Compensate for Age Related Hearing Loss

Report · Sep 26, 2018

I don't know if any of this forum's regular posters attended the recent Tech Wednesday where Dave Richardson demonstrated some very cool tricks with Photoshop's Brush Symmetry, plus some 3D tips (or have listened to the recording)? One thing I noticed was the much better than average sound quality. Dave is a buddy, so I asked him about his audio, and it turns out that he uses a Corsair HS70 headset, but more interestingly from this forum's point of view, he fed it via Audition to add processing to improve the quality.

This got me interested enough to watch some Mike Russell videos, with the disturbing outcome that I could barely hear the difference between the before and after. I'm 69 years old and a retired engineer, and I was exposed to a lot of loud noise over many years. (We were nowhere near as careful about ear protection in those days, so take note) I knew I don't hear much above... I'd better check — I can't hear anything above 10Khz on this site's test.

I usually listen via a pair of Tapco S5 monitors, but I have just put my system back together after a house refurb, so I am just using Logitech computer monitors right now. That was obviously not a fair test, so I have switched to the Sennheiser 280PRO headphones that I use to monitor audio when shooting video. This is better, but the before and after in the Mike Russell videos is way less pronounced than I feel sure it would be for a younger person.

So, the above is a long winded leaded up to asking if there is any point in me trying to clean up my voice audio with the limitation of my hearing? Am I likely to make high frequencies too strong so that I can hear it, but it will sound dreadful to normal ears? IME most of the voice audio on the Tech Wednesday sessions is pretty dire, and that includes some of the Adobe staff, so I am hoping I can do better than that.

Thanks guys.

Report · Sep 27, 2018

Hi Trevor

Thanks for the nice comments.The audio was not perfect, it was just an ordinary headset mic, but my aim was just to avoid some of the issues that I often hear on those live sessions.

So just to clarify what I used to clean up the audio a little.

1. I used an application called VB Cable ( from VB Audio). It allows you to use a "virtual cable" to output from Audition then take that as an input to the Connect live session, thereby inserting the audition mixer into the Connect session mic feed.

2. In the audition mixer I used a Dynamics effect to add:
a. A noise gate - to cut out the background fan noise from my PC between speech

b. A compressor - just to smooth the levels

c. A limiter - to avoid those horrible digital clicks we sometimes hear on the live sessions

3. Again in the audition mixer I used a parametric equaliser to roll off the very low (<60Hz ) and very high (>10kHz) frequencies. I then added a dip around 4.6KHz where there was some nasty sibilance and added little boost around 100Hz and 200Hz

All of the above could be done with limited frequency range in your ears as most speech content is in the lower range of hearing anyway (telephony uses 300Hz-3400KHz) and far from boosting the high frequencies >10Khz , I cut them to get rid of any hiss.

I hope this helps.

Dave

Report · Sep 27, 2018

Trevor.Dennis wrote
I usually listen via a pair of Tapco S5 monitors, but I have just put my system back together after a house refurb, so I am just using Logitech computer monitors right now. That was obviously not a fair test, so I have switched to the Sennheiser 280PRO headphones that I use to monitor audio when shooting video. This is better, but the before and after in the Mike Russell videos is way less pronounced than I feel sure it would be for a younger person.
So, the above is a long winded leaded up to asking if there is any point in me trying to clean up my voice audio with the limitation of my hearing? Am I likely to make high frequencies too strong so that I can hear it, but it will sound dreadful to normal ears? IME most of the voice audio on the Tech Wednesday sessions is pretty dire, and that includes some of the Adobe staff, so I am hoping I can do better than that.

Oh my goodness - there's a lot to say about this!

First up, you don't have to keep typing Age-Related Hearing Loss, as it has a proper name - Presbycusis. No it's not avoidable; I certainly suffer from it to a limited degree now. Is it a disaster when it comes to mixing or sound balancing? Well actually no... there even one advantage, believe it or not.

Firstly, you need to be aware of the way the human ear works at different sound levels. Traditionally this is commonly related to some curves generated by Fletcher and Munsen, but this has been updated somewhat. To get a basic idea of what's happening, look at this: https://ledgernote.com/columns/mixing-mastering/fletcher-munson-curve/

Now, you will see that it's always been difficult to set mixes up correctly, never mind Presbycusis! So what do you have to do in practice? At its simplest, you just have to make your mix EQ adjustments at a slightly higher sound level than you previously might have. But you also have to take account of the fact that as your hearing starts to fail, it also has the subjective effect of becoming more directional, although it isn't, really - that's just part of the 'cocktail' effect which is mainly down to HF loss. So your position relative to your monitors is also important - you pretty much need to be on-axis. If you get a recording of some good 'normal' speech, you can fairly easily determine what level your monitors need to be at for it to sound okay to you, and once you've done that you have a benchmark. What you may well find is that this is a higher level than somebody a bit younger might prefer, but hey, this is about you, not them!

