Constructing a (Nice) Amateur-Grade Music Studio with Chronic Tinnitus and Relevant Considerations

This has been on a my mind a while but I barely post these days; I was skimming and noticed this thread was still getting some activity: I Want to Become a Musician... Should I Not Because of Having Tinnitus and Minor Hyperacusis?

First Disclaimer: Before I get into this, my choices are my own and I am happy to talk about my path here. Instruments are loud, we're all in different situations and what I have found acceptable may not be so for you. That's fine!

Penultimate Disclaimer: Certain kinds of music production are harder or impossible without headphones, additionally, I personally don't think there's anything magical about headphones or even earbuds. That is, they're generally dangerous because they make it easier to blast your ear with high volumes, and occlude the canal, but if you don't blast your ears, a soundwave is a soundwave and I personally think the quality of the speaker tends to matter a lot more for ear fatigue. That said, this is not a place for debates about headphone use in general; again, I respect that there's a spectrum of experiences here and I am not encouraging headphone or speaker use of any kind.

Purpose

I got tinnitus in 1999; it became substantially worse following noise trauma in 2010 and I was never satisfactorily able to do much about it until starting a medication set (not discussing that here, I've discussed it to death elsewhere) which has been effective. Note that I am in the process of slowly withdrawing from those medications, so they are less and less a part of my story. None the less I put a footnote at the bottom to keep people from having to go on a fishing trip through my posts, because I know that reading about someone else's "successful" medication plan without them listing the drugs is really annoying.

In 2017 a friend with tinnitus encouraged me to buy a synthesizer to mess around with noises, because he personally had found it helpful in his journey. I like toys, so I got one, but I didn't do much with it until the pandemic hit and suddenly I was able to vaporize a bunch of old collectables that were gathering dust (Magic cards from the ~mid 90s) for $25,000 and do a bunch of home repairs and also just go deep on home audio stuff and sound design, and so I've... done that, you might say:



One thing to call out right off the bat: That's a reasonably accurate dB meter on the wall. When I am mixing a purely electronic signal chain, I just don't let that get over 75 dB or so. Ambient sound in here can be in the low 40s dB with all fans etc off, so that's more than enough headroom to do amateur grade mixing and mastering.

Some things are inherently impossibly loud: that's an alto sax, and sitting in here with the door shut playing into the wall, it will hit 110db pretty easily. Most of the force of the noise is projected away from the horn, but that's loud enough that I play outside whenever I am able, and use hearing protection in all cases.

Hearing Protection, with Safe(r) Sax in Mind

Like I said an alto can easily blow through 110 dB so we're into ranges where we are talking "safer" and not "safe". I don't imagine I am ever going to play an indoor set with an amped band at a live venue; even with muffs on and monitors underneath, that sounds way crazy for me. My goals are mostly to be able to play my sax (which I have ~a decade of prior experience with) and jam with a friend in a way that doesn't degrade my hearing, I'm not looking to be the next Sam Gendel.



Left is a set of musician grade earplugs with varying kinds of tips. Passive attenuation, not quite as good as normal foamies but lets a nicer spectrum of sound through. Maybe $25 on Amazon (Etymotic makes nicer ones). These are what I use for normal practicing.

Right is a set of Shure basically inexpensive in-ear monitors. They have maybe 18 dB of passive attenuation when properly inserted. This is less ideal than foamies for just playing a horn, but if I am playing my horn miked into some kind of electronic distortion chain, or playing along/into a mix that I need to be able to hear over or along with the horn, then I slam these in and slam a pair of earmuffs on top of them, and look like a total fuckin goon, but it works well enough.

A Word on Speakers





These are JBL powered monitors that I use for the front channels, and 1972-era Criterion unpowered monitors that go through another amp for rear channels (of course we're doing quadraphonics in here what fun is life if you can't send the front mix to a reverby soup behind you...)

Keeping this stuff at a reasonable volume is easy; these are all at least decent speakers with a warm sound response and there's a decibel meter on the wall.



This is a Boss Katana 50W guitar amp. It's super cool, on board DSP that can be flashed keeps me away from buying pedals for my uses, and it's got settings for 0.25W, 25W and 50W. It's also a friggin guitar amp and it's insanely easy to accidentally blast yourself with feedback through any number of means. This is probably the most dangerous sonic thing I own, and it basically only gets used outside and with extreme caution.

It's also absolutely hilarious to play an electric kazoo through a heavy delay/reverb/distort into the woods and make the local wildlife wonder wtf, so, life is full of compromise.

