Weird breathing noise in my ears...

Dagon

I had been doing some EQ on my guitar mix recently, and at one point accidentally started playing a track that was a much higher volume than the others. The frequency was quite high and harsh, and quite a shock to the ears (I reached for the volume knob as soon as I could). Then the night after it, I noticed a noise in one of my ears almost like breathing! Very strange.. it wasn't really annoying or anything, and I could only hear it when in absolute silence. I stopped myself breathing to see if the noise would stop, but it just continued on at a slightly faster rate than normal breath. Almost sounded like somone was breathing right beside me...

After searching a little online, I think it coud be a mild form of tinnitus, and will hopefully pass away. Based on my searches online, seems the main people who have experienced such symptoms are ravers and clubbers!

I've also noticed a slight soreness in the ear, so I've decided to give the ears a rest for the weekend (I'd been mixing and EQing every night of the week, 3 or 4 hours or so each night). I should also note that yup... I'm a headphones user (sony 7509HD)! How else would I be able to stay up till the wee hours mixing (I have to work a "regular" job during the day, so it's the only way I can do it. I wish I could use monitors but it would drive everyone crazy I think, and my housemate works at 6am).

Just really wanted to know if anyone else has experienced this, and did it go away? Will the hearing be damaged. if anything, I feel like my ears are even more sensitive now, especially when in a noisy environment like a pub... ouch, all those harsh frequencies...

Gotta mind the ears...

Neurojazz

If the sound didn't pass fairly quickly (like a few mins) then i'd get off to docs to get it checked out - if you've perforated an eardrum you might be susceptible to an ear infection - just get it checked a.s.a.p.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

im going to say a few things here mate - and you can take what you want from it .

1/ Frank Cass measured me for hearing - cos i knew my hearing was bad and i needed custom plugs for drumming . He found that I cant hear above 11 k
and i have 20 -25 db loss from 3 k upwards

some of it was due to stage monitoring wedges and cymbals and some was down to having very narrow ear canals and conduction issues.


2/ I have permanet hiss in both ears - it gets worse if i drink or am tired or take coffee etc. I had to change my diet and my super healthy diet has stopped alot of the hiss- but its always there.

3/ I have a perm ringing tone in the left ear at approx 2k - some times it louder than others times - like the hiss- This tone is a direct result of a loud transient solo channell by accident .

4/ I have to use in ear high quality deep in ear headphones to listen to music - as the volume can be dropped to very low levels and doesnt risk my ears anymore.

5/ I actually have a pair of bulder mufflers with cut aways and extentsions to fire more sound into my ears from speakers - yes it looks funny , but it works !

6/ I would totaly avoid working on phones as much as you can - unless thay are low volume deep in ears - they will kill your hearing .


7/ I cannot hear people talking in pubs or restuaunts.


8/ Frank advised me NOT to give up recording or music - Brian wilson of the beach boys was totally deaf in one ear - so i take that as inspiration and carry on but carefully!



so - take from someone who learned the hard way - be VERY fcuking careful with your ears - Id give away quite alot of body parts to get mine back to somewhat normal .
and you seriously DO NOT want to have a sound in your head that you cannot turn off - EVER .

lyndonjones

It now almost two weeks since the Primal Scream gig in the Savoy, Cork. and still my left ear is basically ****ed!! The sound was so loud that it became uncomfortable. I was quite deaf in the left ear for a few days after and now my hearing level in said ear has dropped.

Listening through this ear sound is very tinny, and seems low in volume

Hissing in this ear that is ALWAYS there and as expected worse when I am in a quite place - in bed at night!!

I was hoping it would go away BUT it is two weeks now and I think the damage is permanent!!

Any help for me out there. I miss my stereo music!

raindog.promo

DaDumTish wrote: »

im going to say a few things here mate - and you can take what you want from it .

1/ Frank Cass measured me for hearing - cos i knew my hearing was bad and i needed custom plugs for drumming . He found that I cant hear above 11 k
and i have 20 -25 db loss from 3 k upwards

some of it was due to stage monitoring wedges and cymbals and some was down to having very narrow ear canals and conduction issues.


