F**K SECRECY: Hearing Loss and Music Production. Let's talk. 

I can hear your lack of left/right balance in the intro music. Some of it is rather jarring. Ever considered getting over your ego and doing something OTHER than producing? You know... where left/right hearing balance doesn't matter? I ... y'all humans amaze me. The stubbornness with which y'all keep doing something you are not in the least bit suited for ...

„Not trying to make you paranoid about your ears“ Me, 22, now paranoid about my ears

Thanks Greg for bringing this up ! I'd like to share with you my experience here : I am 28 years old, I am a composer and sound engineer. I had tympanoplasty in my left ear at the age of 7, following recurrent ear infections. This means that I have a cartilaginous eardrum instead of a fleshy membrane on this ear. Consequence: my hearing is asymmetrical like HELL but functional, I hear nothing above 12k and I also have tinnitus (bad headphones for too long). At one point in my life, it freaked me out a lot. But it's also because I thought sound engineering was like an "ideal" goal to achieve that requires bionic bat ears. videos titled "ULTIMATE Drum Sound" or "DEFINITIVE Vocal Production Techniques" do not help to break this myth. Then the more I created my sound and listening to guys like Greg talk, I realized that mixing music was more about putting sound elements in relation to each other, building something interesting BETWEEN them. Thus, working with my ears is more an aptitude for exercising a "relative" listening than an "absolute" listening which would respond to definitive outlines. Since the day I understood this I felt better :) Even with degraded hearing, I am still able to understand differences, contrasts and sound interactions from my "hearing point" and as long as I am not nearly deaf (my fingers crossed here), I can still work to hear, feel and detect all the differences between my productions and those of others to understand how they are constructed. So if some of you are panicking with hearing problems ... Thinking about this idea of ​​relativity in listening has helped me a lot in my experience as a sound engineer and in my worry about my hearing loss. You don't miss a thing because I think there is no "good sound", but only an ingenious perspective of sounds in relation to each other.

one of the most important videos on YT, thank you for sharing and opening the conversation. I related to every word from the drums to the headphones and tinnitus being a burden. Djing for 10 years didnt help, only gut earbuds when I was 24...but I'd wear my Hearing aid proudly knowing I used every Hz I can still hear :]

So much help here in this video! My hearing in my left ear has been degraded for many years but after that started I started to learn how to hear things more precisely. I think this balanced things out quite a bit. I really don't like to let people know about my degraded hearing and I agree more honesty is needed surrounding this subject!

I believe the Tonal Balance Control envelope comes from a large library of mixes, not from a pink noise. You can select it by genre of music. Thank you much for the great video and very important discussion for us all !

god damn that Tonal plugin just fixed my mix, i needed a bit of boost on the low mids to make it sound better, didn't even know it sounded "bad", it's just better with the boost. So thanks for showing it to me.

I think one thing to do especially is to make sure you give your ears a break. I know some people have music playing all the time, even while sleeping. but I think sleeping is the best time to rest your ears, as long as you don't have any troubles sleeping without it.

Thanks for sharing this. It’s definitely a taboo subject amongst mixers. No one talks about it. I encountered some hearing lossin one ear. I don’t know if it’s temporary or permanent but I noticed when I turned 180 to listen to a mic and realised the hi-hat was quite pronounced, which I hadn’t noticed when facing the monitors. Hearing is precious and we should look after it. It’s why I never use ear buds and when I use headphones they’re never too loud. Thanks Gregory!

My left ear is my good ear, my right ear is much worse (combination of infections and loud environments I think). Overall level is lower in that ear and especially above about 8k. Tinnitus too, although mercifully not too bad. Thanks for this video. It's come at just the right moment for me as I was worrying about my cruddy ear - it's good to know that I'm not alone and to know that I can still do good work.

Thanks so much for this! I’ve had terrible sinus infections and allergy season this year has caused my ears to be really weird. Deff experiencing some hearing loss, good to know other people in the craft are dealing with it too.

I have tinnitus in both ears but it is much, much louder in my left, to the point I don't notice it in my right. It definitely sucks. In the left ear it's multiple tones that kind of pulse against each other and my ear hurts often. I have to really focus, with ear plugs or muffs to hear the right. I think it's from playing guitar, drums, going to concerts and working on/being around loud cars. It bugs the crap out of me on some days but the worst part is what it has done to music for me. I still play/write/listen but headphones in particular aren't as enjoyable as they once were. When it first got bad it also made me not want to listen to music at all for awhile because all I could focus on was my tinnitus. It gets more manageable everyday, even if there are days where it is louder. I'm glad this video was made, it needs to be talked about more. I wonder if I could have prevented it had I been smarter about protection.

WOOOOOOOHHH!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! amen!!!

