playing in a band in 2001 because of that.
Since then, I exercised extreme care to loud noise exposure and now it's almost gone
but after every serious exposure to loud sounds I pay the price of a sleepless night.
That's why it takes me so much to finish my songs. I have to interrupt working on music
for a week to re-establish a normal situation.
With time brain learns to avoid listening and you feel better,

- Cheers
- Pasha

Re: ringing in ear... too much headphone mixing?

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 7:36 pm
by sporkles
At least I can take comfort seeing that I'm not alone... Tinnitus sucks big time, and I feel so silly in retrospect for not being aware of this in the past. I think,
however, that this is a problem people aren't aware of until it's already too late. Prolonged and continuous exposure to sound will be bad for your ears. Add
volume on top of that, and you're asking for it.

A test that's easy to perform is this: bring your iPod or whatever on the bus, or outside, walking the streets of your
home city. Turn up the volume so that you can hear the music, but - if possible - don't turn it up to a point where it hurts listening to it. Then, go home, lie down
in bed, put on the headphones again, without adjusting the volume.

Bloody unbearable, isn't it?

This test will probably reveal that comfortable volume in a quiet surrounding is less than a tenth of the volume you thought completely unproblematic sitting on the bus.
No matter how hopeless your monitoring situation is - turning up the volume to drown background noise is baaaad for your ears. I'm paying the price for my stupidity
every night, going to bed. I can no longer appreciate silence, as it always makes me aware of the ringing again. Another thing that bothers the crap out of me, is that
my left ear is almost constantly "popped", and I don't even notice until my hearing clears up (happens a couple of times a day). In other words, I mostly hear all sound
muffled and unclear on my left ear, which is also where the tinnitus is worst.

Re: ringing in ear... too much headphone mixing?

Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 5:35 am
by The Carpet Cleaner
damn, sorry for you guys :(

Re: ringing in ear... too much headphone mixing?

Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 5:45 am
by arctic ranger
tip...(and i know some of you guys have done this :P )

DONT GET DRUNK AND STAND NEXT TO OR PLAY DRUM KITS WITHOUT HEARING PROTECTION!!!




















whut?

Re: ringing in ear... too much headphone mixing?

Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:10 pm
by slirak
monolake wrote:Tinitus is not static, it comes and goes and the human brain can do great things controlling it.
It's quite amazing actually. I got hearing impairment, hyperacusis and tinnitus in my right ear from a concert some 15 years ago. The first year was horrible. I could barely sleep because of the ringing and a lot of everyday sounds turned really painful.

Today, I rarely notice the ringing. The hyperacusis (sensitivity to loud and high pitched noises) is a lot better too. I just need to be very careful.

It all shows when I mix music though. If I mix to my liking and then have a peek at the meters, the right channel's always a few dB's too loud. If I check with a frequency analyser, I have too much high frequencies there too. Apparently my brain suppresses high frequencies from my right ear in order to dampen the ringing (my hearing impairment is pretty linear when it comes to frequencies, so it's not that). What a piece of gear that pesky brain thingy is!
monolake wrote:As far as the headphones are concerned, I cannot see why open / closed would make such a difference.
Actually, I find closed cans to be better for my tinnitus and hyperacusis. Since they keep outside noise down, I can listen to music at lower levels. Also, I got myself a pair of headphones with active noise cancellation a while back. With them, I can listen at even lower levels while travelling by car, bus, train, planes etc.

Re: ringing in ear... too much headphone mixing?

Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 12:17 am
by fishmonkey
yeah, in general our perceptual systems are tuned to pick up on the changes in signals, so steady state information tends to fade away...

Re: ringing in ear... too much headphone mixing?

Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 1:03 am
by domwave
be careful with spikes and clicks.
i cannot see your waveforms but i worked a lot to get my levels balanced over the years (without a 2k hardware compressor).
for example. i'm sure you can listen my girl next door's music loud for a good while without any problem.
and i also don't need to watch the waveform of monolake because i can hear the levels are balanced.
the music overall is smooth to listen.
you said you mostly listen on lower volumes?
yeah but are you sure that there are not some spikes/clicks from lets say a kick or snare permanentley going to up to 0 dB?
more worst if it is just sometimes.
lets say you listen a song on "low volumes",the overall level is -20dB lower than you listen usually but you can see some spikes going up to 0dB?
make a test and raise the volume 20 dB up on your hardware mixer,now the spikes not 20 dB but 40 dB louder.
you can't recognise those spikes easily but this fuck up your ears,be careful.
(this was a extreme example).