Tinnitus, Hyperacusis, Otalgia for Recording Musicians

I am a recording musician (home studio) with all three conditions and otalgia (ear pain from normal sounds) in particular has been my biggest challenge. Given that recording music is one of the most important aspects of my life, I have put a lot of work into figuring out how to get past my hearing damage and still be able to keep this activity in my life. Here is what I have learned so that other musicians may be helped.

When recording, mixing, mastering wear foam earplugs to prolong working time, musician’s earplugs for more critical listening and no earplugs only for final mixing and mastering.

When tinnitus starts to spike or ear pain starts, give it a break and don’t overdo it. This way you’ll be back tomorrow, otherwise it may be next week. In the beginning overdoing the acoustic guitar cost me a month.

No headphones, use good monitors with smooth tweeters and much lower volumes than before. No aluminum drivers.

Be very careful when starting anything up with all volumes at zero then slow moves to avoid the unexpected audio slam

Practice guitar on an unplugged electric with good sustain and natural tone to reduce amplified exposure to prolong practice. For actual amplified playing use a creamy tube amp and find a mellower tone. If you need amp gain for your tone then use a load box to siphon off power levels to get back to a couple of watts at the speaker. Stay off of the bridge pick up. Move the speaker away from you, even isolated in a closet. For cleaner tones record direct into the audio interface. Almost no acoustic guitar for now, for me.

Use a MIDI piano to create a low volume pleasant tone in your DAW for practice and recording.

Record bass straight into the interface or move to a midi keyboard with a tone VST plugin.

Use drum loops from an instrument VST or record with a MIDI keyboard or a MIDI electronic drum set.

Put a high frequency limiter on the master channel of your DAW during all working sessions to reduce ear fatigue. Mute cymbals until the end.

Track with monitors, not headphones, use cardioid mics and put a noise gate on that channel to cancel the tracking bleed.

Record in a dead room, add reverb and delay later.

Stay relaxed, ignore spikes and sound accidents and know that you’re going back to baseline whether it’s hours, days or weeks. That said, respect your limitations and be very protective of your hearing in situations with damaging potential. Don’t live in fear about this but stay vigilant when and where it matters.

Work to have joy in your life and be surrounded by supportive love ones. Give them a break and don’t burn them out with constant talk of hearing problems but rather ask for their help when you need it. Discard all optional toxicity in your life. Be passionate about what you want, not what you don’t want. Visualize success and improvement and believe that this is possible for you. Your brain created this phantom problem so your brain can change the future of your condition. I won’t go any further on treatments because this excellent website has a vast number of discussions on this but consider looking at the Back to Silence thread in the Success Stories category, it may help you.

All the best,
George

 

You obviously know about music GeorgeLG. The steps you've taken to prevent your tinnitus and other conditions increasing are good. I agree with you that headphones should not be used and would add, not to listen to them even at low volume, especially people that have noise induced tinnitus.

All the best,
Michael

 

Absolutely great advice for all of us music producers in here. I personally don't have any serious problem with handling external sounds like hyperacusis or reactive tinnitus, but I still do many of these.

I got some TTTS that usually makes my ears spasm annoyingly in reaction to short sounds (like drums) when producing in a quiet environment. I find that more compressed/distorted/"sausaged" sounds with less dynamic range (like distorted guitars, synths etc) don't trigger the TTTS spasms at all. Or certainly a lot less than dynamic sounds with a lot of volume spikes like a recorded acoustic guitar, for example.

So, in a way, "loudly mixed" music that has very little dynamic range is much better to listen to/produce for me at least, and is a lot easier to control with just the volume knob on the studio monitors. And of course, it sounds better at low volumes. Just sharing my experience!

 

I agree, compressed is easier on the ears. Distorted and high-pitched is the absolute worst. Acoustic guitar is so rough I can’t even play mine right now unless I have so much ear protection on I can’t even hear what I’m doing. The most recent song I’m working on was supposed to have an acoustic opening but I just went with a clean electric opening instead so I didn’t have to torture myself.

George

 

Hey George, thanks for the great advice. The part about not living in fear is the one I'm really struggling with since onset, but I will try to slowly overcome this.

I was wondering if your symptoms, specifically your hyperacusis, have improved since onset? Or are you still dealing with the same levels of pain and discomfort, but working smarter around these obstacles?

 

@CRGC, I am definitely working smarter and have less accidents and flare ups. Anytime I am going into the studio I wear foam earplugs now. Things sound a little dull but I have gotten used to it. It greatly increases my pain free time around music. My hyperacusis has not gone away but it affects me less. I still have about the same pain level from a big exposure but they calm down much faster now. Where something really bad might cause a week long pain spike, most of them are measured in hours now and I just get to work on something else and ignore them. I just say, life is noisy and there will be a handful of accidents per month or week and I will go back to baseline, I always do so let's ignore this one like all the other ones.

George