Thank you for this. I sincerely appreciate the honesty and it's great to promote awareness of this. And it's also super timely because just last night I was listening to an interview with the lead engineer at Echo Mountain and he was talking about this very issue. So I did some quick testing on my own because I'm over 40 now and used to play in a band that showed up to the club with 3 goddamn plexis and a drummer who regularly broke sticks. It makes me feel better acknowledging there are pro engineers and mixers out there with a wide range of what one might think was a "disadvantage" but who still make music I can fall right into. Not talking about it probably leads to even more imposter syndrome and/or overcompensating. Great discussion, and sounds like a great topic to bring up w/ guests regularly once you get the new podcast figured out ;)

Brave dude. Brave, dude. 👏🏼

Man I really respect you, and I sometimes worry that my hearing going downhill (I'm 44 with Tinitus) is going to disqualify me from music - so thanks for sharing this!

What I hate about so many studio gear related forums (we all know the main ones..) is when people make accusations that others have poor hearing when they claim amazing night/day contrasts between certain gear differences etc etc - it really plays on this false idea that to be a great engineer you have to have super-human hearing. It's always an attempt to belittle others.

Thank you for bringing up this issue! After playing live rock music as a guitaris for over 40 years I kinda "suffer" from all what you said at the beginning. And after 3 sudden deafness "accidents" I also have tinnitus, different high frequencies left and right. Only in-ear-monitoring allows me to still perform live, without IEM I would only hear a real cacophony, especially round the 12th to 15th fret on the guitar. I mix all my music with headphones and I get away with it quite ok, so to speak. Of course I use reference tracks and liten back on my normal monitor speakers as well just to make sure that my mixes translate as good as possible on all kinds of speakers. To my surprise it seems to work.

Thank you for such a lovely talk video I have tinnitus since Oct 21 Hearing loss in both ears , nothing above 11.5k and degraded maybe 10-20db from 9-11k The grief never ends Hearing aids and I am fucking 38…..

Very helpfull video. Thank you so much Gregory. I also have assymmetrical hearing, tinnitus at 8k and recently found out through a quick test I can't hear anything above 12k/12,5k. I think i could hear 15k just a year ago. I'm 47 approaching 48 so it must be an agething as well. But I was hoping to hear up to 14/15k, but no go. Maybe I should give those supplements a go as well. Having one ear with >12k beats none any day. Although I'm not an engineer, I do work with audio professionally as a video editor and filmmaker. A few weeks ago, a client (22 yrs) mentioned a high pitched sound in the video. I had to use the meters to find it, although I'm in a semi treated room with tannoy monitors ... I've also been playing, making, listening and producing music since the age of 8. Never did anything with ear protection, stupid me. Only last few yrs actively protecting my hearing. Calmer earbuds seam to help a bit against the tinnitus ringing@8k, if anyone is looking for possible solutions they should look into them. My wife's white noise tinnitus also benefits a bit from calmer we think.

“I built these things you’d think I’d know” lol laugh of the day for me.

I dropped the idea of audio engineering cos I heard it wrecks hearing. Then heard it doesn't and then enrolled in a engineering course and now seeing this video title.

I've been struggling with my right ear for the last couple of months. I was really stupid at the beginning of year and stood next to a drum kit for 15min and my right ear was never the same after that. It's felt like it's had its ups and downs though. Recently went to the doctor and got given some medication due to mucus build up behind my ear drum. That's cleared a bit but it still doesn't feel right, almost like it's gotten worse even though I've not been in many loud environments. A bit scared to go to the ENT or audiologist because of the fear of hearing a bad diagnosis. My main issue is just the psychological and mental affect it has on me because it's out of my control.

I ask my 13 old daughter to verify my mixes. She knows I getting older and deaf. But still I am amazed that electra had no sperate left and right eq settings.

Thanks Greg. What is the NAD+ supplement that you use?

Check out Andrew Huang's video on the same topic. Solidarity among those with hearing loss!

Immediately reduced the volume on my earphones till i could barely hear his voice.. #paranaudio

Holy crap, as someone currently seeking medical treatment for several hearing problems, tinnitus and unbalanced hearing among them, I'm so glad I saw this. I thought I was alone and had to start thinking about leaving music production out of my future. Seeing this saved my ambiytion and gave me a new outlook. THANK YOU

Thank you 🙏🏽. I’m autistic with hyperacusis which gives me a lifelong neurological sensitivity/fear response to sound. My hearing is above-average for my age but I also now live with two sets of Bose noise cancelling buds that I interchange - just to function cognitively in many spaces other experience as silent. Tinnitus and severe hearing loss runs in my family, which also makes me cautious.

