My left ear is knacked. No infection, no blockage, just good old ware ‘n’ tare. If I don’t keep an eye on the masters on the desk, I’m heavily lefting the mix. Ok, I’m using h/p’s too much but don’t have much choice most of the time, what with domestica - hey ho.
I’ve noticed that it’s not just volume that is down, but the low/mid freq’s are crushed, too.
For now, I’ve been, more or less, centreing the master pans and frequently swithing my cans, whilst trusting my eyes - bummer!
What would be the text book fix?
Borg implants?
im the last person you should listen to for tecnical advice but if you had like a balance control on your monitor amplifier you could set it up with a proper balanced stereo signal so that it compensated for your ear problem. do you know what i mean or am i being silly?
you could of course be the next brian wilson!
Tina
I'm with you, Tina - that's kinda what I am doing. Cocidering handycapping my good ear?
(n)
Use your eyes. get it sounding best you can - cut a test wav - look at it. Most things are obvious unless you compress out all the dynamics.
Yeah…look at it. That’s almost the only way that works be me these days. My hearing loss is pretty bad, with nothing above 7k in one ear and about 9k in the other. The first thing that was obvious what that stuff I knew was centered, like a true mono mix, sounded off to one side. When that happens it’s time to depend on meters, your eyes, and first and foremost, folks you trust fir critical listening. (not folks that say ‘that sounds good to me’)
A trick to use to train your brain when ears get wacky is
to listen to a mono mix, with it know to be dead centered on a stereo playback system. THEN flip left and right in the playback, but leave the mix mono. If it’s your ears the sound will stay off-centered the same way. If it’s a monitoring issue the sound will change, and might flip to the other side. This is very useful to help rule out what’s ears, and what might be something else.
Two easy ways to do this is 1) put headphones on the other way and 2) physically move the speakers to opposite side. These should be the first. After that, electronically switching side can be used if the physical speaker movement should all as expected. This is done to rule out things like blown tweeters.
One you understand, through listening, what your ears are really showing you it becomes easier to compensate. In this case compensate does NOT mean raising the highs until you can hear them, but it means knowing when to NOT raise the highs because you can’t hear them even if they are there.
Trust me…hearing loss is a real struggle and it makes it almost impossible to mix without others help.
I’m lovin’ gettin’ older a little more each day;-)
Cheers guys. I’m kinda doing as you say, phoo, Pops and Tina. Monitoring in mono and ignoring my left ear rather than cranking it.
Tom! I’ve concidered the implants, but untill they can guaratee a matched pair…
Suppose it has a name!? audiopause?
I call it peace and quiet. 
I find keeping a set of earbuds in the ears works wonders - no one even tries to bother me anymore - “He’s listening to music don’t even try to talk to him.” Best use for earbuds ever!
Quote: (Poppa Willis @ Dec. 06 2010, 4:36 PM)
I find keeping a set of earbuds in the ears works wonders - no one even tries to bother me anymore - "He's listening to music don't even try to talk to him." Best use for earbuds ever!
heh heh! me too.
(I sometimes hide in the bathroom)