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headphones will eff you up.
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eyist
Started Topics :
4
Posts :
20
Posted : Sep 24, 2009 01:48:38
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i havent seen a thread around here about hearing loss or ear safety so i thought i would give it a shot.
im no expert... but from what i've learned over the last year at audio tech school.. digital signals + headphones will destroy your ears and you wont even know it.
studio headphones are typically meant to be used for a couple seconds here and there to monitor certain sounds no? having a speaker literally an inch away from your ear blasting over-compressed kick drums and other f"ed up signals will wreck your ears.
have you ever been on the subway.. and you can hear the snare drum from another passengers headphones? and... chances are its been further compressed by mp3 encoding. hurts to think about it.
next time you wear headphones (i rarely do), take one side off and observe how loud it is. surprises me every time.
and there is something called 1k Hearing Loss (or something)... because 1k is the first place to go 'bye-bye'.
i found that i can use an eq on the master channel to scoop out some 1K, and there's practically no change in sound. good to know for when you're doing 'clean up'.
for newbies... it might be best to buy one monitor and do everything mono until you get another speaker.. instead of buying some 'awesome headphones' that are going to give you an 'excellent reproduction' of your n00b square-wave cuts, over-compressed kicks, and general ugliness.
just thinking about a beginner trying to synthesize a kick using only headphones makes my ears hurt.
food for thought.
had to get it off my mind.
oh.... and 'listening fatigue' is very interesting as well. maybe i'll find a link later.
if anybody has any other 'how to not eff-up your ears' ideas it would be totally appreciated.
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Medea
Aedem/Medea
Started Topics :
127
Posts :
1132
Posted : Sep 24, 2009 01:54
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Freeflow
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
60
Posts :
3709
Posted : Sep 24, 2009 02:00
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Really good that you got that off your chest cause i think im in the danger zone.. i will immediately stop using headphones for long sessions...
Thank you man! cause my ears are really starting to take damage again... and i listen a lot on mp3 nowdays with my phone.. i think will stop that as well..
hopefully you saved my ears or at least a bit longer i can hear something.. hehe
I will clean up my tracks in that area also...
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Saii
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
83
Posts :
318
Posted : Sep 24, 2009 02:13
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i dont understand whats wrong with 1KHz?
 saii.rave.ca |
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eyist
Started Topics :
4
Posts :
20
Posted : Sep 24, 2009 02:28
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yea for sure be careful with volume... but its very easy to get carried away and forget. also there is always a chance of a mistake or square-wave/click. and that click is what effs up our ears.
im talking about the click you get in sequencers... and other ugliness, that we sometimes dont even perceive due to psychoacoustic effects. meanwhile the headphone are eating up your ears. i prefer not even taking the chance.
digital limiters for example... dont always catch the little part thats gonna eff-up the ears.
freeflow; no problem dude. you basically had the same reaction i did when i learned about this. lol
....
and another tip... for low-radiation lcd screen. turn your gamma down all the way, and turn the brightness up... that way there is less gamma radiation being absorbed into your brain for 10 hours a day. =) (and your sequencer might even look cooler, 'fresh')
wave interference... from audio.. wireless router waves + gamma radiation waves + audio waves + whatever else is pointing at your brain = potential for some kind of f*ed up tumor or something.
we sit in front of these freaking computers for so many hours... gotta make sure its not taking years off our lives.
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Medea
Aedem/Medea
Started Topics :
127
Posts :
1132
Posted : Sep 24, 2009 02:32
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Freeflow
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
60
Posts :
3709
Posted : Sep 24, 2009 02:41
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Quote:
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On 2009-09-24 02:32, Medea wrote:
we all will die
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Yeah thank god for that....
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Suloo
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
87
Posts :
2822
Posted : Sep 24, 2009 02:45
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hm headphones are very good and very bad at the same time 
1: very bad when you keep listening with them on loud volumes etc..no chance for your ear to defence..
2: very good to judge certain things like..if you have recorded something in the field or with equipment you dont know f.e. you should always check your recorded tracks if there are some crackles or spikes or something you dont hear on your monitors...