I'm too dumb to quit. Granny always said that was one of my finer qualities, LOL. Haven't been kind to my ears over the years. Banging away in Metal Bands where drummers smashed the drums instead of playing the drums (BTW... When recording drums you get a much fuller bigger sound by playing the drums with a lighter touch so you capture the drum not just that damn transient spike). Being between 2 big screaming diesel engines in the engine room aboard Sport Fishing Yachts checking mechanical or performing maintenance while underway. Loud power tools, generators, compressors and such. 100's of concerts, front row... All degraded my hearing over time. But what kicked off the tinnitus is a lightning strike. Working on a split-level house, my son and I were on the staircase and the Texas weather was raging outside > Suddenly a Bolt of Lightning struck the weather vane or something on top of the house > Then it actually Screamed Through the House in a Bolt fashion culminating in Ball Lightning and like exploded just under the staircase between me and my son. Sounded and felt like a damn bomb exploding (there was smoke but thankfully no fire)... Left both of us disoriented, dazed, and confused. All I could hear was ringing for over an hour > For several weeks the ringing was at a scary level... Tinnitus has been my constant companion ever since. Some days or even weeks it's much louder than normal. I can work around it at the normal level, now that I've taught myself some coping skills. But times when it's super loud like today, it's hard and I find myself a bit withdrawn and alouf and fighting off the onset of depression and sometimes rage. So I meditate using a particular meditation I call > Blue Sky Warm Sun. It helps me cope. Nothing else seems to help. Sometimes these LOUDER periods can last a couple of weeks, usually it's just a couple of days and usually when I've been under high stress. I've allowed it to hold me back at times in music but never cancel me out of what I love to do. Then I suffered a rather strange incident (chemical burns) on a 3 day Offshore Fishing excursion. My hands were damaged, especially my left hand, but affecting both. For many years it's made playing guitar a bloody and painful event. But I play on... Now I play and record in sections as I no longer can play for hours on end as I did for many years. My left hand still quickly shreds into hamburger meat and bleeds on the fretboard. Right hand as my picking hand fairs a bit better, but my thumb and 2 fingers also shred apart, peeling down to where they look and feel as though I've taken a grinder to them and smoked through the top 8 or 9 layers. It's painful damn it and left me unable to play guitar at all for over 6 years. That also was and is very depressing and combined with hearing damage and tinnitus it wears on me. But I'm pressing on and say all that to say this... Being too dumb to quit is a damn fine quality that can get you through many hardships in life. Music Is Life! I love my musical brothers and sisters and it's in your company I always feel at home, in my element, with my people... So Carry On Beautiful People and remember... It's the Song That Counts. Does It Make the Listener Feel Something. > A Good Song Will Always Shine > Find your coping skills and mix on, play on, live on and Keep Making Music... Music is the Worlds Only Universal Language that crosses all barriers far and wide! Sorry for the novel length comment. I also write for a living and tend to get a bit wordy at times... LOL

This video brought me to tears. I've been really struggling, mentally, lately with the effects tinnitus and hearing damage on my life and career. You make me feel really hopeful and less alone. Thank you!!

Born deaf in the right ear. Managed to make a living in the audio world, but the frustration of dealing with it has been exhausting.

This meant a lot to me. Sincerely, thank you. I'm a musician turned audio engineer, and I always worried that if I talked about it, people would assume that my mixes wouldn't be good -or- automatically assume that they could do it better and just do it in their bedroom. It's scary because this effects my ability to feed myself. Your videos have really helped me a lot to change my perspective on how I listen to things, and I've grown better because of it. My name is Daniel. I'm an engineer. And I have Tinnitus in bands of 4, 8, and 12k. I also have asymmetric hearing.

Back in the late eighties when I was playing keys and singing for the Marshall Tucker band, we were rehearsing songs for an upcoming album at the bassist's home studio. He used a stereo receiver for headphone mix and for some reason the lead vocalist thought it would be a hoot if he cranked the volume all the way up. The result was a very loud static in my left ear and my headphones blew up. Then there's the fact that I toured with them for four years and my rig was to the right of the drummer and he always had a china just about ear height. The problem it caused didn't show up until decades later, when I was talking on one of those old Startac flip phones. I thought it sounded even more awful than usual. There were no low mids. Then I moved the phone to my right ear and everything was okay. I found out I've got a nice dip around 300 to 400 hz in my left ear. Ove the years my brain has made up for it. I also had a lot of problems with ear infections until my doc had me start drying my ears out with a drop of alcohol after a shower. On the top end side, I'm sure I'm down a bit more than the last time I was checked. It sucks when a good doctor retires. Right now my daughter is being my ear doc guinea pig. She has gone partially deaf in one ear (no one can tell her why), so she's been checking out the lay of the land, so to speak. I've been working in Audio since the mid eighties. (I'll be turning 64 in August). In my last job (before covid) I was engineer for all studio and live stuff at a performing arts center/school. While I never had problems with the music department, the theater people were major league pains in my ass (aside from calling me at all hours to trouble shoot over the phone). They would never allow time for a proper sound check (musicals or straight plays) and they would lose their shit if they heard any feedback. Well... When you've got 30 body mics (all omni countryman B3) and they give less than 30 seconds to do a quick check on each mic, or when you've hung 9-12 Audix MB1250 mini condensers over the space of the small, studio theater and you did a quick feedback check without any actors on stage, you're bound to get some feedback. It would take me a few seconds longer to hear it, from my not so vantage point in the sound booth, and they would scream at me about it. Those younger, more sensitive ears couldn't take it, but hey, they never let me have more than a few minutes to get everything together. Not gonna miss that job. They laid me off and then got someone younger and more importantly for them, cheaper to abuse. I'm moving onto a better place where I could lose 50 percent of my hearing and the only affect on my job would be not enjoying all the wonderful music I'm going to get to listen to. The day I was laid off, I was whining about it on FB and a friend contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in a slight career change. He manages the studios at Iron Mountain Entertainment, where the three major labels (Sony, Warner and UMG), store all their analog/digital assets. Anyway. He told me people like me where "rare as hens teeth" and I've been waiting for them to start a second shift to deal with all the work they've got. Since I know how to align a tape deck and have worked in just about every format since 24trck, I'm just the guy they were looking for. The best thing is that since the archiving aspect is mainly aligning the tapes and then recording, I can do it until I drop. That's what the chief. Sorry to go on. Just wanted to say that my career in audio didn't really take off until I'd suffered quite a bit of damage.

