Suggestions for people with hearing damage...

[Caravaggio]

Hello, hope this is the right place. I doubt there's a fix for this, but here's what happened...

I started dabbling around in fruity loops and came up with a simple step melody and had on loop for a bit for adjusting. I was using a cheap string vst. Someone walked by and asked "is that a phone ringing?" Which confused me, but after listening closer I could hear the treble end did have a bit of a volume difference over the rest of the sound, which is exactly what I was afraid of.

See, for whatever reason (read: too much NIN) I have trouble with higher ranges, its been that way for a while. Usually I only notice it when I don't hear the cell phones of characters on TV (real life phones are fine, but most people do use ringtones now) but as you can see it's quite a bit of a road block if I'm going to finally try to share any music with others that have better hearing than mine.

Long post short, are there any techniques or plugins you can recommend that might help with this? I tried using the simple equalizer plug to weaken the higher end, but even when I couldn't notice it anymore other people said they could still "kind of" hear it. Right now to get the same impression I'm just increasing the volume until I get all the information in my ears, but that's certainly not ideal.

Really kind of a bummer obviously.

Any replies appreciated.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

asked a professional yet?

[suzumebachi]

I have about 60% hearing loss as a result of chronic otitis media as a child. I've learned to deal with it without the assistance of a hearing aid, but I often have to ask people to repeat themselves, which gets kind of embarassing/annoying, etc. But anyways... After a while working with music, you'll become somewhat adjusted. For example, have you ever noticed that when you're in a noisy car or something for a long period of time, eventually you can't really hear the car anymore, but when the car finally stops, your hearing sounds kinda weird? That's your brain adjusting to the environmental sound. It also does this internally (though it can't really make up for signals that are completely lost). In any case, I suggest listening to songs that sound 'good' to other people, professionally mixed and mastered songs (top 40 crud) and using them as a reference for EQ and mastering. It's not a fix all, but it will definitely help in the long run. Also, I suggest you see a doctor. Some hearing loss can be fixed through various methods (surgery, tubes, etc) depending on what caused it. Hope this helps.

[Caravaggio]

Holy crap, 60%? As they say, harsh. (I've got a few of your tracks, love the ultima one.)

Like I said, mine's only a thin range, so I guess that's motivational in itself. I kind of figured comparisons to professional tracks would help, though it's kind of hard to make it constant since all the demo speakers at best buy sound different to some degree. My winamp equalizer always ends up looking like an "S" that's fallen to the right and been stepped on, and now I have to listen to it off to get a watermark, ew. Territorial hazard I guess.

Thanks for the replies.