do you ever have a weird hearing day?

sometimes a turn on my rig and i just love the sound i have. maybe once a month i turn it on and i hear everything wrong...like the mids are harsh and the distortion is too grainy. this was my day yesterday and today.

it started when i went back to listen to the last mix test i did (for drums) and i couldn't hear any low mids. i used a reference mic and pink noised my speakers (which most studios never do) and sure enough, there was a natural 5db dip in the low mids...which explains why my drums sounded bad in the low mids. i left everything alone and went inside to watch some football and let my ears rest.

today; i get to church and turn on my rig....which sounds "ok". as the practice goes on i start hearing too much mids and grainy distortion. i didn't adjust anything, i just grinned and played through it.

i'm gonna experiment some more with eqing my studio monitors today just too see what i'm hearing differently on major cd releases. then i'll re-eq my drums and maybe my guitar tone and see what the difference is to you guys.

anyone else ever have a weird hearing day?

I have most certainly experienced this, and there are two factors I take into consideration.

First of all, perception. Some days our moods our just better, which can lead to more confidence in our playing. Conversely, if we are feeling down, we are more apt to be down on ourselves, and our playing.

I've done litmus tests in which I film myself improvising, and then don't watch the clips for several months or even a year. I make a note to say at the end of the clip whether I felt good or bad about the playing.

There have been numerous instances where in hindsight I thought I was playing well, but at the time thought the opposite (and vice versa).

I try to keep this in mind as last night I laid down an acoustic guitar track for a new song I am recording. I didn't have that euphoric feeling after that I sometimes do. But I'm inclined to believe that's mostly perception. Not that what I recorded was great, but if I 'try' again tonight, would the results be noticeably different? I don't think so.

We've probably all had a time or two when we caught lightning in a bottle when the red light was on, but for me at least, those times, are rare.

So for me, I do feel my good days vs. bad days is often a case of perception.

The other thing I am very careful of is my hearing. I live a very clean lifestyle. I joke that I have to keep my hair at least somewhat long, or I would be the world's biggest geek! But - my one vice, used to be (and still occasionally is) cranking up the headphones.

The tones we are able to achieve with our guitars, as well as drum software, loops, etc. are unprecedented. I have been guilty of cranking up my tracks to concert levels and just basking in the quality of sound we can now achieve at home (which we couldn't do with our 4 tracks).

I have tinnitus but it's not nearly as bad as friends of mine. So I just try to be very careful about volume (though sometimes I just can't help it!).

Last week a friend was in town from Canada and we hit a karaoke bar. It was way too loud, and as much flak as I got for being a killjoy, I waited outside. It wasn't worth exposing my hearing to those levels.

You seem to have some scientific basis for your differences, singtall, in that you can see or hear frequency changes. All I can gather from that is, perhaps the acoustics of the room are affecting your tone?

I know when I mix, so many factors can change the balance - speakers, room, volume.

Once I had an experience which freaked me out at the time... For some hours, less than a day, I heard pitches slightly differently in each ear. I have no idea what caused it, nor how it is even possible, but it scared the heck out of me. Had it continued my music career would have been over then and there. Fortunately, some hours later the problem was gone, never to reoccur.

On a more normal note, I have my good and bad hearing days, too. Some days nothing seems to sound right, or good. Most of the time, though, I think I have fairly consistent listening experiences... that is, if I think something sounds good, a listen the following day will confirm that. Of course, it's also true that if I think something sounds like crap, it probably will the following day, week, etc...

i just spent a lot of time researching using an eq for studio monitors and it turns out that many studios pay "room tweakers" to eq their speakers for a certain response curve - but not flat. which leads me into a different direction.

if the goal of the monitor is to provide you with a honest frequency response that you can use to mix with, then i will eq mine to work with my ear instead of against it. why should i spend a million hours listening to other mixes while comparing to my mix because the speakers aren't setup to my ears? i'm going to eq my monitors again, this time with a more natural curve that will hopefully allow me to mix quicker and easier.

news at 11...

Yes....When I take a break for a few days or week, I will turn on rack and patches sound all wrong or patches for one style sound good for another...drives me nuts..i have changed patches only to come back later and they sound wrong...rested ears can play tricks I guess...Oh and once I just started guitar rig by mistake....:)

i think the important thing in studio monitoring is to have a good reference point (being it flat or not) where you can start to add and remove to get a certain sound,the important thing is that u must know how your monitoring refer to a more regular user sistem.
yes i have about 300 bad hearing day in a year ;D

i eq'd my speakers....several times, then came to a place that i felt good about. then i remixed a track just to see what corrections i would do now that i'm hearing it differently.

check out the before and after:

after:
https://soundcloud.com/singtall/fall-away-mix-2

before:
https://soundcloud.com/singtall/fall-away-drum-test

i will have to hear this clip on several speakers to know what's real.

On my small computer monitor speakers, I prefer the first one.

The level seems a little hotter and the drums are more present in the mix.

When I get a chance, I'll sample them on headphones and see what I think.

I find it funny when I record with a tone & then hear it a few days later. It always just sounds a little different that what I felt like it sounded while recording with it.

Sometimes it's for the better....& sometimes....well.......not so much!

X

Back in the day engineers would do a mixes on those horrible sounding Yamaha NS10 near-field monitors. I asked why once and he said If you can get the mix to sound ok on these it will sound good on anything. They had a hard upper midrange lower treble right where most people's hearing is the most sensitive. Some Sony phones have this too. Yeah I've had bad hearing day's. Best not to change anything till it's repeatable.. First clip is dark 2nd is sharp. Like the acoustic on the 2nd, main guitar on 1st. Not sure what your going for...

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep08/articles/yamahans10.htm