As a musician who has always protected his hearing but developed Tinnitus anyway… there where times where I thought I wouldn’t have the strength to go forward. 2 years later my life is at an all time high. Don’t give up on yourselves!

15:27 You probably already know this but I figure throwing it out there can't hurt... What I do is I collect all my favorite music in a folder and then have Tonal Balance Control take that folder and make a custom curve out of it. (There's a setting) If it's based on 1 track it's all over the place as it just has that one thing for reference, but if you add a few dozen tracks it averages out and you can actually get a very neat custom curve that makes a ton of sense based on what you love. I prefer it over the stock curves. Okay, take care!

Man.. this is brutally honest. Raising awareness about the damage musicians inevitably face with such genuine humility? Greg, you are an asset and inspiration to the community. I'm now booking my hearing test.

I'm starting a petition for Knighthood. Arise Sir Gregory Kush.

I’ve been wearing ear protection religiously since 15, granddad was deaf, my dad and grandma both have tinnitus, and it’s one of my greatest fears to damage my hearing because I love producing music. It’s a strange comfort to know that someone with a 30db dip at 6k and tinnitus creates some of the best sounding plugins I’ve ever heard. Kudos for the courage on this video.

Thank God for you! I have been producing and mixing for 20 years. I have horrible tinnitus and have always been uncomfortable and anxious about talking about this. This is literally the first post I've ever seen about it. Thank God for Kush. I love you

That was brave and enlightening. Some very insightful and informative comments in here as well!

Anyone who has been in alot of band rehearsals and played live, or been through a clubbing phase...basically had fun and lived to tell the tales, has hearing loss. I'll sacrifice a few k for the memories but when you hit 50, you have to start monitoring your hearing and understand it more. Even if you didn't ever stress your hearing, losing clarity is still going to happen after a certain age, just as with eyesight, if you are not wearing glasses over the age of 45, you are beating the odds significantly. The thing is, despite my age and obvious loss of hearing ability, I am still improving my mixes and can hear 16k better than I did just a few years ago...or at least percieve its relationship with the rest of the music. Simiarly, I can pinpoint transients and the effect of compression night and day better than 10 years ago. To this end, hearing is the least of my worries and I simply accept that as human beings we are remarkably good at adapting. There are highly prized mix and master engineers who at the age of 70, can't have much left over 6k, yet they are still in demand and make beautiful masters. And to Greg, I hear nothing about your mixes that would make me think it was anything less than you wanted it to be, plenty of definition, plenty of vibe, nice and loud...sounds like a record to me dude...dude?...DUDE!!!

One of my audio buds is nearly deaf in one ear. He’s a great engineer. My hearing is also very asymmetric. Both ears are in the normal range for my age, but my left distorts and my inner ear sort of rings sympathetically with certain frequencies, and if I’m at a show, even with ear plugs, people have to speak into my right if they want me to understand them. Yet I’ve been able to go pretty far in my engineering. I keep this info a secret from my clients, but they don’t need to know. My dad used to take us to go on steam train excursions, and the whistles always hurt my ears. I’ve remembered my ears ringing ever since I was a young kid. Going to shows as a teen without ear plugs left me with noticeable tinnitus ever since, and I can’t sleep without a fan. Getting a cold is absolute torture too. But you can still get very skilled as a mixer/recordist.

Hi. I'm a hearing aid acoustician. Just wanted to point out that hearing protection does actually work better than you might think. The thing is that it has it's limitations. By closing the ear canal you can reduce the overall level by roundabout 30dB. So if you're in a club with music at 100dB - you'll probably be fine, even for a couple of hours (still make sure to give your ears a break from time to time) but if you're at a festival in front of the speakers with 120dB or more, you'll still have 90dB+ reaching your eardrums and that will affect your hearing over time.