Headphones

Above, I showed a pair of occlusive IEMs. They have the exact singular purpose I mentioned for me. They also scare the living hell out of me because there's nowhere for the sound to go, so the only thing preventing me from some kind of ear damage accident, is: having good, reliable gear, and double and triple checking everything. I take safety when using this stuff, as seriously as I would if I was using a chainsaw or a firearm.

There's all kinds of headphones but for comfort and to some extent safety reasons I have come to prefer open-backed or semi-open backed models. These are not suitable for use sitting directly next to someone else, as they will hear your music escaping as a tinny sound. But, because sound does easily escape, there's some degree of protection against accidental volume spikes.

These are Blon B20s, they are made in China and can be obtained for around $350. I think they punch well over their weight class at that price. They don't leave home; I have a pair of (closed back) Sony MDR-v600s as road cans. I almost never need headphones when playing out with friends.



Noise Control

If you're mixing this stuff in a residential area that wasn't made to be a studio, your acoustics suck. If you're lucky enough to live in the middle of the woods like me your neighbors won't notice, but your spouse may be less than thrilled about any number of low and high frequency oscillations emanating from your music cave. Also, any noise you can take out of the air with absorbant surfaces, is noise you're not exposing yourself to, as well. Generally, you want your space to absorb as much as possible, especially if you're doing any acoustic recording with normal condenser / pickup mics (piezos are a different story).





I've got a couple sections where I have insulation mounted from the ceiling on lines so that the angle can be adjusted, and then I put a bunch of sound insulation against the wall behind the racks, and have slowly been adding it in the corners of the room. The floor in here used to be bare wood, now it has a thick absorbent pad under a thick blanket. The sound profile in here is a lot nicer and less "inherent Room reverb", high-frequency transients don't ping off the walls quite as much, and given that I keep volumes pretty well below what professional music is usually mixed at (80-85 dB, I think, and using headphones or extremely good monitors?), it's all working pretty nicely.

Take Breaks and Listen to Yourself

Volumes and sonic frequencies aside, I am of the opinion that:

• Something which does not seem to be causing hearing damage, may still be doing so.
• Anything which seems to make my ears feel tired or sensitive, is bad and should be stopped.

I've stuck to those two basic rules more thoroughly than anything else, because, ultimately, as far as my ears go, there's not too much difference between tooting a sax for a while, and running a weedwhacker: what kind of noise was produced, what protection did I use, and what volumes were my ears exposed to, at what frequencies, for how long?

Why Get Into an Obviously Dangerous Hobby, Given That You Already Have Tinnitus?

I played a sax for 8 years and have been dabbling with electronic stuff since the mid 90s. It's in the blood. But, I would turn that around and ask "why wouldn't I pursue a hobby that I find meaningful and fun, given that I believe I can do so in a way which doesn't pose any risks to my medical condition that Life Itself doesn't already impose, worse?"

That's the crux of the cross for me. I am not advocating become-a-musician-therapy for tinnitus. Even if I wanted to make an argument that it worked for me (which I don't), I am a weirdo and also just one person. On the other hand, I don't think that having tinnitus is necessarily a bar to hobbies that involve noise. It really depends on the person, the activity, the degree of tinnitus, etc.

I am not here to tell anyone else to do; this is simply the studio space I've constructed for myself to have fun with, and the tinnitus related considerations I have processed as a result.

At this time I've been doing this as well as operating substantial amounts of small gas engines for the better part of a decade, and if anything my tinnitus is quieter and less bothersome than it was in 2012. However, I accept that there is risk in all things and doing this stuff certainly could be leading to insidious hearing damage.

That's okay, the world is full of unknowns and I could get cancer tomorrow or die in the Eco-Fascist Food Shortage Riots of 2029. For now, I am making bleeps.

That's Sure a Lot of Crap You Have, What's Your Favorite Thing?

The saxophone, for sure, because I have the most hours on it and can actually play it. As far as the electronic garbage, MakeNoise/Soundhack Mimeophon is probably my single favorite piece of sonic technology (Soundhack Spectraphon is a close second), but for anyone looking to get into synthesis my honest advice is "buy the best iPad you can get for $350 and then mess with a bunch of free / cheap synth and drum machine stuff, maybe slowly buy into the Korg Gadget ecosystem, and then go from there".

