Seeking "Noisy" Hobbies — The Combination of Masking and Distraction Helps My Tinnitus

So I was wrapping Christmas presents today and the sound of the crinkle paper was great.

Yes, of course, I use a masking device and it's on all the time. I guess the difference is that I was involved in something that was making noise so there was the masking effect and the attention given to the thing I was doing. A great mix of the two.

Then I thought to myself - I need a "noisy" hobby.

Any suggestions? I can't think of any on the spot but thought I would ask around

Oh, and obviously, it wouldn't be too noisy to the point where I have to wear hearing protection

 

Why not go for music? Not all instruments are created equal in the noise department. I’ve been playing much more ukulele these days. It’s a bright, happy instrument and quite a bit softer than the guitar or banjo (which I’ll pop earplugs in for).

Another suggestion is the beach if you have one near you. Sea fishing or surfing would be great. The waves provide natural sound enrichment. I’ve taken up sea fishing again recently. Fishing in the woods by a lake can be dead quiet and ring a dingy, but the sea and waves are relaxing.

 

Building audiophile speakers.

George

 

Music production. Yes, that sounds contradictory with tinnitus and stuff, but if you do it on your own terms, in your room, with good speakers (or even better, studio monitors), it's actually a good hobby. Even better if there are no real instrument recordings (which can be loud sometimes), and you have everything "in the box".

All you need to do is set the volume at comfortable levels and go about making melodies, beats, sound design etc etc. It's also very beneficial to produce at low levels so you know how each element stands out in the mix, spot flaws etc.

It takes a while (up to 1 year) to learn how to do stuff (how to use a DAW, music theory, composition, arrangement, mixing etc), but you can get the joy of creation in the first few days!

 

I was an active recording musician when all this happened. I use a DAW, plug-ins, real and virtual instruments. It’s my goal to improve enough to resume with modifications. I also build amplifiers and speakers.

George

 

@GeorgeLG, yeah I feel you man... I'm an electronic music producer mainly, but I've been playing in bands, live gigs, etc for a decade now, and I do a bunch of guitar/bass/keys work.

When tinnitus happened 9 months ago, I was completely devastated and still am, because I couldn't just throw away so many years of releases, labels, creations, skills etc... So I stopped music for a while, but I'm back at it with no problems thankfully and it's one of the few things that makes me happy again.

Do you still write music? Do you have any symptoms that make it harder like hyperacusis, distortions etc? Speaker building sounds really cool nevertheless and it's great to hear that this stupid condition doesn't stop people from doing what they like!

 

Hyperacusis and ear pain is the worst part. Normal listening levels cause the whole left side of my face and head to flare up in pain and my tinnitus to spike. I have only been able to practice an electric guitar and bass unplugged for now. I have recorded a few track segments trying new methods that don’t need headphones like tracking to speaker output with a directional mic and using a noise gate to remove the bleed through but I have not gotten through a complete song yet and this method screws up my timing. It’s a work in progress.

George

 

@GeorgeLG, oh man that's tough, sorry to hear, I truly hope you improve more... I only seem to have developed a TTTS kind of spasm when listening to some short high pitched sounds or to some vowels of voices, but nothing more than a bit annoying.

Maybe you can use virtual amps only in the box? To be honest, I very rarely used headphones while recording even before tinnitus, and I recorded the dry guitar signal into audio interface into virtual amp+cabins. Maybe it's also a good time to expand your music to synths and electronic stuff that don't need recordings!

Sometimes limitations in music can result in great outcomes since you are forced to explore new ways that give off new ideas. And also, you can always fix the timing in post just looking at the grid. Might not work for advanced rhythm genres like jazz lol, but you can save a lot of recording time with manually editing each note (aka, cheating haha).

 

Yes that’s exactly what I’m doing for now to get my guitar playing onto the timeline, just straight into the interface. I’ve spent a lifetime building and tweaking guitar amps for subtle edge of break up tone and so most amp Sims really suck for what I’m looking for. I built a small 2 W single tube amp with an 8 inch speaker that actually sounds quite good because the microphone doesn’t know if it’s 2 wattsor 100 watts and I’m experimenting with that. Yes I use Melodyne for pitch and time correction which I suppose is cheating but I’m 67 with cancer so if anybody doesn’t like my Ashlee Simpson methods they can kiss my ass. Lol.

 

I think for now maybe stick to a quieter hobby just in case. It sucks but the alternative is worse if you push it.

 

Thanks for the suggestions everyone and here's what I have so far:

1. Cooking - can be full of all sorts of lovely sounds (exhaust fan, frying pan, water, etc. etc.)
2. Learning a musical instrument (Ukulele especially for those bright happy sounds)
3. Music production (computer-based vs real instruments which can be quite loud)
4. Video games
5. Dancing
6. Professional year-round gift-box wrapper (haha)
7. Sea fishing (sea vs lake where it can be dead quiet)
8. Surfing
9. Building audiophile speakers
10. ???

The other thing I noticed is styrofoam tends to be noisy in a weird and pleasant way, at least for me. Thinking there must be craft projects out there involving styrofoam although all that I found so far are simple ones that seem like they're designed for kids and would take a short time to complete.

Would love to keep this list going if someone else has any ideas.