I just really fucking enjoy listening to you talk Gregory; shaping words, articulating ideas, reflecting, throwing in an idiom here and a funny voice there and sprinkling a bit of good-will irony on top all in an undisturbed fog of a lazy cool kind of street smarts. You're probably a laugh to eat shrooms with.

Who else turned the volume down while you were watching this? But seriously, thank you for your honesty and for bringing awareness to something that is truly overlooked in the music realm. It's the first time I've ever heard it brought up and something I otherwise would never have even considered.

Funny thing about that tonal balance plugin: I have almost the same exact experience with it. When I got it I was super excited, and just like you, I noticed that my mixes are bass heavy and tend to scoop in the upper mids and drop off at the very top. I spent hours on a mix going through each instrument trying to add and subtract where I could to get my mix to fit the curve. Always using my ears, the mixes still ended up with the curve that I get naturally. So, just like you, I pulled Radiohead In Rainbows (fucking phenomenal production), and guess what, all of these songs that I think sound amazing were “wrong” according to that plugin. Since that moment I now use it for quick reference to see if things are in the ballpark that I consider good, but if I like the way my mix sounds, and it’s “wrong” on the meter, I keep it the way it is.

I mean the like/dislike ratio speaks for itself no?

Really glad to see more and more professionals talking about this "taboo" lately. Andrew Scheps has a talk about it on the Puremix channel (with guests), and someone asked if they have any chance of becoming a successful mixing engineer with tinnitus, and Andrew went "If you consider me any successful, then yes, welcome to the club."

I do a lot of headphone mixing and at almost 27 I know my hearing is starting to go away. I could hear 17k well a year ago and I hardly can anymore.

Occupational hazard. I want to hear more pros talk about this. I learned my lesson as a Jazz major in college years ago. The instructors were all accomplished Jazz musicians and most of them were wearing hearing aids. Made a big impression on me. If you perform live as a musician, dial in your tone, then pop your ear plugs in. Also, wear them in the car when your driving and listening to music!! Road noise + loud music from your car stereo can be very loud! Use headphones sparingly and at low volumes. Hearing loss is PERMANENT everyone. Take care of your ears!!!

I had always loved listening to music really loud. As a musician, I liked to feel like I was “inside” of the music - it was stimulating and addictive. Friends would joke that they knew when I pulled up because they could hear the music in my car. I’ve spent a lot of the last year playing my mixes at high volume when I’m in the studio. One day, about 8 weeks ago, I put a compressor on a guitar track without realizing how high the gain was turned. Blasted the distorted guitar for a split second before I could reach for the volume knob. After leaving the studio, I noticed a change in my hearing. I felt a little “further away” from the outside world. After this subsided, I had heightened sensitivity to music. Like I could feel the way the pressure of a kick drum was hitting my ears. When this finally subsided (after a few days), I began to notices a rattling ring at 1910 Hz in my left ear (I think this may have been one of the harmonic frequencies of the guitar chord that blasted my ear). Went to urgent care after two weeks. They didn’t prescribe me anything and said it would go away. Went to the ENT after five weeks and they finally gave me a steroid. It was ineffective; perhaps if I’d gotten the steroid at urgent care, it would’ve been within the window to heal. Here I am at eight weeks - still here! I’ve had bouts of ringing at other frequencies, deafness that comes and goes (at 6K too!), and I’m saddened at the idea that I may not recover. My biggest takeaway from the experience has been: ADOPT HEALTHY PRACTICES AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. MIX AT LOW LEVELS: not only is it healthier for your ears, it’ll give you a better result. TAKE BREAKS: your ears need time to readjust and recover from ear fatigue. WEAR EARPLUGS: when you go out to loud bars, concerts, etc. I wish someone would’ve told me that I’m not invincible. Unfortunately, it’s one of those things that you never believe until it happens to you. If I had been able to regulate my level of excitement (and not spend hours on end replaying my mixes at loud volumes), perhaps my ears would still be in good shape! Cheers.

Ive been struggling with damaged hearing and really bad tinnitus since 22, so to hear someone finally speak about this makes me feel soo so much better and not alone

I am not sure of this really is a hearing issue, but maybe we could also talk about something, that I feel a lot of people are struggling with, but are afraid to talk about. That is with a lot of tutorial videos where you see a guy talking about fixing a problem in a certain mix and then pull up a plugin, dial something in, A/B it and say "there - much better". As a listener - even on good speakers or headphones - no matter how hard you try.. you don't hear a difference. Then you look at the comments and people go "whoa - how amazing". I can't be the only one with this sort of problem. I don't even know what sort of lesson I am supposed to take away from this. Am i just this deaf? Did i not understand what the problem was in the first place and was listening to the wrong thing? Is it even possible that some of those "fixes" are just cognitive distortions like when people swear they can hear a difference between a 50 and a 500 $ cable when its actually just in their heads because they expect to hear something? I really am at a loss of how to gauge what is going on there. Sometimes when I bring this up the standard knee-jerk reaction is "well you need to train your ear" and frankly I have a hard time believing that thats all there is to it. I bet there are plenty of people with the same issue, just afraid to admit it, giving standard advise.

