On Becoming Deaf

This illustrates an example of radical filtering I occasionally do on both the low and high frequencies in a final mix. This would make an engineer cry.

The red low and hi cut filter illustrates my deafness. My family suffers from deafness in old age, and I'm increasingly hearing--or not hearing--the effects of that. When I master the music I can SEE high wave forms in frequencies that I can't hear, and have no idea what high pitches are actually being produced, particularly when I use effects like Shimmerverb. My fear is that they overwhelm the music, and are probably painful to young, vibrant ears.

In order to compensate for that, I finally thought, well, if I can reproduce what I hear, maybe it will be ok. So I cut out all the sounds that I can see but can't hear. Sometimes when I listen to my music, I can still hear some wild high pitches cutting through that aren't balanced, which is disturbing. If I can hear that, what's it doing to ears that are good? My only redeeming thought is that young people attend concerts with incredibly loud sounds, and perhaps are already as deaf as I am.

I wouldn't mind a bit of feedback if you, the listener out there, can hear things that shouldn't be there.