Mixing techniques: Correcting hearing loss

[madmaxmiller]

Firstly you can never perfectly compensate hearing loss with eq, and secondly it would sound wrong to someone else listening.

You have a point there. As long as you're alone in the studio (eg online mixing) it doesn't matter, but...

I prefer to play a reference track before the session and occasionally during to get an idea what I should be hearing. Often something with excellent production such as Black Cow from Steely Dan's Aja album. Even engineers with good hearing will do this.

References references references, fitting the genre you have under your fingers. I do this but not often enough during the process I'm afraid...

MMM

[doncolga]

Oh yeah, big time reference guy here. I used to never do this, and when I learned to do it right, it was a complete, total gamer changer for me. I'd say it changed my life, because I spent so many years of frustration wondering what the hell I was doing wrong. Turns out all I needed to do was turn the reference down to match my mix instead of turning my mix up to match the reference. I was completely ignorant of the importance of level matching. Embarrassing that I never tried that, or even stumbled across it, but if you don't know, you don't know. I've been kind of obsessed mixing since then (about two years ago), and oddly, I haven't produced very much of my own stuff since then, but I'm sure I will before too long. My big ones are recommendations from Bob Katz Honor Roll. https://www.digido.com/honor-roll/

Also, Bob Clearmountain for David Bowie, Bruce Springstein...those are referenced in most everything I do. Daft Punk "Random Access Memories" is also a staple for most everything.

Donny

[Sthauge]

Great with some feedback and thoughts on the issue.

The only thing I did differently, was to always cut in the opposite ear to match the one with loss. I figure it’s better to miss a little bit in both ears, than to try and boost it in one, and take a chance at furthering the issue.

I did two things, balancing L/R channel and preserved the level trough the freq spectrum as good as possible. That also gave me a reduction in some freq.

Firstly you can never perfectly compensate hearing loss with eq,

You are right about that, I never though this was perfect, but it makes it more correct, than doing nothing.

secondly it would sound wrong to someone else listening.

Yes, that's why I wrote this:

"I use a Zoom L12(14 ch. in, 4 ch. out) as a audio interface and it have 4 outputs that I can mix as I like into the 5 separate monitor mixes on the L12. For my hearing I use the two outputs from the monitor section that now are made to comply to my ears. Then I connect the master out directly to the two other outputs so I can use these for other people that needs monitoring without corrections."

It's only two fader moves on the L12 to switch back and forth between corrected and original sound on monitors. I headphones or in ear monitoring I have 5 separate mixes, so there's no problem there.

I prefer to play a reference track before the session and occasionally during to get an idea what I should be hearing. Often something with excellent production such as Black Cow from Steely Dan's Aja album. Even engineers with good hearing will do this.

That's an good advise everyone should follow.

For those that have developed "recruitment" (constant distortion) I guess this a go/no go to be able to mix at all. It was a relief to get rid of the distortion. Do have I been using a lot of weeks working to get rid of some mysterious distortion in my mixes until I found out that the actual problem was in my own ears and it was possible to do something about it.

[Black Jacque Shellac]

I feel a bit awkward asking this, but how do you open the monitor section? I never had to use it until now, but I can't seem to figure out how to open it.

[madmaxmiller]

I feel a bit awkward asking this, but how do you open the monitor section? I never had to use it until now, but I can't seem to figure out how to open it.

In menu bar: View --> Toggle Monitor section visibility

MMM

[Sthauge]

I feel a bit awkward asking this, but how do you open the monitor section? I never had to use it until now, but I can't seem to figure out how to open it.

In menu bar: View --> Toggle Monitor section visibility

MMM

MMM is right about this, but before you can toggle it on/off, you have to go to the "Session" menu, click on "Properties", select "Monitoring" and enable "Use monitor section in this session"

The you can toggle it on/off as MMM described, but you also got a "Mon" Button right to the "Mute" button in the master channel that do the same.

[madmaxmiller]

MMM is right about this, but before you can toggle it on/off, you have to go to the "Session" menu, click on "Properties", select "Monitoring" and enable "Use monitor section in this session"

The you can toggle it on/off as MMM described, but you also got a "Mon" Button right to the "Mute" button in the master channel that do the same.

Give that man a reputation point!
MMM

[Black Jacque Shellac]

It vorks Igor, it VORKS!
Thanks a lot guys, I finally saw the monitor section this morning. Enabling monitoring for the session through the session properties also adds a 'mon' button to the master section to show/hide the monitor section, neat!

[Shailesh]

Thank you !

HiHats is always a problem for me. Because, One of my ear hears few dB low. So, I used to invert left/right, and mono listening. And, Hearing mix with only one ear while covering another ear.
But, by doing these it was not 100% trust worthy. And everything was guessing.

Now, after reading your method I'm going to try it.

Thanks a lot !