Standing ovations to you for this video! I’m old plus suffering from Tinnitus and regarding my mixes… never really convinced. Fortunately I’m a bedroom producer only so nobody cares😅

This is comforting in a way. I'm sorry you deal with this. I recently have been coming to terms that at 28 I have slight tinnitus. As long as I can remember I always thought it was just house sounds or natural white noise your ears produce, but turns out nobody else I know has any clue what I'm talking about. I notice it when I really focus on it but unless I think about it, it does not affect me with mixing. The only time it does is if I have to remove hiss from a recording, then that gets tricky.

Thanks for raising this discussion, definitely a sensitive but very important topic. I personally suffer from nerve damage effecting my hearing from birth, scaring on my ear drums and moderate tinnitus all resulting me not being able to hear above 9k (23 years old). Its really hard to be transparent due to how competitive the music scene is, I think its natural to want to keep secrecy around this subject due to how important the hearing is, as personally I feel if a customer for example was made aware of your compromised hearing that could be a big turn off. Regardless its definitely possible to learn to work with your own hearing capabilities and Its really motivating to hear you say that its a-lot more common than you would think amongst sound engineers/mixing engineers alike. Thanks for the video! And look after your ears people!!

Why do my ears like REALLY hurt when an ambulance drives by? I see other people and they seem fine but if I don't plug my ears it actually hurts... idk if it's super-sensitive hearing or if they're already damaged???

Appreciated the candidness of this video, there was some extremely relatable parts, thank you!

I can’t hear anything above 17k. Sounds like I still have a good range but I’m 17 and I’ve got that sinus/tinnitus thing going on too. God bless you for bringing this to my attention I’m def going to take more measures to protect what’s left of my hearing!

I used to respect you, now I absolutely admire you. You´re a brave man, I never ever heard someone openly speaking about this, and I´m in the industry for more than 20 years. My only experience was with a boss who used to give some ridiculous orders (in a very bad mood) when I was mixing, specially on the high end range. So one day a secretly put a very loud 5 o 6k tone and he never perceived it, and then I understood everything.

The 10 people that disliked are just depressed about their tinnitus.

In fact , it s quite impossible to live a life in modern music ( rock , electro , fusions ... ) without problems with yours ears . Some take care more than others, some are more lucky ... Perso , i have made WHAT EveryONE SHOULd NOT DO !! Everything that make damages to your hearing ! ( walkmans / Bands repetitions in hard caves / Nightclubs / Concerts High DB / Rave Partys / Free Partys / Days and nights Recording sessions And more .... I even STOP Doing Music to avoid Total DEAFNESS !! AT 18 , i could even hear the others pupils in the school playground in the morning ! ... and i keep on doing high level music for 7 years .. Doctors said " you are going to be deaf ! " . That was a very hard time with tinitus , hitting wall with my head ! I manage to go through tinitus , i stop music for years and years ... ANd i come back to music since 2 years ! LOL : To mad to stop it !

Here’s one. I turned 30 mid june. When I was 15 or 16 I started getting weird sensations in my ears. Around 23 started getting a blocked sensation in my left ear. Got ears checked and 4 or 5 times docs said my hearing was all good. Got munted and fell asleep next to speakers twice by the time I was 28. mad tinnitus in my ears. Hella depressed for ages. 29 fell off my bike with No helmet and smashed my jaw against concrete. Popped my right jaw out and completely fucked my hearing. 4 months later after getting endless physio checks and meds I can say my hearing has never been better, the blocked sensation in my ears is gone as it was something to do with a bad posture, my tinnitus is almost gone and my hearing has only dropped 2db at 8k pretty chuffed tbh considering I have put my body through the absolute ringer

Man , for me, now, this is one of the best videos on RU-vid. Thank you very much for sharing. 🙏

So, like yourself, I'm a drummer and now audio engineer with damaged and degraded hearing. I didn't even start wearing earplugs until I was in my late 20's so that was a good 15-20 years of drumming without them. I didn't even get into producing and mixing until I was 40 years old. I now do this full time at a professional level and somehow still manage to improve despite my hearing problems. I have a dip in 4k and tinnitus. At 48 years old I know the hearing isn't getting better, but I use a lot of reference material and I also ask an engineer that I work with for input on my mixes, he's 66 and still making GREAT sounding recordings and mixes. This seems to work for me. I think there's a lot to be said for the power of the brain when it comes to processing and adapting to problems. Love your channel and will soon be the owner of a clariphonic!

