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Deaf in 1 ear ... need visual stereo freq analyzer .. ?

DavC

DavC

May 17, 2005
6,645
5,257
Tallmadge , Ohio
#1
hi ;

lost my hearing in my left ear back in 1974-5 ish ... ( inner ear infection ) ...

i'd like to find some software for an older Xp laptop that i could use as a real time stereo frequency analyzer ... ??

i have a pretty good imagination for my stereo mixes ... since i hear only mono .. !

i'd like some sort of live visual reference ... of a stereo field ... !?

has anyone seen something like that around .. ??

thanks .. !! Dave C.
 
#3
Hi Dave,

It sounds like your looking for something that I call a "Spectrum Panalyzer". Inspired by a producer friend of mine who is also mostly deaf in one ear, and for budding engineers to use as an aid to see how their mixes are arranged, I started working on designing a plug-in back in 2005, which shows stereo FFTs displaying frequency across the Y-axis, pan position across the X-axis, and volume as brightness or opacity. Unfortunately, Roland beat me to a usable functioning release with their R-Mix plug-in, and I just recently found QuikQuak's MashTactic, both of which utilize this type of display. I would suggest checking them out.
 
#4
I've lost a bunch in my left ear, and am dealing with it like you. I use my monitors at a greater distance away as much as I can before headphones now. I also flip the cans left to right a lot to compare. Mix in mono, then pan at the end.
 
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#5
yeh .. i mess with monitor placement , or multiple monitors ... and flip the cans and use the mono button ...

but i'd just like a visual cue as a reference of what i can only imagine being the stereo field mix ... would be cool to hit the solo button and see where something sits ... !?
 
#6
Stereo is overrated!

Metric Halo SpectraFoo ([Invalid or Expired Link Removed]) may possibly be of some benefit if you're visually oriented. Not sure if it will provide what you're looking for per se, but it will certainly visualize a lot of stuff that may provide useful inferences for you.

Aside from that, maybe try some mute left / right analysis of some reference songs and see if you can pick out any patterns between the channels? Stems would be the gold standard here, but I'd imagine there's still plenty of useful information in mixed / mastered song. Unless its the Ramones... then bass left, guitar right and everything else down the middle.

Oh, and did I mention that stereo is overrated? :D
 
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#7
cool stuff ... having just 1 working ear , stereo might be over rated ... and hearing it again is a dream ... i just have a couple older laptops with nothing to do ... thinking of using them as a RTA type device ... and soon i'll gain a couple more older computers having just bought the wife a Surface Book ... so i might do the RTA stuff using her Fire HDX since those type apps seem pretty cheap and easy to find for that .. !?

thanks for the info
 
#8
Dave,

Have you looked at MashTactic yet? If your host software can run VSTs, I think this would really solve what you are looking for, by placing it on the mix bus ...or stems.
It makes a whole lot more sense than running two additional laptops or tablets to try to analyze the speakers or room.
 
#9
DavC said:
cool stuff ... having just 1 working ear , stereo might be over rated ... and hearing it again is a dream ... i just have a couple older laptops with nothing to do ... thinking of using them as a RTA type device ... and soon i'll gain a couple more older computers having just bought the wife a Surface Book ... so i might do the RTA stuff using her Fire HDX since those type apps seem pretty cheap and easy to find for that .. !?

thanks for the info
Click to expand...

No worries at all, and don't be afraid to just get on with making music! You may be peering into a bit of a rabbit hole with active room measurement monitoring to try and perceive stereo. Besides, its always good practice to run your mixes by other ears that you trust for an outside perspective. Try to find a mix buddy that you're comfortable working with to check up on the stereo stuff - FWIW, my wife is also deaf in one ear, and she is one of the people I trust most when it comes to music and some of my mix decisions, even if we aren't having a technical conversation per se.

Also as food for thought, consider that as you get further away from a stereo source, the more it collapses into mono. So I wasn't entirely quipping when I was saying that stereo is a bit overrated! :D
 

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