Mixing and hearing loss

flying_pie

Just wondering how people on here deal with hearing issues when mixing/mastering.

For a long time I've been aware of hearing loss in my right ear. Left side works pretty much fine but if I cover my right ear then I can't even hear the fridge when I'm standing right beside it. 

I've just been using my good ear as best I can and trusting that if panning is set up properly visually, and my tracking is enough in time then it should be okay as I can't hear clearly in stereo. I call also ask friends for second opinions if needed.

I'm wondering if any of you have had similar issues and how you dealt with it. This is a bit different to just normal high end loss from ageing. Are the improvements from hearing aids enough to justify going privately? Or are these things that don't improve the fine details enough for mixing and if be wasting my time as I don't need aids for day to day life?

Musicwolf

Are you a professional or is this a hobby?  I'm in the latter category and my audience numbers, at best, the hundreds but more likely these days the dozens.  Essentially, whilst trying to do the best job that I can, I'm mixing for myself and as such, if it sounds ok to me then that's good enough.

Whilst I have half decent monitors and acoustic treatment, I suspect that it's my mix environment that's more limiting than my hearing (even though my hearing isn't great).

You can still mix with less than perfect hearing (If you need hearing aids then, whatever people might tell you, there's no real benefit from going private vs. NHS).  By-the-way, one of the greatest albums of all time was produced by someone who was almost totally deaf in one ear.

Snap

Have you thought about mixing in mono? Assuming you are confident in your panning settings, the actual mix could be done in mono maybe?
and yeah, hearing aids are way better these days. Thankfully it's not hit me yet, but I am sure it will, it's in the family. Tinnitus is there though, but I've had that for decades, it's more noticeable these days, but not too bad

thecolourbox

Not that i should be making light of it, but my hearing is fine (in fact for certain frequencies, too good) and my mixes are crap so you're already doing well considering

Stuckfast

Do the bulk of the mix in mono on one speaker -- this is important. When the time comes to think about panning, make a point of regularly swapping the channels over so that you can hear the mix left/right reversed.

DannyP

Being aware of which frequencies you've lost is probably handy.

There used to be a couple of places on the music pub circuit where the venerable resident sound men had lost all their top end a decade or so prior and the treble would be either non-existent or ear-splitting.

flying_pie

Thanks. I like the idea of mono on one speaker. That makes a lot of sense

I've actually been using headphones to try and check balance in stereo by simply turning them 180 to swap ears instead of channels

Sadly Pretty Sounds, along with Beethoven's later works, was achieved by someone already an expert long before the hearing loss occurred