Strangely enough, it's the cocktail effect that can be useful to you here. You may well find that it's easier to detect the positions of sound sources and levels more accurately in a mix, simply because naturally, you're having to pay more attention to hearing in a crowded environment anyway. I think that the extent of this varies according to the individual - it's a bit of a movable feast.

The other thing to note is about those sound tests linked to above. They are steady-tone tests, and don't entirely reflect what your ears can actually do. The reason for this is simple; your ears' response to transients is way better than its steady tone response. This is generally because transients tend to be at a higher level than the rest of the sound they're associated with, so once again the level curves come into play - sort-of follows, really.

It is worth getting a pair of monitors with a known-good HF response. The Tapcos may be okay, but their peak power is somewhat limited, so you'll need to use them as intended - as near-field monitors, and make sure that your ears are on axis with the tweeters.

What Dave did above was pretty sensible processing, and it's rather a shame that some of the others don't take a leaf out of his book! The one thing that I'd note though is that although you can get away with speech in a band up to just 4kHz, including some of the higher frequencies will increase the potential transient level, and that will make it easier for anybody who's suffering with hearing loss. The reason, incidentally, that the phone companies have always got away with this sort of HF cutting is that phones are directly firing into your ear, so you don't get all the interference that would make the transients more useful. That's why sometimes a 'presence boost' between 6-10kHz can improve intelligibility more than you might credit...

Report · Sep 27, 2018

Dave & Steve, thanks for info. I am now feeling more encouraged to continue trying to improve my voice audio quality, and I certainly feel better equipped from Steve's info. As I mentioned in the OP, I don't have the Tapcos set up at the moment (they are actually being used with our television until I can run the cables and put the HiFi back together) but you can see from the brackets that I try to have the driver axis directed straight at me and clear of obstruction. The Logitec speakers are behind the main screen (literally no space to put them anywhere else) and they sound flat and horrible).

Regarding the perception of my audio, what I hear is what it is — I try to make the best of it, and can do no more. It is what my voice audio sounds like to others that concerns me, and this has been underlined by how good Dave's voice audio sounded in his Tech Wednesday session.together with how bad most of the other presenter's AQ is. I felt compelled to PM one of the Adobe staff on one occasion, because their levels were way too high resulting painful clipping. He did not take it well.

I started this thread because I was disappointed in what I apparently could not hear, and wanted advice on if it was even worth my trying to make the best of it, or give up. I now feel like I have the tools to move forward, and am encouraged to do so. Dave lives in NE England, and I had been ribbing him about needing an interpreter to make sense of his Geordie accent. That turned out to not be a problem, but I have a feeling my own east London/Kiwi mix of an accent might be an issue. Dave I'll record something and mail it to you when I get a chance.

Thanks again for the help.

Report · Sep 28, 2018

You can post a clip here if you like, although you'd have to use Dropbox or something like that and provide a link - the forum doesn't support audio uploads. We try to be helpful, and are generally kind, whatever we get! Since a few of us here have a decent monitoring systems permanently set up, we can provide you with at least a sanity check...

Report · Sep 28, 2018

Trevor,

It might be worth posting a sample of your mic recording without any processing. That is how I arrived at the settings above. I just recorded it 'raw' in Audition then tweaked the dynamics and EQ on the playback, till it sounded acceptable, before saving those settings to use in the mixer on the live mic sound.

Dave.

Report · Sep 28, 2018

Thanks Steve and Dave. I recorded some audio with a Samsung G-Track USB mic today, and I thought it sounded OK, but the fan noise is apparent in the pauses. I'll email some to you Dave, but it will be completely unprocessed.

Report · Sep 28, 2018

Well I emailed some voice audio to Dave, and he filtered out the background noise and applied some EQ, and it sounds totally presentable to me. Dave, and another Buddy Jane-e also thought it sounded OK. As things stand, the G-Track is cumbersome to the point of being unusable, but I have the Antlion ModMic 5 on order, which is also condenser, and I believe will have similar sound quality.

You can see how impractical this is. It is just the wee stand that came with the mic, but with the suspension frame and pop-filter it falls over, and is too far from my mouth anyway. I'll probably make a boom for it just for the hell of it, but I doubt it will get much use. I'll shout when I get stuck trying to process the audio with Audion. Thanks.

Report · Sep 29, 2018

Hi Trevor,

Your speech from that mic was pretty good unprocessed. I just added a noise gate to reduce the background noise between the vocals and a bit of compression to level it. The EQ was just subjective and aimed at clarity.

I have access to a few mics and did try a mic on a boom when preparing for the Tech Wednesday. It would have been better for a voice over, but for a live demo of Photoshop it got in the way of my view of the screen which is why I went to a headset, albeit with a poorer mic.

Dave

Report · Sep 29, 2018

The supplied stand does look a bit 'not fit for purpose'. Not sure from your photograph where the PC causing noise s in relation to the mic. But with the mic on a boom arm or anglepoise style stand you may be able to position it better to both be nearer your mouth and dead side on to the noise source. It is always best to improve audio problems at source where possible rather than relying on computer tech to improve non ideal audio results.

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