Try being 75+dB down at 1k lol. "Cookie-bite" hearing-loss just plain sucks.

Tinnitus over here! Thanks for sharing this personal information, you really help others, young one to keep going! As a kid I thought I always heard crickets at night an it was a special gift

I’ve had Eustachian tube dysfunction for about 4/5 months... completely unable to produce music without feeling dizzy, having pain... I can really empathise with all musicians that have damaged hearing... if you’re not in pain then keep going !!

Deaf in my left ear since I was 2, now 44 , can only hear up to 7khz now in my right. Use mid/side for stereo, and span and sonogram for the highs, don't make bright music.

I just want to say I really appreciated your take on this. I don't work in music production or anything like that, but I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember and hearing loss is something I worry about quite a bit, especially since I have anxiety. A lot of the way people, even medical professionals, talk about this kind of thing is to try and frighten you by saying that it's the end of the world and you need to do this and this and this to avoid it or else your life will be ruined. Hearing you calmly discuss how to avoid hearing loss and how you can deal with it and still appreciate life even if it does happen was really encouraging, and I guess it's that engineer's "how do I fix this" way of thinking that makes the difference as opposed to that moralistic "don't do this or else everything in your life will be horrible forever" mentality. I'll continue taking care of my ears and hopefully despite probably doing some damage in my youth I'll be able to hold on to what I've got for a good long while. I'm really happy that you've been successful in your own life and I hope that your words enrich many more people after me. God bless you, sir.

Yep, I fucked up my left ear walking in front of the PA wile a very hyped up DJ was blasting some old Dance shit between our Music sets ... so now when I`m working on a mix I flip L&R to check top end with my good ear LOL

I’m 40 years old. Always worn plugs. Yet I’ve still ended up with tinnitus. I’m decent till 13k. Good balance between both ears. Latest hearing test 6 months ago said I wasn’t lacking in any particular frequency. All in all pretty good. But THAT SODDING TINNITUS!!!! Grrrrrrr.

Former mixer here, now in the medical community. Had to take a few grad-level audiology courses. I have a lot to say regarding this video, but I'll keep it to this: When you get your hearing tested, make sure to get the otoacoustic exam (OAE). This is an OBJECTIVE test, in other words, it does not require you to raise your hand when you hear something, and it does not require you to hear "past" your tinnitus, if you have it (and I certainly do!). It plots a frequency response of your hearing, from 20 Hz up to 20 kHz. Now you have info that is objective and reliable, and you can adjust either your mix technique or technology with solid knowledge of what your ears can and cannot do. Do NOT settle for a standard audiogram. This is 19th century technology and NOT helpful, specially for those of us with well-trained ears.

In my 60's. Been mixing since my late teens (plus touring on loud stages 'til mid 30's ). Can VERY MUCH relate to everything you talk about in this video. Thanks for bringing it up Greg. It's a kind of relief to know I am not alone.👍😁

Joey Jordison the drummer from Slipknot had a rare neurological disease caused by injury to the spinal cord, leading to weakness in the legs. And was still a drummer in one of the most successful heavy metal bands. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you're not good enough, or cannot do something! I don't even make music, and I still find these videos great, keep them up!

At 51, I've got my share of tinnitus tones. I'm mostly okay with that now (sometimes they stick out more, day to day) because I'd managed to recover from a nasty few months of hyperacusis, which is a hell all its own. I'd still say I'm "sensitive" to loudness, and can't really handle even small stage levels, which has really put the kibosh on starting a new live project. I have to wear noise isolating hearing protect cans if I'm playing drums at home, but honestly, I should've been doing that decades earlier! Seriously, I wish people talked about this when I was younger. I get the word out any time I can, these days!

Gregory's gentle and soothing voice is such an ASMR thing that I found myself almost dozing a few times while all the info he tells is a concentrated and useful and not even boring. Hail the ASMR King!

I thought I was the only one, hearing this is such a relief. I lost about 80% hearing in my left ear when I was very young due to a head injury, I've played in bands and never really let it bother me as the mix was always handled by the sound engineer. Now that I write and record at home I'm very much aware of my limitations, I will regularly switch my headphones around and regularly switch around the signal to the monitors, like yourself I'm surprised by what I've been missing. It's such a relief to hear others have the same issues and that we never allow it to dampen our love or appreciation for music. Thank you so much.

Let's stop pretending it's "big" or "macho" to put up with high sound levels. It's not. It's abusive, damaging, life altering for the worse. You would not put up with any employer who tells you they're going to amputate your leg. Why the hell would you put up with someone whos happy to damage one of your most important senses, that once it's gone, it's gone, IRREVERSIBLY. Tell the man where to stick his 120dB.

Nothing to be ashamed of. You've only earned yourself more respect here. This just gives some insight on what makes you YOU. Thanks for taking the time to put this together. Don't ever stop creating.