2/ I have permanet hiss in both ears - it gets worse if i drink or am tired or take coffee etc. I had to change my diet and my super healthy diet has stopped alot of the hiss- but its always there.

3/ I have a perm ringing tone in the left ear at approx 2k - some times it louder than others times - like the hiss- This tone is a direct result of a loud transient solo channell by accident .

4/ I have to use in ear high quality deep in ear headphones to listen to music - as the volume can be dropped to very low levels and doesnt risk my ears anymore.

5/ I actually have a pair of bulder mufflers with cut aways and extentsions to fire more sound into my ears from speakers - yes it looks funny , but it works !

6/ I would totaly avoid working on phones as much as you can - unless thay are low volume deep in ears - they will kill your hearing .


7/ I cannot hear people talking in pubs or restuaunts.


8/ Frank advised me NOT to give up recording or music - Brian wilson of the beach boys was totally deaf in one ear - so i take that as inspiration and carry on but carefully!



so - take from someone who learned the hard way - be VERY fcuking careful with your ears - Id give away quite alot of body parts to get mine back to somewhat normal .
and you seriously DO NOT want to have a sound in your head that you cannot turn off - EVER .

That reads like a nightmare.
My left ear is fecked, feels like it has cotton wool in it. I was getting "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" in both ears, especially at night.

It's a horrible feeling once you realise you've lost some hearing.

I drastically cut down listening to music, playing guitar and cut out listening to music through headphones altogether. After about a year and the ears are alright, unless i've just got used to it, it does seem to have improved.

I wholly recommend getting professional moulded ear plugs if you work with loud music. The price is something I would gladly go back and pay now.

raindog.promo

I did some research on hearing loss a while back.

It would appear that most other mammals can regrow damaged ear hairs (which pick up frequencies and cause hearing). Humans can't but they have isolated the gene in mammals which causes the hairs to regrow. There are tests being done with the gene, but I wouldn't expect to see anything on the market for quite a while unfortunately.

I'd kill to get my hearing back to square one.

lyndonjones

Its a horrible feeling to have tinnitus and a scary prospect that this is the way it is gonna be for the rest of your life!!

raindog.promo

Check out the scene in "It's all gone pete tong" where the DJ realises he's deaf. Truly scary scene.

jtsuited

raindog.promo wrote: »

Check out the scene in "It's all gone pete tong" where the DJ realises he's deaf. Truly scary scene.

yeah. it's so well done.
actually that movie is one of the most surprisingly great films ever. I got the shock of my life when I inadvertently saw it in the cinema.

Thought it was gonna be a Kevin n Perry go large type film but was actually brilliant.

For anyone who values their hearing, it is mandatory viewing.

raindog.promo

Great movie indeed. One for everyone, wether you like dance music or not. If I see it playing on tv, I'd watch it for a bit then get sucked it and watch the whole thing. Phil Kaye is really impressive in it.

PaulBrewer

I made a conscious decision to look after the lugs when I started touring.

It was then I realized that a lot engineers were pretty deaf!
The amount of high end that guys used to add was sometimes startling.

Volume was one of the reasons I gave up the road too - ear damage was inevitable in my opinion if I'd stayed doing FOH.
However one can function perfectly well as a backline tech with earplugs in all day.

I never enjoyed volume and still monitor at very low levels.

Mars Bar

I discovered I had bad hearing in my right ear at the age of 12...
Started drumming at the age of 14 and didn't look after my hearing too well for the first 3 years I was drumming...I'm only 19 now and my hearing is worse again. I was born with bad hearing, but I have no-one to blame but myself for not minding them.
The permanent ringing in my ears is SO annoying but you do become accustomed to it after a while. But it's a pain in the butt in pubs when there is quite a bit of noise around.
Now I plan to be a sound engineer, talk about being awkward like!!

PaulBrewer

Just set up a Hearing Poll in reaction to Dagon's interesting post.