My Recordings Et Cetera

I am active in a handful of small synth communities and I do post my mostly sketchy, raw or otherwise not super impressive bleeps a number of places, but I'm not linking to any of that here because this is just explanation and not self-promotion. I'm easy to find, though, especially if you start pawing at the world of modular synth chatter online

Fine Fine, What About Those DRUGS You Mentioned?

Ultimate Disclaimer: I have a history with Clonazepam that predates my tinnitus, I was first scripted it from 1999-2005 which was during critical brain development years for me and I strongly suspect that Clonazepam may work differently on me than the average person as a result.

After trying basically everything under the sun besides the Shulman protocol of a combination of Clonazepam & Gabapentin, and having found substantial short-term relief from PRN use of Diazepam, and being in a state of utter misery with a baby child I felt that my tinnitus and distress was interfering with bonding with and raising, I threw my hat in the Shulman ring, initially on 2 mg Clonazepam / 300 mg Gabapentin and eventually peaking at 900 mg Gabapentin in 2021 or so. Since then I have been steadily reducing both drugs extremely slowly, starting on the Gabapentin. I currently take 1.5 mg Clonazepam and 50-100 mg Gabapentin. There's another thread on here about that protocol specifically where I have been active, and I will be happy to discuss this → there but this thread is intended to be a thread about audio production, performance and related tinnitus concerns.

I can't be the only person dumb enough to have macawed my way into a room full of Shiny Synth Things, so if there's any other sound design psychos out there, let me know

P.S.

There's room for an entire follow-up post on using in-line compressors and other things as part of your signal chain (both primary signal chain, and the chain that just goes to headphones) to prevent accidentally blowing your hearing up, but I wasn't sure if there was enough interest to get to that level. "Buy a decent compressor and jam it at the end of your signal chain" is pretty simple advice, and if you do your monitoring through a DAW, you may just get this built-in for free.

 

This is a really good, deep, insightful write up - I'm sure other musicians are going to find this really helpful!

A question if I may. I'm a techie, I can write code, build apps, design websites, build computers etc... but anything audio just will not stick. Nothing at all. It (excuse the pun) goes in one ear and out of the other. I find quantum physics easier to grasp than sound acoustics and sound quality.

You mentioned the quality of the sound and audio is very important and can make the difference between ear fatigue sooner rather than later - I'm desperate to find a 'good quality' speaker simply for use with playing low-level music and taking work calls.

I have a Marshall Stanmore II speaker and although it's ok for $300, it still drives reactivity after a low volume work call of just 30 minutes (using captions for parts I can't hear rather than turning up the volume).

You seem to know a thing or two about all this stuff - is there anything you'd recommend for an audiophobe that has no idea the difference between his Watts and Wazoos?

 

I think most self-described "audiophiles" are lunatics who exist to be a target demographic for insane stuff like gold plated HDMI cables, and ultimately the expense and output profile of a speaker matters less than how it sounds to your ears, if that makes sense. I can tell the difference between my $350 cans and pairs of $100 cans, and while I suspect I could probably discern a difference with a $4000 set of headphones, I can't believe it would actually matter to me.

Audiophile grade stuff should not be necessary; it's just a matter of spending enough to avoid cheap/budget gear that cuts corners, often sounds bad, has uneven response spectrum that might cause you to turn it up more than you want, etc. Also, buying something that's not intended to be a studio PA speaker or something, since some stuff is not really intended to sound good at low volumes, and a lot of consumer Bluetooth speakers go for BASS BASS BASS (to make up for a lousy high end, often).

If low volume calls on a high quality speaker are causing problems, you may just be at a point where that's still "too much". I feel that my ears were sensitive in ways I still don't really understand for about the first 5 years following my 2010 trauma.

Trying different speakers is worthwhile, especially if you can do free Amazon returns pretty easily, to see if you can find someone which has a spectrum that agrees with you better. You could also look at putting a compressor inline between the audio source and the speaker to see if that makes a difference, something like this:

FMR RNC1773

If you were going all out, a full graphic equalizer with a compressor on it would give you extreme control over the sound coming out of your speakers:

Furman PQ-4 Parametric Equalizer 4 Band

All of that's going to get pretty expensive fast if you have no other use for the gear (standalone compressor/EQ units aimed at studio use are $2000 and up).

Another option, if you have a reasonably powerful PC, is to get a decent low-latency digital audio converter (Tascam 4x4US is what I use and they are ~$200 ish), and then spend like $50-100 on some inexpensive DAW software (I use Studio One). If you did this, you could then use the computer to basically do everything I just said (compress and equalize the audio) in close-enough-to-real-time for voice chat (probably introduces ~50-100 ms of latency, but no discernible `echo` if done properly).