I've got a new case of tinnitus from drumming. I've been playin for my whole life, and I do it professionally. Playing the drums has become very difficult all of a sudden, and trying to deal with gigs with IEM snd or wedges is a new nightmare.

60, tinnitus most of the time, hearing loss in left ear, not brilliant in the right, love playing, recording and mixing and watching intelligent videos such as this. Thanks for highlighting this issue. I find walking helps most everything, especially if done in what is left of nature; with a dog.

This makes me want to boot up the DAW. I can relate hugely to many of the hearing issues you’ve had, and it’s nice to know I’m not the only one going through this.

I have had tinnitus for 13 years. Been religiously wearing earplugs everywhere I go. Even bars without music. I'm a DJ and produce music pretty much every day. My tinnitus has gotten worse over the years regardless of wearing earplugs. The tinnitus I can handle, even though I hear it EVERYWHERE. But I also have hyperacusis on and off and that is soul crushing when It's bad. The weird thing is, I do hearing tests every year and apparently my hearing is insane. 5 to 10 db above the 0 "perfect hearing line" in the lows and mids. In the highs I'm even 20 db above that same 0 line, compared to the -15 or more the average person my age has. So the times I've went to tinnitus specialist they've looked very confused when I tell them I think I have hearing loss, because to me sometimes It feels the volume in my head is turned down a lot. My reasoning for the hyperacusis is, because I apparently hear better than most, I'm also a lot more sensitive than most to sound. I especially struggle with the highs and they can be very painful. Also my left ear seems a lot louder than my right.

Man it is such a relief to hear that you have the same issues as me, particularly considering all your mixes are brilliant. I got tinnitus two years ago when I was 19 and freaked the fuck out. Since i've come to terms with it. I still sometimes listen to music on headphones, though often for no more than an hour a day, but playing live and going to gigs are an absolute no go for not using hearing protection. It really does seem to be an occupational hazard for us musicians/producers (I'm more on the musician side but still appreciate the mechanics and theory behind production), much the same way a footballer is much more likely to suffer a broken leg than the average person.

I’m 70, and a lifelong musician. Been wearing hearing protection for 40 years, but did the loud rock, half stack Marshall thing prior. My hearing is not great, obviously. Two years ago I got some Bluetooth enabled hearing aids. What a difference! My mixes are way better now - all the little things can be heard now. Worked for me - might work for you.

Something I noticed is that I was having kinda bad tinnitus especially when going to bed, I was mixing and producing on headphones, now that mainly mix on speakers and really only use headphones for gaming, my tinnitus is almost non existent

I am 98% deaf in one ear, I mix in mono, I know where I want the sounds to sit. I do just fine.

I have 15dB+ hearing loss in both ears across the entire frequency spectrum, and can't hear anything under 500hz in my left ear. Thanks for this video. I also started wearing ear plugs early on. I lost hearing in my youth due to tumors and ear infections. No tinnitus though.

I hear nothing above 15k and have a dip at around 80. Have had tinnitus since 11 (6 years), and I'd rather not think about it. Still play instruments I love and write songs that make me happy and fullfilled, and have no plans of stopping!:)

I'm a little late on this, so sorry. Thank you so much for this, it means such an incredible amount, I wanted to hug you! I wish, when I got tinnitus some 6 years ago, that someone had told me it would eventually take more of a back seat or it would be easier to live with, over time and that everyone loses some hearing over time and there are ways to compensate. In the first few months, I was on the verge of suicide nightly. If I'd seen this video, it would have made a big difference. As for the comment by Agnus Dias, I don't think he can be a a real musician or producer or whatever he says he is, for the simple reason he couldn't empathise and that he didn't know immediately, like the rest of us, that you can't easily (or even not easily) do something else, because your soul is embedded in what you do. When I read his comment, I immediately thought of the lyrics of Ballad Of A Thin Man. Anyway, thank you so much Gregory.

Have you experimented with hearing aids or have thoughts on that?

never clicked on a notification so fast in my life

2k drives me crazy. I’m the same way when I mix lol

Mixing with headphones for 2 year's. Really insightful too hear this. I stifle between multiple pair's/brands to mix longer but I need to get some monitors.

I have a dip in my right ear around 3-6000k. I struggled with balancing guitars etc for years but now that I know, I flip the L/R to the point there’s not much difference at all. Love that you’re talking about this 💕

"Damn you tinnitus, you're a cruel mistress!" - Sterling Archer

Had no idea. I was blown away when you explained drum compression, and then with much effort I could hear it, gave me the chills.. and my hearing is pretty fantastic. Just goes to show the skill makes up for the handicap. Think you hear way better than I with that thought.

You don't know what you've got, til it's gone. Been wearing er-20 ear plugs on my keychain for 20 years. Tinnitus, and a few db loss here and there, assuming from cymbals. I respect this vid a lot.