3:very good  to judge the reverb intension, cause on headphones you actualy got nw problems with your room right? so reverbaration should work on your headphones and most of the time its good then..actualy its just another piece ospeakers you should check out..like you alays should check several speaker systems to judge your track etc...
like...if your track sounds good on your monitors and if it sounds good on your car HiFI and same on your (surely)proffesional headphones and stupid simple mp3 cheap earplugs(dont actualy wanna call them headphones at all )
then you might actualy be quite good on mixing and producing at all..it all depends on how many systems your sound will translate quite good...
even better when you got friends who organize partys & stuff and you can check out your tunes while building up the party ...just to judge..if your snare is too loud or if the overall sound is too muddy or something..big rigs can help alot to improve your sound..
hope that might help somebody...
cheers
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eyist
Started Topics :
4
Posts :
20
Posted : Sep 24, 2009 02:46
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1khz is typically the first place to start experiencing noise-induced hearing loss...
and its likely that many people already experience it to varying degrees. you can test yourself and see... put an eq on the master channel and slowly (with a 'medium-to-narrow' Q,) start turning down 1khz.. with a thin Q, you can practically notch out 1khz and the sound remains relatively the same (different between people). who knows... maybe my ears are f*ed...lol...
i guess as more people try it we will have a more clear understanding.
saii.. there is nothing wrong with 1khz... but you can generally turn down a couple db around 1khz and not alter the sound... so theres no point adding more 1khz to a world full of 1khz. =)
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Saii
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
83
Posts :
318
Posted : Sep 24, 2009 02:58
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ok so in production it should be attenuated? like it take up headroom is what your saying or is it just that it helps see if your going deaf or not?
saii.rave.ca |
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Suloo
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
87
Posts :
2822
Posted : Sep 24, 2009 03:04
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i actuaky got kinda hearing crash totally..
it was on a heavy metal party in the time i made a practica for half a year as Live technician in the Markthalle in Hamburg (http://www.markthalle-hamburg.de/) wich is quite a well knows location for a lot of semi pro bands & stuff..
anyway , i was using the tracker..
http://www.verfolgerspot.de/images/Theater33.jpg
with one earplug in my right ear and no earplug in my left ear..sad thing i had the intercom on my left ear and this light guy kinda always shouted to me or to the other guy thrue his mic...turn left..be aware and shit like that...and i even had the whole concert translatig all the time thrue his mic, so even on my left ear......
there where like 900people in this room it was damn hot and even this f... lighter was even more hot, i had to wear gloves to actualy touch this thing at all..
so i was pretty f... up actualy....and after the show...i couldn`t hear anything on the left ear at all.....now its like 6 years ago and i just got some times where my ear just fades out but comes back quite immediatly...
i know it was stupid not to wear the earplug even on the actual phone site ...was in my fresh live technic years..i wanted to understand him blabla....
now i wont go in that business at all and fuck up my ears for some crappy heavy metal band i dont like at all...
wear earplugs guys..your ears will say thank you..!
http://forum.isratrance.com/protecting-your-ears/
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Dancing_Zombies
Started Topics :
2
Posts :
35
Posted : Sep 24, 2009 03:14
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Im curious what school you going to eyist. But yeah he is correct 1khz is one of the most common tones and is right in the middle of the human hearing range. Now about just turning it down not to sure about that but. A good rule of thumb is just dont turn your headphones past half way up. anything above aroung 98db is bad for your ears
www.dancingzombies.com
www.facebook.com/dancingzombies
www.myspace.com/dancingzombies |
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eyist
Started Topics :
4
Posts :
20
Posted : Sep 24, 2009 03:21
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oh that's a good thread. props.
i had a bad experience mixing drum n bass when i first started getting into audio. didn't realize how badly it must have f*ed up my ears until i learned about THE EAR. hahaha
saii... man i dont know whether its a rule of thumb or not... but this graph might help illustrate the idea.
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/graphics/Fletcher-Munson.gif
Fletcher-Munson Curve shows 'Equal Loudness Principle for Human Hearing (or something to that effect)'
you can see that at 1khz there's a little bump that changes slightly as the audio gets louder. just looks like a sensitive spot to human hearing that could use a little attenuation.
but at the end of the day whatever sounds good works. experimenting with 1khz at different volumes might be a good idea.
i'm no pro... i just know mofos are going deaf left and right. =) |
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Saii
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
83
Posts :
318
Posted : Sep 24, 2009 03:24
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hahahahah
thanks man
saii.rave.ca |
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eyist
Started Topics :
4
Posts :
20
Posted : Sep 24, 2009 03:39
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DZ, i finished up a year at SAE new york and i'm starting SAE oxford in about a month.
this 1khz business essentially comes from my live sound/microphones/loudspeakers teacher. he's basically experienced every kind of audio disaster imaginable including scaffolding that kills people; and some of these guys won't even touch logic because its a 'square wave generator-toy thats dangerous as f*ck'.
...eq that goes +/- 24db.... you can open a million plug ins at once... and when you have tons of tracks, logic eqs barely alters the sound... pro tools is way safer... but also has its own blend of nastiness.
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