Sound waves make more sense to me if I just think of it basically as an ocean that's surrounding me that I am swimming in at all times, and impacting as I impact it. The analogy works pretty well, honestly.

Now, the math and stuff behind digital signal processing? Ha, I know nothing, I will leave that to Descartes, Buchla and Tom Erbe.

 

Thank you @linearb - that was really helpful.

I learned more in the 5 minutes I spent reading this than the hours I've tried researching all year.

You're right, it could all just be too much at the moment, but I can't avoid the work calls if I want to work. I have gone through and returned 7 speakers now from Amazon, the Marshall Stanmore II is the 8th speaker I'm trying.

I just wanted to make sure I wasn't still in too much of a budget range, and just a pay grade higher were a whole bunch of amazing speakers - but sounds like keep the speaker, and try out the converter and software (appreciate the links!).

Thanks again - appreciated!

 

Very cool and informative post my friend! I think you included everything someone needs to know if they want to take up music production of any kind. I too am a music producer and I found it a really good read.

If it wasn't for music production (mostly electronic stuff), I would probably have offed myself, but it was there to keep my mind off the tinnitus and other ear crap I have and make my life worth living. Although I have it mild and it doesn't seem to be affected by noise, I've been exactly as careful as you mention.

I've been playing guitar and bass since 2009 or something and I started the in-the-box production for electronic music in 2013. The last few years I've been playing with unusual MPE midi controllers, small synths etc, doing videos, covers etc, but now I'm looking to gradually expand more into modular units.

By the looks of it, your collection seems quite impressive! I'm a sucker for patch cables, knobs and buttons haha. I still believe that someone can do everything inside a DAW with some cheap (or even free) synth software, but handheld stuff are something else, you get to be one with the music you make and it's another vibe.

It's also good that you mention acoustic treatment. I, unfortunately, haven't invested in that for so many years and it's important for accurate mixes, but at least my space is quite small and symmetric, so I don't get many weird reverberations. It's also a bit helpful to have many references of other songs to compare and mix in low volumes (good for our crappy ears as well haha).

Anyhow, very happy to see a fellow audio guy over here!

 

I strongly agree; the only exception might be people like Richard D. James who are absolutely obsessive about extremely specific sound design and can do things I can't even imagine.

For me, if I was trying to "get good at making music, as fast as possible", I would focus on the sax, keep one guitar and one keybed synth, and get rid of all the eurorack stuff and spend a lot more time in Studio One, Ableton and MaxLive.

I wouldn't enjoy it though; this stuff is supposed to be an escape from my day job of being in front of computer monitors and keyboards and mice all day. Sure, half the things in my rack are, in fact, digital computers, but there's an immediacy and intimacy to analog controls, they're just fun to play with in a way that tweaking envelopes in a DAW is not for me.

Eurorack is a money pit, I gravitate towards money pit hobbies, within reason. (No sports cars yet, and, hey, one of my friends flys planes... Eurorack is very cheap compared to airplane fuel and flight strip use!)

 

Yeah of course, there are people out there like that but I don't blame them, sound design by itself is an addicting thing, even more so with analog gear. With the exception the latter needs hundreds, if not thousands of $$$ to build a decent chain. I was shocked when I first saw how much you need to pay for a simple oscillator, a filter etc. Still worth it in the end though!

I agree you don't need much to actually get good at making music. You mostly need to learn music theory, analyse songs you like, learn a bit about frequencies/audio engineering and have an instrument to try out stuff you learn. A DAW of course helps to playback stuff and see what sounds good. And then you just need some VSTs from the internet and you're set.

There was a time many years ago that I was all about sound design nerding, but now I just want to finish songs -relatively- fast, to keep a consistent schedule for uploading as a small YouTuber haha. You know, trying to make it in the internet music industry. So I mostly just use presets, tweak them, and play them with midi controllers, plus a bit of recording my hardware synths.

I definitely understand you there. You got a whole spaceship in there, how can that not be an escape from reality? It's awesome dude, keep on doing that and please don't go to the sports cars side. Sports cars are loud haha.

 

A bit frightening how such a simple line of reasoning now highly determines how some of us will live whatever life we have left.

You are a legit legend for the help and inspiration that so many now and for years to come will get from just about everything you post about the way you go about doing things.