120_Minutes

I shudder to think what me ears are like. 10 years on and off as a live engineer/radio engineer and playing in loud bands have probably ****ed me hearing up. i can hear but i'm pretty sure i've low level tinnitus in my left ear. in silence i can hear the whistle, its in the very high end, possibly 10k or above I use plugs 50% of the time and for the last while it feels like my left ear has wax that cant be shifted (sorry) even though its clean.

Is there some kind of medical procedure that cleans out the ol lugs as they check them? or did i imagine it.

does this happen anyone else?

1. if people turn their face away while speaking, you cant understand them.

2. you have trouble sometimes ignoring background noise in converstaions

3. you feel like telling people to speak up.

I can live with what i have, but i dont want it getting any worse.

Soundman

120_Minutes wrote: »

Is there some kind of medical procedure that cleans out the ol lugs as they check them? or did i imagine it.

Hey G,

Just go to your doc and ask them to syringe your ears, though be prepared and bring ear plugs for when it's done as the level increase can be quite dramatic once your ears are cleaned out.

120_Minutes

Soundman wrote: »

Hey G,

Just go to your doc and ask them to syringe your ears, though be prepared and bring ear plugs for when it's done as the level increase can be quite dramatic once your ears are cleaned out.

Thanks dave!

i57dwun4yb1pt8

actually its better NOT to have your ears syringed - this is very harsh on the drums .

its beeter to buy some ear wax dissolver and use this for a few weeks until they clear up themselves .

you can also pour WARM ( not hot ) water in to assist the process.

Soundman

DaDumTish wrote: »

actually its better NOT to have your ears syringed - this is very harsh on the drums .

its beeter to buy some ear wax dissolver and use this for a few weeks until they clear up themselves .

you can also pour WARM ( not hot ) water in to assist the process.

All depends on the doctor or nurse performing the procedure. As long as the water is syringed slowly it is fine, with no damage being done. It is the occasional heavy handed practitioner that may cause damage.

The wax dissolving stuff is generally only good for the build up in the first section of the canal. If you have a build up further down where the doctor cannot see then this will prove to be useless as the wax cannot drip out as it is supposed to. People using headphones with high SPL will find that they suffer from wax build up deep in the ear canals as the SPL will loosen and melt the wax as well as force it down deeper.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

jesus , how loud must it be to MELT WAX !
IDIOTS

Dagon

Thanks for the info guys...

Well, thankfully the noise reduced a little more each night, and now it seems to be gone.

My ears do seem a little more sensitive to sounds though, and different frequencies (maybe this is a side effect of doing a lot of mixing). I wore foam earplugs this weekend when in noisy places, e.g. when out at my friends birthday night, to give my ears a rest for the weekend.

As for overdoing it... well, I listen to music in work through headphones for a lot of the day! Then I go home, and do my recording and mixing on headphones - so yeah, that's a lot of hours per day on headphones (the phones in work are just old MDR-V150, not proper monitor phones).

But I can assure you, I mix/record/eq at as low a volume as possible - if it was any lower I honestly wouldn't be able to hear it very well! I also listen to music in work at a very low volume. I think it's pointless listening at loud volumes, although some of my friends do it (can hear their headphones coming a mile away hehe). So with that in mind, you can understand why I didn't think I'd be doing much damage using the phones so much.

I also take breaks when I'm using the headphones, and most nights only spend 2 to 3 hours on them in total.

I will take your advice and go a little easier on them for a while though... most of the drum stuff for instance I will do through the basic speakers.

Unfortunately, using proper monitors isn't an option as we have kids on one side next door who go to sleep early, and housemate goes to sleep at 10 or so - just when I'm getting going....

Soundman

DaDumTish wrote: »

jesus , how loud must it be to MELT WAX !
IDIOTS

Doesn't actually need to be that loud to be honest. As it will be the volume combined with the fact that your ears will sweating slightly or at least warming up when using headphones or earphones. That and the movement of air creates a small amount of heat too.

Doesn't take much to melt ear wax anyway. It isn't like candle wax remember.