The DijonStock Digital Home Recording Support Forum

Hey, we could have a Deafstock and stand around shouting at each other!

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All progress is made by unreasonable men.

http://www.howardgardener.co.uk/

What?

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Don't judge the coffee by its cup.
The proof of the cheese is in the eating

Could you type that in a larger font ? I didn't get that.

Deafstock = Stokdoof ? Our expression stokdoof means as deaf as a stick.

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In a minute it might be gone. Life is a bear in a bubble.

http://www.soundclick.com/bearinabubble

Dutch for dummies (and the hearing impaired.)

Actually i'm sorry to read you people have these problems but i'm glad you can overcome them.

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In a minute it might be gone. Life is a bear in a bubble.

http://www.soundclick.com/bearinabubble

yeah, that's what i have too. it's like having an aerosol can being waved about on each ear (but extremely high frequencies are present, not much low-end)

i don't know how it affects other tinitus sufferers, but for me it really screws with a sounds dynamics, and naturally it clutters up the top-end part of anything you hear. add to that the phasing between the ears which confuses the stereo field a bit, and the end result is that you're never quite sure what you've just heard - e.g. it might have been a loud sound far away, or a quiet one very near. (because the 'crispness' or clarity of a sound is contained in the top-end) - for that reason, i get really nervous when out walking the dog at night because we both move real slowly and can't get off the road very fast, and people drive like idiots in my suburb (and walking on the verge with my spine is just asking for trouble, so it must be the road)

there's also a modulation effect that happens too. for example in the shower the water mixed with the tinitus can create harmonics that usually just sound like crap but occasionally sound like voices in the background (has someone just broken into my house?) or the telephone ringing, or a host of other stuff. these days i no longer go out and look, but i have missed a few phone calls and door knockers which i incorrectly dismissed as tinnitus sound artifacts

i've had it for about 20 years now. on a couple of occasions it has hit threshold-of-pain, which is less than fun, but luckily only lasts about a minute. according to my doc, the only cure is to sever the otic nerve which means 100% deafness, so i'm in no hurry to do that obviously. but it does explain why i don't bother taking a lot of effort in mixing my recordings - the tinnitus will colour everything i do, and what good is a sound engineer who can't even tell if there's hiss in a recording?

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back on topic, i've used antares autotune and melodyne before, and both were good although to me seemed to fit different areas of production, or at least to the way i used them - antares for quickly fixing a crook vocal track, and melodyne for turning a single backup singer into a 3-part harmony block. (because the antares was 'plug in and go' but melodyne needed more fiddling)

i no longer have access to those as their owner has moved away down south, so i have the GSnap plugin that bok mentioned instead - it requires a lot more tweaking than antares did, but hey it's free and i'm grateful for it. all i need now is to actually write/record something so i can see how well it works in a real project...

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Wanted to buy: one Right Word Clock, in good condition.

It's really interesting for me to see just how many other people are affected with hearing problems. So far, that's four of us out of the closet - and on a recording forum too! It also brought home to me just how subjective the whole recording/mixing thing is. A while ago I got a friend to listen to a song I'd recorded. When he got to a small piano section he grimaced (it sounded fine to me). So we went through the piano part note by note and 'corrected' it until what he heard didn't sound off. When I played it back with all the other instruments, he said it still didn't sound right. When I listened again, I discovered that it was a guitar that was the culprit and when I took that out, all was well.

Another thing that can sway matters is that of style. Another friend has pointed out that even before these problems began, my singing style was to slide up and down to notes rather than hit them all separately. I've never been a good singer but now I have to bow to others' opinions and call it a day singing wise.

The last song I recorded on the piano gave me another insight. While I was writing it, it seemed to me that when I went from C major to D flat major, there was another note in between that I should have been using - totally barmy I know. When I transposed the song down just two semitones, that discrepancy disappeared. What this made me realise was that there are particular frequencies of my hearing that are affected. Given that the problem of hearing loss is one that will likely affect most of us in time, it made me feel a little better just to be able to analyse it in this way. I don't want to end up playing in the style of Les Dawson:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nNGlaiVypU

Sorry about this long-winded reply chaps. It's selfish I know but getting it off my chest like this and hearing all your contributions makes it seem as though I'm not on my own hear (oops, Freudian slip), here.

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All progress is made by unreasonable men.

http://www.howardgardener.co.uk/