Very gracious of you.

 

She’s my Best Friend’s Girlfriend - she used to be mine.





My supposed tinnitus friendly rebound girl - and her friends.



My current girl may not be much to look at but it’s what’s inside that counts‍ ♀️



Can’t forget the kids:



And last but not least the girl I thought I was taking home last weekend - until she told me I simply could never afford her‍ ♀️

 

It is, and beliefs are very dangerous; certainly I believed in hearing damage during the event that caused my trauma in 2010 and I'd read all about tinnitus, but I didn't believe I was changing my life permanently for the worse or I would have bailed instantly. Likewise, my current set of beliefs and givens could be wrong, I'm just Some Person

Nice of you to say so, but I really am just Some Person who tends to write walls of text in many cases, sometimes better informed than others.

I thought this thread might be a nice slight change of perspective to post, but, at the same time, stay safe, be careful, the risks of not doing things or approaching them slowly and carefully are tiny compared to the risks of doing something too loud or fast!

I'd like to see everyone suffer less, generally, tinnitus or not; if this signal out into the void causes one or two people to make reasonable, healthy decisions about trying to live their best life with tinnitus, that's awesome. I'd feel pretty bad if someone took anything I said as a reason to do something that was damaging, and, I can't know what anyone else's situation is, I only think I understand some things about my own

 

Hey @linearb.

You have always thoroughly prefaced your experiences with the appropriate disclaimers out of your sincere concern for the safety of others.

It would be a shame if you decided to stop sharing them thinking someone might get the wrong impression.

I just wanted to apologize for initially being oblivious of what you were attempting to accomplish with this thread and possibly diminishing the work you put into it for all of us.

I get carried away when I see anything about music and I can hardly think straight to begin with anymore.

I appreciate your patience and I think I finally grasp the stay on topic thing now - thank you.

Now for the love of Christ, have mercy and at least give us another clue, if not a link or two, to some beeps and bleeps.

I’m a bit confused by the results of my searches relative to the information presented here but I’m sure I will eventually figure it out and I do realize this needs to be strictly about the gear because the topic of the music itself will certainly derail this thread from being a place for you serious studio guys to talk shop for years to come.

Take care and thanks for everything.

 

Bill, your posts have consistently struck a chord with me, because I empathize heavily with the suffering you and so many of us feel, and, just being candid and without throwing anyone under the bus, you've always struck me as someone doing their best to respond to this stupid nonsense with rationality and compassion, and that comes through in your posts. <3

I'm certainly interested in any information that might be contrary to my own ideas, too -- I'm pretty good at ignoring stuff I don't think is relevant to me, and I also try to be aware of my own biases and open to reconsidering if whatever I am doing is "correct". When it comes to stuff like the horn -- beyond whitepapers, I went down deep rabbit holes on musician forums to see what people with tinnitus who are horn players over a long period of time, had to say. Frankly that convinced me that it would be dumb for me personally to ever aspire to play a sax indoors with an amped band, and that I need to be extremely careful in how I jam with people. Professional musicians often have more liberal opinions, but, I am not dependent on this stuff to make income, and also if I disable myself doing it, then that does threaten my income. We're all different.

 

I just wanted to bump this to say: I decided that the inexpensive alto sax I had produced unreasonably high pitched squeaks and sqaks that made me nervous.

I got a professional grade tenor (YTS-62II). Professional grade instruments are somewhat easier to control squeaks on, but, primarily, the tenor lowers the octave range into an area that's a lot more pleasing to my ears. My middle school band teacher called it "Tender Sax", and there's a reason for that joke. I could see eventually getting a baritone, which would probably be even more pleasant to play (this is the Lisa Simpson horn that goes down into Barry White range); unfortunately, good baritone saxes start towards the low 5-digits, so unless I want to sell my car I may have to wait a while on that.

I still use the alto sometimes, but, often with hearing protection, whereas the tenor I've discovered I can play at pp - mf* volume in a large room or outdoors without it seeming "loud" (or blowing up my dB meter).

I'm going to do all kinds of hacking on the alto to make it some kind of synth controller, too.

I'm also getting into video synthesis which is relaxing and can be completely silent. Maybe I will make a thread about it some day.

* There's a slightly off-color joke here; apologies to our users who dislike profanity, but, "when one of your friends that you're jamming with is standing right next to you and gets too loud, the correct response is 'hey, please stick to mf, you loud mf'er!".

(Hey, I said it was off color, I didn't say it was funny )